Aug. 23, 2008
After sound rebukes from those who commented on my previous article (Twilight Sucks… And Not In A Good Way), like ‘Sydnie’ and ‘Kalo’, who wrote, “All of your opinions are completely FALSE!” and “YOU JUST THINK TOO MUCH JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE !” respectively, I decided to listen to those like ‘Melissa’ who demanded that I “write a bookseries[sic] that is that popular and, in [their] opinion, genious[sic]” before earning the privilege to criticize Stephenie Meyer’s dismal oeuvre.
You know what? They’re right. What right do I have to dislike a published novel? How dare I exercise my 1st Amendment rights and express my opinion about the Twilight series without also having sold 1.3 million books in a single day?
And what about all of those who agree with me? They aren’t allowed to dislike the books either if their own work hasn’t yet spawned “millions” of fan-sites.
I decided that it was only right for me (as the author of the original article) to try and help out all those people who would love to engage in literary criticism but don’t yet have that right to freedom of thought. So, here it is:
How to Write a Bestseller Just Like Twilight:
1. Abuse the thesaurus (correct word usage optional; purple prose is a must). If you want to ‘spice up’ your writing so that it sounds just like Meyer’s, a handy thesaurus is key. Then you too can write glorious and dazzling (and dazzlingly glorious) passages like the following:
He lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted, incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare. His glistening, pale lavender lids were shut, though of course he didn’t sleep. A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal.
If you do not have at least three modifiers* for every noun, you’re doing it wrong. Some authors like George Orwell (1984, Animal Farm) have rules like “Never use a long word where a short one will do” and “If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out”, but since Stephenie Meyer is apparently the golden standard for writing young adult literature these days, it’s probably best to ignore Orwell and follow her example instead.
* Bonus points if you use the same modifier multiple times in close proximity of one another. Good examples of words to use this way include “chagrin”, “murmured”, and “chuckled”.
2. Do not research. It is not necessary to waste time getting biology facts, cultural lore, or cultural history correct. For example, if you choose to set your novel in a real-life place, don’t bother visiting it. If you incorporate the ideas of another culture, such as that of the Sioux Native Americans, absolutely do not speak to any Sioux elders or Sioux scholars-as the author, you have no responsibility to accurately portray anything. Instead, take what history you can find out on the Internet and feel free to bastardize their cultural lore so that it fits into your story. Also, if you decide to use science to explain some of your fantasy elements, don’t bother making it logically or factually sound.
3. Do not give your characters personalities. Instead, make sure that your female lead is as perfect as possible (but don’t forget to give her a contrived sense of humility). Obviously she must be pretty and smart, but don’t bother giving examples of her intelligence; all you have to do to tie up that loose end is mention bad interpretations of classic literature. To make sure that she isn’t TOO perfect, she needs a flaw. This is where it gets tricky; if you give her a true flaw, like hubris, she is less appealing. Therefore, use a “flaw” like clumsiness so that a) she is endearingly klutzy (allowing socially awkward young girls to put themselves in her shoes) and b) you have a great deus ex machina that allows your male lead* to swoop in and save the heroine from impaling** herself on a pencil after an attempt at a magic trick.
* It is sometimes helpful to give your female heroine an Electra complex, as this further romanticizes the idea of the male hero carrying her around, watching her as she sleeps, being 100+ years older than her, etc., etc.
** It is important to note that the heroine should not have to sacrifice anything besides her ambition. If you think she SHOULD sacrifice something, make sure that she’s only giving up her family and friends so that the she can devote her entire life and purpose of being to the hero. She should NOT have any kind of hobbies, interests, etc. outside of the hero, and if he leaves her she should become suicidal.
That brings me to the male lead. While it’s a given that he must be a perfect physical specimen, be careful not to give him any actual identifying characteristics because this will reduce your reader’s ability to superimpose the image of her own ‘perfect man’ over the hollow shell of your character. As for personal traits, it’s extremely effective to write him as a caricature of the Byronic hero. Your hero should be brooding, pseudo-dangerous, and have a deep, dark secret to cement his status as a sexy ‘bad boy’. Additionally, he must be extremely wealthy, drive fast cars, and enjoy watching the heroine sleep unawares.
