Why is Stephanie Meyers bad at writing?

Discussion in 'Discussion of Published Works' started by drifter265, Feb 28, 2013.

  1. slamdunk

    slamdunk New Member

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    It’s one of those things that comes with success, most (if not all) successful writers of our time produce crap literature apparently. :)


    The reason why she is bad is because some people has found one or more reasons to dislike her text. As if any text can please everyone?
     
  2. Mot

    Mot New Member

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    Good literature and commercial success are not intrinsically linked. It isn't crap because it's successful, it's successful despite being 'crap'.
     
  3. GhostWolfe

    GhostWolfe New Member

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    Sparkles is the part that she dreamt, inspiring the entire series.

    I wouldn't necessarily call her style sophisticated, nor did I find The Host to be fantastic, but it definitely doesn't suffer the majority of flaws that Twilight demonstrates.
     
  4. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    And yet the story strikes a chord with a pretty sizable audience. The writing in the 50 Shades fanfic is exponentially worse, and the draw even more inexplicable.

    Good writing is not the only measure of a work.
     
  5. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    "Heavy edit needed" is an understatement, especially for 50 Shades where the number of times Ana bites her lip and foil packets rip makes you wonder if EL James had any editorial input whatsoever.

    With Meyer, there were a number of places in the books that just screamed out for a re-write. The scenes just didn't work the way they were written.
     
  6. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    I think the concern about Edward abusing Bella is grossly overrated. It's like pareidolia, you only see the face because you are making the elements into a face, not because the face is actually there.

    Now, as for Bella not having a whole lot of redeeming qualities except being nice and having a boyfriend, that's more of a valid criticism of the books. In the end she gains a special vampire power, but it's not something that developed from her human traits. If you win the lottery, does that say anything about your character?
     
  7. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    I haven't read anything by Meyer except the Twilight series, but just getting bruised by over zealous sex is not something I call abuse. Edward is overbearing and controlling, but 'abuse' without intent, I don't see it.
     
  8. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    This ^

    But one also has to ask, what is wrong with the "good literature" that makes it not a commercial success? I don't mean a million dollar blockbuster, but rather lots of readers. The work can't just be well written, the story has to be meaningful to a audience. That's my opinion anyway. I want my novel to be meaningful to people besides myself, or I won't have accomplished what I've set out to.
     
  9. Xatron

    Xatron New Member

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    There is nothing wrong with "good literature", that's why it is good. The wrong is with the readers. Most people buying a book nowadays don't buy it because it is good, but because it is popular. Doesn't matter who it is popular with. And not only that, but after reading 300 pages of utter bs, they will swear blind that it was the best book they have ever heard, if they hear a celebrity or someone on tv saying so. An abysmally written story about a girl with no good points whatsoever, a guy who sparkles in the light (at least up to a point in the story where he mysteriously stops sparkling;Maybe he discovered sunblock or something) and a coward pedophile became a best seller and a blockbuster movie series. Go figure.
     
  10. minstrel

    minstrel Leader of the Insquirrelgency Supporter Contributor

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    This may be a generational thing, but I hope not. Ernest Hemingway wrote bestsellers that are still considered classics, as did F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, and many others. Thomas Pynchon appears on the bestseller list with any new novel he writes. Saul Bellow sold well, as did Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer (no matter what you think of him personally). Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood, E. Annie Proulx, and other notables also do very well (in case you thought I was only mentioning men). Some of these (notably Pynchon) are regarded as "difficult" writers, yet they still sell. But do they only sell to an older demographic? What are the kids reading these days (and by kids, I mean those under, say, 30 years of age)?

    People like Justin Bieber sell millions of records to teenagers, but most adults would consider Bieber's music shallow pop trash, engineered with great precision for exactly that purpose - sell millions to teenagers. But that doesn't mean there's no market for whatever the musical equivalent of "literature" is.

    Maybe the problem, if you could call it that, is that teenagers drive what goes on the bestseller lists. They buy media in huge quantities. If your book doesn't appeal to them, it won't appear on the lists. There are adults out there, though, some of whom are here on this forum, who still buy and read books, but in our cases, we usually read adult books. We just don't spend like the kids do.
     
  11. jwideman

    jwideman New Member

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    Sophisticated?? Good at it???
    The biggest complaints about Twilight aren't the plot or the silliness of sparkling vampires, but the very troubling themes: the female lead is a passive teenage girl and an obvious Mary Sue, who has an abusive boyfriend who is a 108 year old man that goes to high school so he can stalk her. We know he's really a nice guy because Meyers keeps telling us so. No wait, what she tells us is that he's beautiful. He is not nice at all - he's abusive, controlling, and a serious nutjob.
    Similar complaints can be made about The Host.
    Now, to address the writing itself:
    Shallow characters with no development. Bad relationships that the characters insist are good ones and somehow we're meant to believe them.
    It seems to be written at a fourth grade reading level. The prose is redundant and repetitive. For example:

    "It's a choice. A voluntary choice," I told him.

    You think that's sophisticated writing? Really?
    Look, you want to enjoy her writing, you go right ahead. As you grow as a person and as a writer, you'll learn to see it for what it is. But, if you want sophisticated writing, try Hemming, Faulkner, or Steinbeck.
     
  12. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    What I figure is not everyone values the same things.

    If you are talking about the value of the literature itself, that's a completely different thing from a fantasy a million young girls found vicariously pleasing. I don't find, "because someone else liked it", to be a complete explanation for the phenomena.
     
  13. Luna13

    Luna13 Active Member

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    Hey...we don't ALL have bad taste in books.
     
  14. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    I wasn't disagreeing with this. That's why I made a distinction between "blockbuster" and success. The authors you note as excellent are very successful authors, IMO.

