This is spot on. I have no idea how a low-quality book like Twilight got so popular next to so many obscure authors who work hard on actually decent stories, but personally I suspect money changed hands, and I'm not talking about people buying the books.
Stephenie Meyers is a glorified, rich fanfic-level author and while I wish her all the best as far as improving her writing skills goes, the monstrosity that is Twilight has permanently alienated me from her work.
I've got fanfics for Frozen, Spectacular Spider-Man, Crash Bandicoot, and Spyro the Dragon.
I never looked at it this way, and the more I think about, the more I find that this is spot on. I hesitate to call myself a writer because I've not been published, but I find that I feel exactly the same way. Twilight depresses me because I've worked hard to hone my craft. I've worked hard to develop a style. Twilight is blatantly amateurish and more popular than I could ever hope to achieve barring a miracle.
>sacrificing Meyer to absolve yourself of your own sins against literature
Oh god what
Holy Shit. You've given reason and answer to my Twilight Bashing binge that I've been on from Encyclopedia Dramatica (and...to...so...many...laser guided hate reviews) since about 12 am. I empathize with everything in the above (god my fucking right hand hurts). I have tried so hard to actually get jumped off with my work and with my friends projects in various forms of fantasy fiction storytelling. But the fact is, that well, pitifully, I only can identify good writing, I suck at doing it . I'm shit at what I do, hell, I even emulate fanfic authors styles that I like and fail miserably. What's awful, is that I have one who takes me incredibly seriously, but comes up with these grandiose stories that are honestly above me (but I will never abandon because of love and loyalty...and a shared desire for world conquest). This is the real version how shit is.
I wish that fucking lucky talentless woman could see the positions of the various people who are or who have been more or less like her. I often fall into so many of her shithead mistakes that when I read her drivel, I feel mocked for remembering that this shit actually gets accolades and honors and god forbid SUCCESS.
I am incredibly tired and should not be up venting on the fucking internet like this (god am I a loser) but if I don't let all this out, it's gonna kill me. Not to mention the language and general misanthropy towards someone I will never have a fistfight with, but with no job and a childhood that could never take my creative dreams seriously, I just don't fucking care right now.
Or maybe one my fellow tropers can give me a nice mercy kill. I won't mind. G'night, and FUCK YOU STEPHANIE MEYERS.
You "stuffed it in the garage"? Seems odd.
You are right in the fact that we writers know that our work was once like this, but we grew out of it. Myself included.
"They aren't pissed off that it's a terrible book, there are THOUSANDS of terrible books out there. No, they're angry because someone's glorified fanfiction not only got published, but spawned a frenzy of fans worldwide. "
Also, I wish to add a thank you for this line. It is so true.
Why the fanfic-bashing? You can criticise Twilight without adding to the stupid misconception that fanfiction is nothing but badly-written wish-fulfilment with lots of shipping.
Other than that, I agree with you.
I Supprt the Revolution this reviewer is encouraging on hacks everywhere, and not just writers like Stephanie Meyer...
Can Michael Bay be included in the line of fire this revoluton fights against? If so, awesome! Sign me up.
In Neo Arcadia, there are no politics. Just Law, Order, and judgement. And violence - LOTS OF F***ING VIOLENCE! YAY, VIOLENCE!!!
So Twilight is a cautionary tale against writing like a bad fanfiction? I agree. What got me so annoyed was how it got a literary award! So it's now amongst Frankenstein, Black Beauty, Sherlock Holmes and Treasure Island? Those poor books. Harry Potter deserved the reward, as it had a good idea and some unique twists. Twilight had nothing going for it, apart from it being the author's fantasy about a vampire man.
Long story short; I agree!
No, I just hate it 'cause it's awful. =) K, thanks, bye.
Just because it has a large fanbase, that doesn't make it good. End of Story.
Thank you so much for saying this - it's too true. If this stupid thing hadn't gotten ridiculously popular, I'd read the first book and forgotten all about it. It's really bland. Instead, here I am with my silly writer's block, doing my best to be original and inspiring and funny and can't even finish - I've been told I have at least some talent but I can't finish. And Meyer... Meyer... not only did she finish four doorstoppers, she also got an award and a billion rabid fans. It's just. Not. Fair.
^Some might say that you're just jealous.
You get ahead by writing what appeals to the fans. If it happens to concide with what your idea of quality is, more power to you. If not, you'll just have to deal with it.
Spot on about where the hatedom comes from. Seriously, when I was in junior high I read way too many books like Twilight. They were easy to read but I never took them seriously. I knew they were garbage. It's sad that Twilight fans think Twilight is so amazing and unique. None of us would have cared about Twilight if it hadn't gotten so popular... it's just plain undeserved.
I agree. One of my high school english teachers loved the books but she knew they were a guilty pleasure. I have read and liked some awful stuff but I don't go around proclaiming it's the best thing in the world.
We're everything brighter than even the sun
YES!!! Exactly what I have been trying to say in a review. What the hell makes hacky writers like her so popular, yet PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY HONE THEIR TALENT FOR WRITING AREN'T PUBLISHED NOW?! Face it...any teenager gulps this crap up. It was a craze in my junior high that everyone kept forcing me to read, even though I knew the book was grade-A-garbage with a pretty cover.
I'M GOING TO GET OUT OF THE U.S, WITH OR WITHOUT YOU!!!
If it has a large fanbase, then it's good. End of story. There is so much wrong with this statement I don't even know where to begin. It may have a large fanbase of people who think it's good, but when it comes to an actual critical assessment of the material it fails spectacularly.