4. Ensure that your heroine and hero’s relationship is abusive. An effective way to do this is to make sure that your male hero fulfills several of the requirements for relational abuse. A good definition of that is this one, from Wikipedia:
Abusive relationships are often characterized by jealousy, emotional withholding, lack of intimacy, infidelity, sexual coercion, verbal abuse, broken promises, physical violence, control games and power plays.
Personally, I recommend using jealousy, lack of intimacy, sexual coercion, broken promises, and controlling behavior because those are all quite easy to justify; all the hero must do is claim that he acts out of his desire to protect the heroine from danger because of his overwhelming love for her. Additionally, if there is another possible romantic interest for the heroine outside of the hero, isolating the heroine from him is a particularly effective method for the hero to use. One example might be siphoning the gasoline from the heroine’s moped to prevent her from leaving her house.
It is especially important to note that the heroine must not find fault in the hero for his abusive actions, as that would make him much less appealing. Instead, she should excuse his behavior by saying “he just loves me” and then continue to submit to his will.
If you’re worried that this might send a bad message to young, hormonal teenagers struggling through their own romantic relationships, don’t be. After all, as Heather says, “This is a BOOK a FICTIONOUS BOOK”, and no one has ever been influenced by a work of fiction in the history of the world, ever. Not even people back in the 1800s who read books like Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In the same way that people are not influenced by advertising or by peer pressure, reading novels does not have the least bit influence on anyone, least of all teenagers whose brains haven’t finished developing.
5. There should be no plot. Even though you may think that rising action, climax, falling action, and character development are important in a novel, they’re not. Instead, focus on the perfection of the male hero. If your editor forces you to write a plot, make sure it’s just another opportunity for the hero to save the heroine.
6. Profit!
Well, there you have it! I hope this helps those of you hoping to write your own ‘Twilight’. And to those of you who were concerned over my literary critique of the series, I promise to follow the steps above before I even think about publicly disliking something again in the future.
Read my thoughts on Midnight Sun here.
Read my review of the movie!
Follow Kellen on Twitter!
hahahaha
I must admit, the twilight books bored me so much that I didn’t even make it past the 2nd book, and now I don’t need to!
And I love people trying to defend such bad writing. It makes my day.
Give me an Anne Rice book any day. Y’all can keep your crappy teen vampire slosh. Preferably far away from me.
Great writing. I look forward to reading more of your stuff, Kellen Rice.
Kelle rice, i completely agree with what you say. YOU are an amazing critique.
But jesus christ man, i’ve been to forums, and compared to what is seen here, there is sooo much flaming going on. Wow 0.o
But still, amazing.
While I feel I’d be wrong to say that you are completely wrong, there are a few other points I’d like to make in regards to this article (as a disclaimer, I didn’t bother reading through the comments made in response to the article….because I didn’t really care to.) I did, however, read both this and the previous article and a few lines from “Carissa”’s response – while I agree that Meyer’s characters don’t exactly promote a healthy teenage relationship, I’d agree that a lot of teens don’t let a single book series mold their entire view of relationships. Aside from Meyer’s series, teenagers have access to a million other literary works with differing depictions of teenage romance. They are also influenced by the relationships of parents, extended family and siblings, as well as the world they live in: middle school and high school.
I, luckily, can use myself as an example…I was a pretty awkward teenager and didn’t even have my first kiss until I was…hmm…17? But in the meantime, I encountered hundreds of different examples of romance. My parents are still together, and throughout my childhood I can only recall one time when they could not compromise over an issue. They provided an example of a relationship that I still hope to have myself one day. I also had a few friends that had boyfriends who were always hanging around, and they certainly were not edward cullen/jacob black type guys. They were awkward and kind of oblivious and…well they were teenage dudes *shrug* they had no concept of “romance” or any type of emotion remotely close to the characters Meyers portrays in her series.
