My wife talked me into reading the Twilight books and im always looking for a good read while im out in the field so i did. I aint gonna lie im about halfway through the 1st book and im not too impressed. Iv read in all kinds of creative writing books and on here as well that it is a bad idea to use adverbs in dialog tags, and i get the idea instead of saying "She said hungrily" you would want to make her actions show that she was in fact hungry, instead of telling that she was. But Stephenie Meyer did it ALL the time in the 1st twilight book "Yes" i croaked softly "So im wrong again?" I challenged "A Little help?" I pleaded "She did?" he said eagerly "Hunting" He answered grimly I just dont get it, how in all these books of do's and dont's it says NO DONT DO THIS, but then she does it and sells a billion copies. Just my thoughts..... how about yalls and for the reccord im not smashing Stepheine Meyer, the book has a good story line and i am intrested enough in the book, thats how im halfway through it on my 2nd day. Im just wondering if there is somthing im not seeing
I love the picture that shows a cover of Twilight and the Hunger Games and says... If you take the Love Triangle out of Twilight you have a story about a girl moving to a rainy Oregon town. If you take the Love Triangle out of Hunger Games you have a story about a repressive government forcing children to fight to the death as entertainment. I really hate Twilight and I honestly don't see why it has drawn such a big following. I know there are other Vampire Romance type novels out there that do really decent and have much better plot and characters. I tried reading Twilight but I couldn't make it through Chapter 1. It seemed like she was the one who decided it would be best to live with her dad yet she cries, talks about crying, etc like 15 times in the first chapter and all I could think was, "someone get this bitch a tissue!" I honestly have no idea what resulted in that story specifically striking gold. Maybe we just have a lot of unhappy people in America who can relate to an unhappy character searching for love? Who knows.
Amen Brother. However, Its my turn to channel Cogito here. Here Goes IF THIS BECOMES A DEBATE ABOUT HOW MUCH PEOPLE HATE TWILIGHT, THIS THREAD WILL BE CLOSED Thank god that's over. Anyway, Sutton I guess it goes back to that old adage, the rules are there to be broken. If she got away with it, others can to I guess. It may have to do with the target audience it. Its a YA romance novel, and those kind of dialogue tags really hit home with alot of young people i think. (not me, I find em cheese lol) Also, being YA, it's not getting the scrutiny of the literary elite as much as hype from crying teenage girls. Social stuff like that might have a big impact. And, rules are constantly changing. The rules in the books you're reading might be outdated and not really apply to modern writing, or could be based on prejudices of the writer. I'm no expert on creative writing myself, but it seems like alot of the most successful authors are the ones who break the rules in the most creative ways.
I think it depends on how often she did it. If it's every page - that's excessive. Plus, not to slam publishers of ya fiction, but sometimes I think they let things slide, stuff that wouldn't be acceptable in adult fiction. And you have to count the cheese factor. A lot of books that revel in speech adverbs, that I've noticed, have been on the cheesy side. 70's gothics , romance , and some rather shoddy ya fiction. It's a rule that until a writer knows how to break it successfully , should follow. Speech tags as usually there because a writer hasn't put over what the character means in action or speech. But that doesn't mean that an occational - he whispered shouldn't pop up. Just watch out for getting overly 'creative' I've come across - he throbbed as a speech tag. Didn't work. There's a couple of hilarious books I've read called Gun in Cheek and Gun in Cheek 2 by Bill Pronzini - which shows you how some truly awful writers managed to get printed back in the heyday of paperback publishing. One section is dedicated to a list of truly bizarre speech tags - it's a hoot!
sorry i posted this in the wrong section i thought that it being about speech tags would go under general writing Yeah the author used it pretty much on every page, i noticed it during the 1st chapter and it is exsessive. I admit before i was schooled better i used to use the adverbs in the speech tags as well, quite often. But then i realized yeah it is a lazy way of getting out of telling the reader exactly what is going on. Im almost done with the 1st book, i got one more chapter to go. I actually started to enjoy it when it came down to the action parts, im a sucker for stuff like that, i did not enjoy the 1st half of the book though, sappy romance stuff, all she was talking about was how amazing, and perfect the boy was. Like all i heard was about his perfectness and body and lips, over and over and over. My wife thinks that it was better than the movie, but i would have to disagree.
I used to use speech tags when I was around 8 because a lot of YA novels I read got away with it. My teachers actually encouraged it so I didn't cut the habit out until I had reached High School. I think Animorphs was one series I noticed using speech tags. I guess people let YA novelists get away with cheesy writing. It's easy on their target audience, and as some said Rules are meant to be broken.
There's nothing wrong with speech tags. Matter of fact, sometimes they're perfect. I think the dividing line, is when you use a description that could have been shown as easily as written. ...she said, happily. Instead of ...she said, and giggled. Changing it to a beat paints the picture better, imo. As for Twilight, part of the issue, IMO, was that it was her first book and moreover, she'd already finished the second half (from the scene in the meadow to the end of the book), then had to go back and write it from the beginning to that scene. I know when I have to go back and fill in scenes or sections, I struggle and fall into the same patterns. As for why it got through the publishers... who knows? The story does take you into a different world an honestly, I think that's the key to any fiction.
I think that's the key (and for the record, I haven't read any of these). Despite the mechanical drawbacks, the story hits a home run. No matter what book it is, who the author is - story trumps all.
When I hear creative writing used, it often refers to Literary Fiction (and very likely short stories) - and not writing a novel. I've never read Twilight, but judging from what you've said in your post, Twilight does not appear to fit in the Literary Fiction category. That rule is much more relevant in Literary Fiction than most other genres. In Twilight, it seems the plot is what gets it to sell, as you even state later in your post: You said that you even liked the storyline. Well, that's what probably makes it sell - it's storyline appeals. And what probably doesn't sell is the descriptions like the one you mentioned in your post. The book of "do"s and "don't"s is probably targeted towards a different type of writing (which sounds like Literary Fiction to me). Could it be The Elements of Style (Strunk and White)?
To be fair, I'm not really sure what all of the fuss about the plot is about. It's the same modern day Romeo and Juliet archetype that gets thrown around in almost every story targeted at young females. The only difference is that this one has vampires. That sparkle. So I can see how it appeals to hormonal teeny boppers, but it really baffles me when someone has an appreciation for decent literature, and then turns around and says something like; "I really love the storyline in twilight." Whhhaaaztttdhhsnjdksnknsknfksnfkfiejfo? Baffling.
I noticed the same thing when I was reading twilight. Meyers hardly ever has her characters just 'say' something. Personally I find it annoying... But yea, as others here have said, Twilight didn't sell a lot of copies because of its writing. It sold a lot of copies because teenage girls are drawn to the love story.
LOL thats probably why my wife loved it soo much, shes 25 now, but i guess she fell for the whole sappy love thing, i dont think im going to read on to the 2nd book
I've read the first Twilight and part of New Moon. Stephenie Meyer has her weaknesses, but some of her writing is so vivid, I can feel myself sinking into the plot. This story, remember, isn't for twenty-something year old men, but young teen girils who are very insecure about themselves. Bella is very relatable, albeit two-dimensional at times, and she is a poor role model for girls. That being said, the books did introduce an entirely different intrepretation of vampires and werewolfs, even though many people complain about the bastardization of vampire lore. I thought the conversations and interactions between Bella and Edward were cute.
