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What a well written review!
As fanaticism for the Twilight series explodes, teen writers clamor to write the next best-seller. Peruse any Twilight forum and you'll find a plethora of fan-fiction and vampire-related novels citing Twilight as the deity of good writing.
If you're looking for publication, though, please look further than Twilight for examples of good writing. It might be full of steamy vampire romance, but it's also packed with overused adjectives and cliches.
Stephenie Meyer's abuse of the basic adjective is consistent throughout the book. They yank the reader away from the story, one of the Seven Deadly Sins of Writing.
Not only does Ms. Meyer use red as tomatoes, rock hard, ice cold and coal black in her list of "Gee, I couldn't think of what to write, so I typed cliches into Google" but she also overuses Bella's status as damsel-in-distress. True love always seems to prevail and -- my favorite -- no matter how many times average Bella is told she's beautiful, she insists she's ugly.
Ms. Meyer also has her characters hiss, growl and laugh a sentence. It's a story with vampires and werewolves, but those attributions are simply melodramatic. Try hissing, growling or laughing your words. You cannot do it.
Although Ms. Meyer's work is a terrible example of writing, the books have become best-sellers by twisting familiar vampire lore and getting more teens to read.
If you take one inspiration from Ms. Meyer's writing, it should be this: Write what you want to write. As you do, I recommend searching for writing books, such as Stephen King's On Writing .
I am not an editor, nor do I claim to be one, but these are basic writing rules that all aspiring authors need to follow. Although Ms. Meyer's books are not the only ones that break these rules, it does not mean you are allowed to break them.
Remember, she is a best-selling author, and she'll sell, no matter how poor her writing is. Best-sellers do not essentially mean good writing -- just good concepts.
Amber Forbes is a senior at Harlem High School.
Comments
What a well written review!
How dare the Augusta Chronicle post an article about a book of vampires, werewolves and other beasts of Satan? This article needs to be taken off and we all need to pray for forgiveness. Our Lord will not look favorable at this.
Hey Amber, good article. You should refer Ms. Meyer to Naomi Williams.
Talkatoast - the walls of Jericho will suround you my friend! Hala Samila Gatchda Phlim!
Mr. Chin, you'll die into the ground and realize that what you believe isn't any different from Africans worshipping a sacred rock.
"Mr Chin" if that's even a real person on here, it's not that serious. You live in a world full of sinners including yourself and these "beasts of Satan" are fictional. If you ever seen one then I will be willing to change what I wrote. This is a great article. I was just speaking with some "Twilight" addicts yesterday.
I haven't read the Twlight series and honestly have no intention of reading the books either. The reason I wanted to comment on your article is because I have seen the phenomon that you're talking about with Twlight. I think in a lot of ways what happened is that Harry Potter was coming to an end so teens were looking for another series along in the same genre and came across Twlight and latched on to it. The result is the fans (derived from Fantic) are caught up in the hype. Especially with the new movie coming out. Add to that the fact that there seems to be a natural instinic to want to be fit-in and especially in high school. And I think that is probably the reason for the popularity of the books. Both those who love the books and those who hate the books. Same thing happened with the Harry Potter series, which on the whole was really written and made reading popular. Not just something that the nerdy kids with glasses and no friends do.
An excellent article. Congratulations. Well written, well researched.
Anthony James Barnett - author
http://anthonyjamesbarnett.co.uk
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