My favorite movie was Luhrman’s Romeo and Juliet. Trust me, I wanted my own Leonardo Dicaprio who would be “omg soooo in love” with me.
Well, that didn’t happen. By senior year I’d had all of two relationships that consisted of little more than hand holding, despite the fact that I spent most of my time day dreaming about a relationship where the guy would be willing to risk his life for me, or would save me from danger…blah blah blah. I seriously yearned for that type of love, the way a lot of my other girlfriends did, and I did my fair share of making up love stories in my head that looking back were pretty similar to Edward and Bella – plain jane girl somehow enchants mysterious, powerful, wealthy hot dude.
Okay, so fast forward – - – - Now I’m 25 and I’m in a serious relationship with a guy that is not a vampire, is not “perfectly sculpted”, does not drive a fast shiny car and can’t sweep me off my feet and carry me up 60 foot fir trees to look at breathtaking sunsets (he can’t play the piano either).
And he’s great and I love him.
I read Meyer’s books….I kind of liked them. I didn’t like the fourth because I thought it got too weird…and then I moved on with life.
While I realize that 12-17 year old girls are much more impressionable than I am and have more than likely endured less real life dating experience than I now have at 25, I find it doubtful that every teenage girl reading this series will forever base her life off the romance between Bella and Edward.
The same way that I don’t believe Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Dead or Alive, Resident Evil and the many MANY other violent video games on the market automatically turn boys into blood thirsty killing machines. My brother played all these games and more as a kid, and he is now a gentle, kindly 28 year old man happily married and working at a credit union. He wouldn’t (and perhaps couldn’t?) harm a fly. And I, though I read Stephanie Meyers, and though I pined for my “romeo” as a teenager, don’t believe that those pinings and fantasies in any way warped my ideas about loving relationships or made me feel like I needed a guy to kill himself or constantly state his undying and totally selfless love for me in order for me to be in a satisfying, stable and healthy relationship.
I’d like to think that though teenagers are impressionable, they aren’t quite so impressionable that their entire view of relationships can be molded by one book series. If that were the case, said teenagers should be kept away from magazines, television and movie theaters, lest ANY type of media turn them into anorexic, lovesick, sexist, completely out of touch adults.
*shrug*
WONDERFUL
i LOVE this
I have been trying to convince people of the same thing, and your article helped.
The World definately needs more people like you, your a bad a$$.
I can’t be bothered finding out who actually said it, because you’re all the same.
But Abby, Carissa, or someone, stated that most teen literature has heroines who are beautiful, strong, sure of themselves, and have a sarcastic wit.
“Bella Swan is the only character who seems to reflect anyone I know in real life.”
Or something.
Wow, you must know a bunch of extremely pathetic young women.
You’re now officially my hero. This so badly needed to be said … I salute you!
lol! I’m just so glad I hang around friends who really could care less about twilight. XD
Bravo, noteworthy enough to be put in the front cover of every S Meyer novel ……and to elicit such a response from SMEYER fans such as Carissa – simply marvelous: there must be at least an ounce of truth to hit a nerve like that.
I intended to say something witty and remarkable about your take on Stephanie Meyers Twilight series but I am a little speechless, in the best possible way.
I read, all the time, I dont always see the message plain and simple but you enlightned me and I get it now.
I still love the books, and will continue to read and watch the movies, but at least now I understand. I wondered what it was that drew me in…a 20 year old mom of two with no time to be obsessed with anything, I was and I am.
Its truley amazing how a author can make the worst everyday boring life, with a bit of fiction here and there, and wrap us up in the next sentence, the next line, the next word. I remember I couldnt put it down and I didnt want to!!
As much as you explain your opinion of what you feel about her as a author and the books themselves, I have to say, your writing about her is as inticing as her books themselves. It may not be the best, but I read all of them about Twilight and even laughed a little ;p
In any way, thank you for allowing me to see what I was reading and understand why I like it so much. I can sit here and say, wow…..Im glad I married my husband and lived happily ever after without all the drama!!
Thank you.