    You might be cheered to know Pynchon is one of my 23 yr old son's favorite authors.

    Teenagers are a lucrative market, but I hope that's not the market "50 Shades" found. ;)

    Some books cross lines, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and even, yes, Twilight, sell to more than just the youth market. When my son was little he told me repeatedly I should read Harry Potter and I resisted until one day I bought the audio book for a long drive we were going on. I went back to the first one and read the whole series straight through. Twilight and The Hunger Games have a broader market than just teens, (mostly adult female mind you). For some books, it's all about whether or not you want to live in that world for the length of the book.

    Let's face it, Twilight is a best seller because it is a vicariously lived fantasy, not because it's a great read.

    For other novels it can be many different things that draw the reader in. Surely vicarious living in a book like "Grapes of Wrath", "1984", or "Lord of the Flies" was the not attraction to those novels.

    I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm not ready to write off the vicarious living fantasies as having no literary value. :)
     
  15. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    I've already said it, but I'll say it again, Edward is not abusive.

    I agree with you the controlling stuff wasn't appealing, nor are the qualities Meyer gave Bella. But Edward's qualities that people are interpreting as abusive, instead represent forbidden fruit. His being dangerous adds to his allure. Were he abusive, it wouldn't be alluring at all. 'It's dangerous to love him' is a different theme from 'he's abusive.'

    If you want to know what Twilight would be with an abusive Edward, that would be Christian in "50 Shades". Whatever appeal that story has for as many women as it appeals to is beyond me.
     
  16. JJ_Maxx

    JJ_Maxx Banned

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    This thread was both humorous and, I'm sorry, INSANE.

    Are you really putting down a fiction book because the characters are abusive or controlling? You mean they're flawed? Am I missing something here?

    Edward was going to high-school before Bella showed up. Bella liked Edward and Edward liked Bella, it was love at first sight, so to speak. He's a vampire, so he has super-human strength and Bella is a ninety pound wet noodle, but they don't care, they love each other. You make it work. Remember Wolverine basically getting skinned alive trying to save Jean Grey? How is this a valid complaint? I don't understand.

    And as far as Jacob and Renesme are concerned. HE'S A FICTITUOUS CREATURE. She DID choose him, later. Before he was her lover, he was her companion, friend and protector. Saying it is child abuse is rediculous.

    As far as the writing, yeah, it has it's flaws but what it lacks in minutia, it makes up for in quantity.

    A fancy french restaraunt may be higher quality of cooking, but give me a Big Mac any day of the week.

    Oh and I thought this was funny, though.

    [​IMG]

    ~ J. J.
     
  17. minstrel

    minstrel Leader of the Insquirrelgency Supporter Contributor

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    Wow. Did you really just say that? Because ... wow.

    "This is crap. What's the problem? Oh, I see - I haven't written enough crap. All I have to do is double the amount of crap and it'll be fine. There's never too much crap!"
     
  18. JJ_Maxx

    JJ_Maxx Banned

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    Yes, but the readers just blow by it so fast that they don't notice the repetitive dialogue tag here or the misplaced descriptor there, they just read it and the public decided it was worth reading.

    Writing is art.

    I mean, Andy Warhol can paint a soup can and people pay millions of dollars for it. How does one judge art?
     
  19. GazingAbyss

    GazingAbyss Member

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    The problem I had wasn't that they were flawed so much as the fact that they weren't supposed to be flawed. Edward's definitely a controlling stalker, but Meyers actually considers him to be the perfect man, and clearly thinks his and Bella's borderline abusive romance is the bestest most special love story of all time.

    That said, it's still better than 50 Shades. I mean, the writing's bad in terms of style, sure, but at least there's no evidence of, *ahem*, one-handed typing, if you get my drift.
     
  20. drifter265

    drifter265 Banned

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    You know what I realized after coming up with the question and starting this thread? That people just hate success in any way shape or form.

    If you wrote the crap you think "Twilight" is, you wouldn't care if it was crap. You'd just keep taking in the dough.
     
  21. Paradigm-shift

    Paradigm-shift New Member

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    Who has read the host, I'm not big into the romance but put an Alien in the mix, I'm game.
    Reason I ask is because saw a poster at the show tonight, and read the back of the book at B&N
     
  22. chicagoliz

    chicagoliz Contributor Contributor

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    These are two different ideas. I don't agree that the first statement is true in all cases, although it is sometimes true for some people. There are plenty of writers whose success is greatly applauded -- Tom Wolfe, Khaled Hosseini, Steig Larsson -- these are just a few authors who come to mind who enjoy great critical and commercial success. People who appreciate good writing often look forward to the new books by these authors (of course Larsson can't write any more) and don't begrudge them their success.

    The second part is, I believe, generally correct. Nicholas Sparks, for example, doesn't pretend that he writes great literature. I heard a story once (I have not done any research to attempt to independently confirm this) that he was in the publishing business, saw what sold well, and wrote according to formula. He's had wild commercial success, with what I refer to as "just add water" types of novels. But he knows it and is happy to collect the checks. I don't begrudge him his success -- I blame the readers/general public, but him -- I don't blame him one bit.
     
  23. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    Come on, that's oversimplified sour graping. People have various reactions to Twilight, but if it weren't successful, would any of us care enough to be asking about it in this forum?

    For the record, I don't hate success, I'm trying to boil it down to reproducible elements and hopefully add good writing in while I'm at it.
     
  24. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    I tried but I couldn't get into it.
     
  25. GazingAbyss

    GazingAbyss Member

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    It's not like people just hate success. You don't see this kind of loathing for Harry Potter. Although you could maybe make a case for people perceiving it as unearned success.
     

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