Why the fanfic-bashing? You can criticise Twilight without adding to the stupid misconception that fanfiction is nothing but badly-written wish-fulfilment with lots of shipping. Because the majority of fanfiction is that bad. Sturgeon's Law, the majority of it is drivel with the remaining 10% or so having some redeeming features. It doesn't help that, thanks to the internet, anyone can produce fanfiction and have it put up for all to see. Sadly, not everyone online is a professional writer.
Anyway, to the author of this review, well done. You've pretty much boiled it down to the basic truth- Meyer got her idiotic work published without even having to try, while plenty of other writers out there put genuine effort into their works and remain doomed to obscurity. Truly sad, it is.
Personally I would love to have sold that many books. If your writing is making that many people happy then you must be doing something right. Any author who refuses to write because he or she feels the result would be too "popular" or "pop" in the populist sense does not deserve to have ANY of their works read.
I don't hate the damn thing on its popularity alone,that would make me part of the Hate Dumb
No I hate it because A) It actually is awful,it's Giftedly Bad (only so the result is So Bad Its Horrible,shes the Uwe Boll of books) and you are doing a disservice to all writers everywhere by implying we were all once Meyer's.If anything we were all Christopher Paolinis ripping off other franchises as a starting point and writing a Gary Stu here and a Mary Sue there.But at least we had plot and tried to make things happen,we didn't lounge on kisses at all. And if it was historical fiction,we were Dan Browns.Frankly I refuse to call it a book at all
B) It's not only even worse than Da Vinci Code or Atlas Shrugged,but it's popular and has a fanbase and
C) It's sexist against both sexes.
You got me exactly. This was my first couple of fanfics (written when I was 11) and the first couple of chapters of a fantasy trilogy I'm writing (the only purple-pose left is the joke that the only helping verb Elves have is "be" due to the evolution of their dialect). Dear god was it hard to cut through all that and keep what i needed, but then I saw Twilight and got annoyed because Romance is apparently in and while it's in my books it's very minor because good romance is hard to write and I have yet to manage it. On the upside, Twilight proved that you don't need good romance, you just need random insistence that stuff is romantic! Brilliant! (not)
I completely agree with the above.
Peace is the only battle worth waging.
Pretty much summarizes the hatedom for the Inheritance Cycle, too.
What matters in this life is much more than winning for ourselves. What really matters is helping others win, too. - F. Rogers.
Your review is just... perfect. You deserve a medal.
Oh, I was bad, yes, but I am happy to say that I was never as bad as Meyer. Mainly because I never wrote romance stories when I was at my "beginner" stage of writing. I stuck to comedies and adventures. Still was bad though, so I otherwise agree with this review completely. Heck, I think I'd be angry if my old, bad, fanfic got published accidentally, even if it became popular and made me a whole bunch of money! I'd still yell about being unable to understand why so many people would like such tripe.
Er
I really don't care about the writing itself all that much. It's boring but meh, could be worse.
I object the story itself. It's a glorification of abusive relationships and stalking among other things. Lots of garbage is popular (I can name a number of writers who I think are garbage)and most of it is harmless. When a story that argues that emotional abuse and the every looming threat of being killed by your 'beloved' are ok ends up being held up as the quintessential romance for young children (who have no idea what to expect from relationships or what their comfort zone is) I'm a little worried.
I love this review. Fanfiction and early writing are an extension of what was going on in our own imaginations, as we created things in our head that appealed only to us. But apparently there's a huge audience for stuff of that quality.
Excellent review. It actually makes me want to finally read these books so I know exactly what not to do as a writer.
Dude, you are a genius.
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A Wake Up to Writers
Let me cut to the chase with this review. The story is blah, the characters are even more blah, and the fanbase is just ridiculous. Instead of pandering about why the book is simply blah on a literary standpoint, it's time to see it from a writer's standpoint. And it's terrifying.
The content, like many before me have noted, reads like fanfiction. Glorious fanfiction. Like Suri Cruise's first golden turd. It's shiny and pretty, but it's still a turd. When I read it, stuffed it in the garage, and pondered the meaning of life, I discovered a real shocking epiphany. I used to write like that. In fact, I'm sure any potential writer used to write like that!
Before you go hell bent by denying that your work, (even if it was random nonsense words used from bashing your head on the keyboard), would ever stoop to such a level, go back and take a read. We've all done the random purple prose nonsense, created non-engaging characters while inadvertently creating interesting background characters, wrote up a personal fantasy, and fell head over heels over angsty vampires and such. But unlike Meyer, we grew out of that phase and the few who bothered taking criticism to heart have begun writing decent, original material.
And I think this is where the hatedom comes in. They aren't pissed off that it's a terrible book, there are THOUSANDS of terrible books out there. No, they're angry because someone's glorified fanfiction not only got published, but spawned a frenzy of fans worldwide. That new fantasy novel you've been working on painstakingly to make sure there was character development, engaging plotlines, fully researched material, and believable relationships that you've been sending to publishers for years but still haven't gotten the green light? Yeah, Twilight beat you to that. And it pisses writers off.
So, what do you do? Do you dumb yourself down for a quick buck? Are you looking to have your name go down as that 'hack' writer just for a bit of popularity that Stephenie Meyer has? No, because you are better than that. And your writing shouldn't end up like that. What we should do is reflect that Twilight is that kind of book that we don't want to create just for money or to pander to the easily gullible demographic, or even fantasized about and went 'You know, I should publish this for kicks.' And that's it.