The books are utter shit. People should be reading books worth their time. Anyone can write a generic vampire werewolf love story novel. But as you have explained in both of your blogs, people should be concerned with what we just allow our kids to read, become obsessed with, and apply to their daily lives. Never before have I seen so many older teen girls acting like 12 year olds. These books should be banned and burned. What a horrible disgrace of literature.
Ok, so I’ve read all the Twilight books, and I must say that they are… eh
The first book is terrible- there is no denying that. the plot is flat and non-existent for the first 2/3 of the book, and the only reason I was able to finish it was my insatiable curiosity to know how a book ends!
The 3rd (I feel) was the only book with a decent plotline the whole way through it! It gave more depth to the other characters and actually had something interesting happening throughout the majority of the storyline.
The fourth was an unprecedented disaster. I will admit that I was eagerly awaiting the birth- and I actually feel Meyer’s description of said birth was possibly the most well described event in the entire series as it actually evoked an emotion other than anti-climatic-anticipation or frustration. However the ending was shit. She spent the majority of the story leading up to this epic vampire battle, only to have Bella realise that she has awesome powers that overpower everyone else’s and Alice runs in to save the day- without a single main character dying- not necessarily a bad thing, however when you’ve spent the past 500 pages describing this epic battle, the least Meyer’s could have done was have someone get a minor cut! But no, it was a happy ending for all!
Despite my criticism, I do have to say that it is certainly not the worst thing ever written. The subplots are awesome. I especially enjoyed Rosalie and Jasper’s stories… and I will admit to spending an entire night reading them, as once they get into the main plot for each particular book, they are pretty cool stories
Kellen’s comments, though, are intelligent and insightful, however you may wish to see them, and I thank her for having written these reviews
The responses from the ‘Twihards’ made me laugh more than the review itself. You do realise that in the majority of your comments you epitomise everything Kellen was saying about the fans??? good job guys, really *note the sarcasm*
several outstanding comments include “And I don’t want any of you b*tches telling me that I’m being imature or whatever ’cause you’re not my mom.” thankyou for this brilliant display of maturity, I truly appreciate it…BAHAHAHA!
“OME!!! YOU PEOPLE HAVE NO LIVES. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO YOUR OPINION BECAUSE IT’S OBVIOUSLY WRONG!!! EVERYONE ELSE LIKES IT!! YOU’RE JUST JELLUS BECAUSE YOU’LL NEVER FIND TRUE LOVE!!!! YOU’LL NEVER BE AS GOOD LOOKING AS EDWARD OR BELLA AND YOU’LL NEVER BE AS WEALTHY AND FAMOUS AS STEPHANIE MEYER!!! SCREW YOU ALL!!!!”
firstly, what does OME stand for? Oh My Easterbunny???
secondly “EVERYONE ELSE LIKES IT” is clearly inaccurate, as that comment was addressed to multiple people, so clearly not everyone likes it…
and thirdly ‘YOU’LL NEVER BE AS GOOD LOOKING AS EDWARD OR BELLA’ you do realise they’re fictional??? they aren’t actually real people… just thought i should clear that up for you
“The girls who look at Bella as a hero for overcoming what she has.” Overcoming what? her mother’s marriage to a decent guy? her father’s eagerness to make her happy? (he bought her a freakin car!!!) or the fact that everyone in the town loves her despite being a rude, obnoxious, self-centered cow who only thinks about herself? You can’t deny Bella’s attitude is uncalled for. Everyone just wants to make her happy, but she only thinks about herself. She doesn’t even care for the other vampires. Rosalie can’t stand her, and her presence causes Jasper physical pain, but she insists on hanging around
Actually, the article is pretty superfluous. To write Twilight-caliber fiction, all you have to do is EAT a Thesaurus, and you’ll poop out the next book in the series.
You, my friend, are a genius.
The simple act of so many people adoring this ‘amazing, beautiful, romantic’ series is just embarrassing to any open-minded, feminist, individual thinker in today’s age.
And to think that a book like this is compared to literary classics and new-age phenomenon like Harry Potter?
