Nobody shoot!! I’m not advocating dissing Twilight, I’m questioning it.
Twilight as you all know (unless you’ve been living in a bunker in fear of Armageddon/Zombie attack) is a rather popular book. Phenomenally popular actually. And now that the initial glitzing and glamourising of it is over I’m seeing more and more opinions weighted against it.
With statements such as ‘an appalling attempt at literature’, ‘I weep for literature’,’ I’ve read better fan fiction on Livejournal’ being flung about you get the idea there are some rather hostile anit-twilighters out there!
Actually reading the 1 star reviews (research – naturally) had me in fits of giggles.
What I’m questioning is the number of people who describe it as badly written. I get that they hate the characters and heck I’d be one of the first to say that Bella annoyed the sh#t out of me and Edward would have been staked rather early on.
But then when I was a teen Buffy reigned supreme (and forever will in my opinion!! ;p) and the only vampire who was remotely hot was Angel (sorry to all the Spike lovers out there).
Back to the topic. Do you think it was badly written? I mean as much as the characters annoyed me I did get completely caught up in the story right down to the disappointedly quick finale (super vamp Bella really deserved more than 1/4 book… c’mon!). But at no point did I ever think ‘gee this writing is appalling what’s wrong with the editor?’, and I have though it about books before. Now to emphasize – I’m not talking about the book’s themes I’m talking about it’s writing. And I’m genuinely curious and would love your thoughts.
Do you have a line from Twilight you think is abysmal and why? And here’s my least favourite line – it has ruined the word ‘irrevocably’ for me.
This would be due to the last 18 months where I have been trained that adverbs are EVIL (except in very small doses..). So two words in one line when neither were necessary *sighs and shakes head* really what is the world coming to? ;p
The book.Twilight, needed another edit with a red pen. 🙂
Here are some of the writing issues ): excessive speech tags, repetition of the word 'golden eyes' to the point my friends made a drinking game, absolutely nothing happens for about 8 to 10 chapters except that Bella whines and they stare at each other. The author can't compact that to three chapters or less? To continue, Edward is a stalker sneaking into Bella's room to watch his food at rest. Not romantic, creepy. If you, as a girl, wake up in the middle of the night and a strange predatory man is in your room….scream.
The two have no basis for their relationship except for an attraction. No further development of the relationship is given.
The characters aren't well-developed. Bella never moves beyond the moody girl who thinks the weird boy is hot. Edward never moves beyond the stalking boy with big hair that wants to get the girl.
The end, with the fight, was interesting. I'm just very annoyed I had to wade through the rest of the book for that small amount of joy.
The author did some things right but if someone had been kind to her, they would have red penned that book. I know she made her millions. I'm happy for her but I really wish the book had been developed to meet his potential. It's a good draft but its just that…a draft.
Tirzah http://acleverwhatever.blogspot.com
http://reasoningwithvampires.tumblr.com
I read this site for over 4 hours, laughing the whole time. My favourite is actually the following passage:
"He reached up with one hand and, with a deafening crack, effortlessly ripped a two-foot-thick branch from the truck of the spruce. He balanced it in that hand for a moment, and then threw it with blinding speed, shattering it against another huge tree, which shook and trembled at the blow."
It's funny because "shook and trembled at the blow" should read "shook and trembled from the blow". The way that it is written suggests that the tree itself is cowering :p
*lol* loving your thoughts already!!
Personally I don't think that Twilight was horribly written. I think a lot of people need to take a step back and realize what genre this is written for. YOUNG ADULT! People shouldn't be comparing this to the great literary works of all time because it wasn't meant to be targeted there. This was a book written to be current and for a young generation. And those people need to take a look at all the other work out there in the YA genre. It's all fairly similar. I think it's unfair that Twilight takes such crap just for the fact that it's the biggest book in the genre.
A very good point Keary 🙂 Who aims to write a 'literary master piece' anyway? I write for fun 🙂
She had a number of phrases she kept saying over and over, such as describing Edward's body as cold marble etc, which I found annoying. I agree it wasn't meant to be a literary masterpiece. For the most part it was vaguely entertaining and I could see how she put Bella into a situation which would likely be many teen girl's fantasy – hunky rich superguy who dotes on normal girl. That, I think, is the compelling bit for it's target audience.
Hey Nicole! I haven't pestered you in a while so thought I'd chime in on this one.
When I diss Twilight it's not so much the mechanics I'm ranting over. For me, being online in the late 90's when the Anne Rice fan fiction boards were all the rage, I read "Twilight" in every shape, size and flavor. We used to call the high school girls who wrote Lestat into prom scenes, "Mary-Sue's". Unfortunately, that is what Meyer's is and always will be for me.
Too bad we all laughed at them and now one of them is laughing at us from her bajillion dollar bank account!
It is not "badly" written. I refer to it as popcorn lit: easy to devour without much weight.
I love her characterisation of the Cullen family and the La Push reservation. My only real gripe is the overuse of the word "chagrin".
ahh I had to come over and play! I drank the Kool-Aid and totally LOVED the series (except the BD), but there was too much "glowering." O.M.G. by the end I was like, if Edward glowers one more time, I'm gonna…! Maybe sparkling makes you glower…? 😀 good stuff~ <3
Hi, hope you don't feel like I'm stalking you but I followed your amazon profile to your blog. I'm the one who mentioned Mr. Granger's book on the one conversation about author's dissing other authors on the kindle discussion board.
Anyway, yesterday Mr. Granger posted another blog entry about Twilight: http://fhsprofessordotcom/?p=7 (can't put a link in that will work. Just replace "dot" with a ".") Thought you may be interested. At the very bottom of the entry he posts a link to a series of posts he wrote in 2009. That link takes you to a post called "Critical Responses to Rowling and Meyer". It has links to 9 different parts. (ie: genre criticism, culture war critiques left and right, using traditional tools to interpret modern best sellers, what critics missed at the surface and moral levels of meaning, etc.) This is a better link than the other I gave you in the earlier thread. This series of posts is pretty much the meat and potatoes of his book.
Hope you find it interesting.
P.S. Just bought your book from Amazon. I love shifting points of view.