Saturday, October 3, 2009

Was Twilight quality writing or not?

I heard an author talking about the book Twilight and she said that Meyers targeted a market that texts, for heaven's sake(!), so THEY would
hardly care about quality writing, or recognize it for that matter. Do you agree with this or disagree?

I don't think it was poorly written. It might have been a lot less grammatical than some books, but I'm for any books that get young folks reading.

What do you think about Twilight? :)

20 comments:

  1. Well, darnit. Now, I'm really going to have to break down and read it. I've heard this debate over and over again about Twilight and the quality of Meyers' writing.

    I'm not really into vampires, even Bram Stoker's Dracula was *yawn* ho hum to me. I don't know, I think I grew out of them shortly after The Lost Boys ;)

    Unofficially-I agree that anything that gets kids to read is a good thing, however, I do hope it leads to reading other books with different writing styles, information, plot lines, etc.. other than Stephanie Meyers and the Twilight Series only.

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  2. Kristi, I agree. I wouldn't want kids to read JUST books with vampires, etc.. I hope they would read a variety of books. Thanks for stopping by. :)

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  3. I personally enjoyed reading Twilight. I see the point many have made about it being poorly written, but that is based on all the rules--like overuse of adverbs, dialogue tags, etc. The average reader isn't aware that this is considered bad in the publishing world. Like you said, it caught the attention of our youth. Who can ridicule that?

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  4. Susan, Here, here! You said it even better than I could. I guess there's a certain percentage of writers that just can't get past the writing rules and don't consider the fact that it has given many young people the gift of reading. :)

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  5. Twilight (the first book is all I'm addressing, because I have BIG issues with the message in the series) was entertainment and, particularly, appealing to young girls who want to crush on a cute, out-of-reach boy. That's the heart of what made it popular. I read it and found it good enough to enjoy, but I wasn't wearing an editor's hat while reading or I would have pulled out a red pen.
    I've noticed that sometimes I read a book that has such a compelling story that I don't notice it's flaws as I fly through the pages--then I re-read it later and wince when I notice so many places it could have been cleaned up. Worse scenario is when those places pull me out of story while reading.
    What I'm saying is first and foremost we need a really good story that holds the reader's attention, then we need to go back and clean up plot holes, lazy writing and mistakes in order to make it a great book.
    So despite Twilight's extraordinary success, I think it could have been edited into something better. Although my issue with the message would take major rewrite.

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  6. Ha! After my editorly comment above I notice I should have re-read it myself before posting. Its not it's. Oh, the shame.
    By the way, I agree that whatever gets kids to read is a good thing. We want more of that.

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  7. Tricia, I agree that there are some problems with it. But I read books all the time that have grammar issues, punctuation problems, and overuse of filler words, adverbs, etc..

    I would hope that when I'm published mine won't. But humans are prone to error, even copy editors and the like. So I won't say mine will be error free. Albeit I hope that it won't have a lot of mistakes like some books that I read.

    And about your last comment, you can take the newspaper girl away from the newspaper, but...:) Ahahahaha

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  8. It held my interest and I remember the characters, more than I can say for a lot of other books. My mother let me read movie magazines growing up, even though it wasn't literature. Her theory was that I was reading and hoped I'd go on to better books, which I did.

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  9. Agreed.

    If it gets teens reading then it is perfectly fine.

    It's what I like to call the "gateway" book. I haven't stopped obsessively reading since I read Twilight 3 years ago. Before Twilight I was a casual reader, maybe one book every 6 months or so. Now I'm 6 books in one month! :) It was entertaining and that allows me to over look its flaws.

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  10. Buttercup, So your mother's experiment worked. Good for her. Bravo! :)

    Jess, I like the "gateway" book. I call it the bridge to reading. Same thing. I like yours better. :) It worked for you, so hopefully it's working for other people too. :)

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  11. I haven't read Twilight, so I really can't comment other than . . . SUBJECTIVE! Everything is subjective. Quality writing to one person is crappy writing to another person.

    S-U-B-J-E-C-T-I-V-E!!!

    So, with that being written . . . reading is fun and should be encouraged. So what if Twilight is (not my opinion, don't grab the torches and pitchforks just yet) crap. So what?? Kids love it. Kids are reading. Enough. Said!

    S

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  12. I haven't read any of the Twilight novels yet (I have the first two in my to-be-read pile) but my daughter's friends have all read it (my daughter, unfortunately, is not a reader). She tells me her friends all like Twilight in varying degrees but have noticed that the writing isn't the best writing that they've read.

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  13. The writing didn't bother me at all. In fact, I found it rather addictive, and the book was almost unput-downable for me.

    The thing I *DID NOT* like was the story. Bella was weak, there was no depth to any characters, and there was no plausible happy ending, imo.

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  14. I think when it all comes down to it, there was something about it that enticed millions of people to go out and buy it. Sure, it had flaws. But dang, who cares when it did so well, lol. :D

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  15. mmm...I read the first 2 to make my own judgements, and I thought it was a pretty poorly developed story-and the writing wasn't very refined, but it was also Meyer's FIRST attempt at writing-so I give her some slack.
    I also think that when u have danger plus a love story(hello, Titanic movie I loved back in the day that had the worst dialogue of the decade!)- teens, women, and sexually confused boys love it!

    I mean, I'd be concerned if in ten years, the same kids are still thinking that 'Twilight' is the top shelf of writing talent-but I doubt that will happen. 'Twilight' is like 'Us Weekly'-It's not the meat and potatoes like 'Vogue', but it makes a good dessert!

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  16. Beth, Hmmm, I love Belle way more than Bella! :) The story was weak. But addictive like you say.

    BJ, It did do well. It even has coffee mugs for crying out loud. :)

    Pen Pen, Well said, well said. First book, poorly developed story, and made how much money? Yikes man! :)

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  17. :) I think that those of us who write kinda got more upset with the money and success of 'Twilight' cuz we know the minimal effort that went into it-and we can all probably rattle off ten writers whose work is high quality and deserving of such wide acclaim.
    ...This must be how most singers felt when they first saw 'Britney Spears' perform and blow up. I mean, I love Britney, but she's a horrible singer! I'd be bothered by her success if I was a singer! :)

    -and-When I was reading 'Twilight', I was so shocked by the similarity to 'Romeo and Juliet'. It seemed to not JUST be inspired by the story, but to STEAL the story line through the first 2 books. Seeing her quote some incredible Shakespeare lines and put them next to her sub par work was weird too...

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  18. Pen, exactly. And you're right about the-"I have worked hard and haven't even gotten an agent, yet look at her? She seems to have had it all handed to her. On a silver platter,"*she kicks the wall* Plus I'm trying to write quality stuff. That will last. And be read and reread for ages and ages.

    The Romeo and Juliet likeness is also true. I heard another author talking about that. She HATED it. Though I will say, you know authors take ideas that are basically the same and turn them inside out to make them new again. Great discussion. :)

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  19. I think one of the hardest things for an author to capture in his/her story is being able to pull emotion onto the page in a form that will draw readers in and keep them captivated.

    Meyers obviously accomplished that since SOOOO many people are fans. I loved reading her books and was sucked into the entire series. I FELT for the characters. That's all that matters to me when I'm a reader.

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  20. I'm only about 50 pages into Twilight, so I'm not a fair judge. But, I think the writing is perfectly fine. I think readers are able to distinguish good writing from bad, even if they are from the texting generation. But, good writing doesn't necessarily mean a good story, and from my experience many readers prefer story over writing.

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