I scoff, rage, and blush whenever I hear teenage girls my age gushing about this.
It’s mortifying to be branded by adults or teachers as enjoying or even having read an of these books.
And I’ve seen older, married women in their MID-THIRTY’S reading these books.
Sparkling vampires? Our generation continues to deface age-old classics and produce more thoughtless junk than our ancestors ever though possible.
I am so very very scared for the future.
I read this series because someone said I couldnt judge it unless I had read it. And reading it became all the more worthwhile when I read your reviews and knew exactly what you were talking about.
The only way I can find within myself to excuse the existance of this book is to say that it should have been a $2 paper back in a chemist next to the Mills and Boons. I am aware that the popularity of this book was a shock even to Stephanie Meyer. Can I forgive her that much for the creation of this self insertion fantasy, destruction of women’s emotional respect and support of physically and emotionally abusive relationships (when I read about how she was kidnapped and her car altered I wanted to scream and stop the insanity right there, instead i shivered, swallowed the bile and read on).
I am reminded so much of my teenage days, the wanting to hurt myself because I couldnt be with the one I loved, the tempting death just so he would come running to save me….
And because of this. They put me into therapy.
THERAPY!!! Because it is not healthy!!!!
When I was 17, I was charged with emotion, desperate and obsessed with my love object. I would contemplate death, often, because life was too unbearable without him….. This was not something that should have been supported, I was put onto medication and strongly counciled.
Eventually THANK GOD my adolescent hormones calmed down and reason returned and I moved on and had healthy happy relationships!
But there are still young people out there, with unreasonable ideas and feelings access to knives!
The Twilight series is an insightful look at the depressed mind and its willing submission to be abused by agressive dominant males. I recommend it for all school councilors and mental aids working in adolescent fields.
Adults can read it with the aspect that its silly and petty and not take it as seriously. But we all know that teenagers would never take this seriously… and that people wouldnt promote young people taking it seriously…. and that there isnt a mass hallucination engulfing the earth with the ludacracy that this is isnightful reading.
This book proves to me the one thing I already knew about Humanity… we’re all pretty thick really.
I work as a part-time editor and the paragraph you mention as an example of Ms Meyer’s book is one of the things that prove that Twilight is a not so carefully written book.
“He lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted, incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare. His glistening, pale lavender lids were shut, though of course he didn’t sleep. A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal.
“incandescent”: It’s used out of context. A lightbulb can be called incandescent because “it emits light as a result of being heated”(Webster’s), but it certainly cannot be applied to a person’s description.
“A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal”: It’s a pretty good picture though it losses most of its impact by the earlier use of the adjectives “incandescent”, “scintillating”, “glistening”.
If you read it after omitting those three adjectives, doesn’t it sound better? “He lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted chest, his arms bare. His pale lavender lids were shut, though of course he didn’t sleep. A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal.”
Baha. If I could high-five you, I would. Now maybe I can write a best seller, too.
Seriously? You probably just wasted 30 minutes out of your life to go and write a hate article about The Twilight Saga? Don’t you have anything better to do? How sad. Poor you. Listen, while you’re going to get life, I’ll tell you what I think. Twilight isn’t Pride and Prejudice. It isn’t Wuthering Heights, and it certainly isn’t Shakespeare, but it’s well written. I believe so anyway, and Stephenie Meyer isn’t trying to turn teenage girls into man-depend, love sick puppies. This is work of FICTION. So what if not all of the science is correct? Who cares if sperm dies in 3 days? If that’s your own scientific issue with these books, you’re obviously delusional. Hmm….did you forget that this book is about vampires? Oh, the vampires are okay, as long as they don’t screw up the life of the sperm! How dare they! Oh, and one more thing, although I’m sure I could go on all day; Edward does not save Bella. She saves him repeatedly throughout the series, and if you got down off of your high horse long enough yo actually read them, then you would have realized that. Find something better to do with your time, and I’m pretty sure bashing Twilight isn’t it.
