The Twilight Thread

[elfdream]

I read the first book and could just not go on. The book read like a first draft. It was poorly written and poorly edited. The story moved forward at a snail's pace, there was little character development and
the climatic action took place 'off stage'.

I got so tired of Bella describing how beautiful Edward was. If you do it right the first time you don't need to repeat it!

However Myers does does offer something for unpublished writers everywhere. If THAT could get published then there is hope for us all!

[Jenni]

(03-16-2011 08:14 AM)elfdream Wrote:  I read the first book and could just not go on. The book read like a first draft. It was poorly written and poorly edited. The story moved forward at a snail's pace, there was little character development and
the climatic action took place 'off stage'.

I got so tired of Bella describing how beautiful Edward was. If you do it right the first time you don't need to repeat it!

However Myers does does offer something for unpublished writers everywhere. If THAT could get published then there is hope for us all!

I agree - I couldn't make it through the first book, either. I like your idea of hope, though - I just got my first rejection letter from a publisher. Grr.

[supernova8610]

(03-16-2011 08:14 AM)elfdream Wrote:  I read the first book and could just not go on. The book read like a first draft. It was poorly written and poorly edited. The story moved forward at a snail's pace, there was little character development and
the climatic action took place 'off stage'.

I got so tired of Bella describing how beautiful Edward was. If you do it right the first time you don't need to repeat it!

However Myers does does offer something for unpublished writers everywhere. If THAT could get published then there is hope for us all!

Agreed. Myers isn't the world's best writer... I've been writing stories and such ever since I was little; looking back on some of my most recent work (which includes a book I already wrote... got rejected by a few agents... and another book I'm currently writing), I'm a better writer than Myers (sorry... that sounded really snobby LOL). Reading through Twilight, I'm always thinking of ways the story could have been improved and ways the characters could have been developed better that how they were.

[pastor's wife]

Definitely readers aren't falling in love with Twilight for its style. Rather, they love the characters, or the plot, or the theme of unrequited love, of sacrifice, of the lover who is willing to give up all for the beloved one.

Also, as C. S. Lewis referred to in "That Hideous Strength", there is a strong appeal about being part of an "inner circle." While most people don't even know vampires exist, you (vicariously living through Bella) not only know the truth, but are accepted and valued and protected by them. Eventually you become one of them, powerful and eternal. Wow. Heady stuff. (I like to compare the theme of living forever in "Twilight" to "Tuck Everlasting." Of course, the Tucks aren't blood-sucking or powerful, but both books deal with what it's like to be outside the circle of life, the WHEEL of birth, life, and death that marks us as human.)

[Phatchick]

I tried, I honest to go tried, only got a quarter of the way through the first book before it went back to the library while I thanked my lucky stars I hadn't wasted my money buying it. IMNSHO, just a bad harliquin with vampires. Ann Rice did it waayyy better.