Now I am a fan of the Twilight series (but don’t worry I’m not going to turn into an outraged fan girl on you – those people scare even me) but I have to agree the writing isn’t the best. To be honese it’s the sort of book you have to just sit back and enjoy and not take seriously.
Skim-reading helps too – just skip over all the unneeded lines/words
bahahahaha.. first of all, lola at OME (Oh my easterbunny) fellas, you crack me up.. but seriously the article was hilarious. . It was nice to read the article just for laughs. . Even though I feel sorry for Stephenie “Many-Syllable” Meyers, what the heck, she deserves all the bashing. . Although I do not want to vehemently voice my opinions against the lovey-dovey series, I did find the whole thing absurd to say the very least and outrageous at best. . and especially when Reneesme “break oh break opens” her all-too-good-natured mommy’s uterus . . may be am just a jerk, but really it was so very funny. gads, what was she thinking and as for u kellen, seriously cool article man, I too want to write a best-selling list now, where did I keep my thesarus?
and katie crowley, miss. . really just drop it, before calling kellen jobless, might I ask you what were you doing in this website commenting on his “boring” article when you were hard pressed for time? what compelled you to show your distaste to this article when you were so busy getting a life?! lola, well . . kellen love, you’re the best. . am certainly waiting to read more of your stuff 
Anytime I hear “Twilight” or any thing related I shudder.The book made my eyes bleed and running for the mind bleach (I read about half way into the first book,just to see whats the hype was).I just got done watching Oprah with Myers has her guest.Myers admitting that she never read or wrote anything about vampires,and going into about how one of her dreams made her think of Edward. For real coming from a old school goth (like from The Cure era) VAMPIRES DO NOT FREEKIN’ SPARKLE IN SUN!They burn or in the case of Bram Stoker’s Dracula they are weaker and do not go out.I would not be so bent if she made Edward into say a faerie (witch he really is),but she had to tread into something that the literary police should have arrested her unleashing onto this world.
Granted,I am no writer that is fine because I do not plan on writing a book she should have followed then same.To make long short when real writers like Steven King says you have no business making a book you should take heed.
Couldn’t be done better.
Katie Crowley—
Why people keep assuming that they get to decide that writing an article that expresses a negative opinion is a waste of time and that the person doing it should get a life is beyond me. Care to explain where you get the arrogance to dictate what Ms. Rice should do with her time?
No, Stephenie Meyer probably isn’t trying to do anything negative to young girls. That doesn’t change the fact that she is. Every time a reader of the Twilight series claims that they want someone just like Edward and that his relationship with Bella has set a new, higher standard for all relationships ever, that’s another sign of what a damaging message these books are sending, because Edward is not romantic; he’s the archetypal abusive partner.
“This is work of FICTION. So what if not all of the science is correct? Who cares if sperm dies in 3 days? If that’s your own scientific issue with these books, you’re obviously delusional.”
What on earth are you talking about? Sperm *does* only survive three days. How is pointing out a glaring scientific error in any way “delusional”? It *is* fiction, and writers are welcome to play with scientific (/historical/geographical/sociological/etc.) fact so long as the rules still make sense in the context of their fictional world. Meyer’s fictional world does not make scientific sense, or any other sort of sense. She is a bad writer who didn’t do her research or satisfactorily close plot holes. That’s a perfectly legitimate complaint.
“Edward does not save Bella.”
Um, yes, he does. Multiple times.
“She saves him repeatedly throughout the series,”
Let’s allow for the end of New Moon where Bella’s stupidity leads to a contrived almost-suicide attempt on Edward’s part. Other than that, can you point out a single time where Edward would be killed or at least seriously harmed if Bella were not there?
“if you got down off of your high horse long enough yo actually read them, then you would have realized that.”
It is very, very obvious that Kellen Rice *has* read the series, and apparently read them more closely than you, since she hasn’t resorted to talking about things that didn’t happen.
Thank you Kellen Rice 8D
I’M OFF TO WRITE MY PURRFECT DAZZLING GLORIOUS UHMAYZING BOOK, IT’LL BE JUST LIKE TWATLIGHT <3