Twilight Revelations

So I had an epiphany today.  In one of my many imaginary conversations (yes, they answer back, but only because I control what they're saying), I think I finally realized why the Twilight books are so popular.  The Harry Potter books are best-sellers because the world is richly imagined and detailed and well-described.  The plots are solid and satisfying (except for the last one), and the characters are fully-developed, grow and change in response to the events of the plot and the changes of the other characters.  And, they're really well written.  J. K. Rowling has an excellent voice and writing style, and is a pleasure to read.

Dan Brown (The da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, etc.), on the other hand, has formulaic plots--I've actually read all five of his novels, and they're all set over 24 hours, with lots of twists and turns, but always the same twists and turns.  His characters are also unexceptional.  They're developed, but they're not deep; there's no richness of character to them. They may have a past, but the reader is only privy to that history if something in it can assist in the action.  But, especially starting with Angels and Demons, Brown's writing style and voice is intriguing.  He writes very short chapters, and swaps between characters including the "villain" (or villains), who is not yet revealed to the reader (if, however, you've read a couple of Brown's books, you can rapidly figure out who the villain is because it's always the same character).  He also has a sense of humor, and has even mocked his previous works.  This voice and writing style makes him easy, and reasonably pleasant to read.  He writes basic thrillers, which isn't a bad thing.

Stephenie Meyer (who, amongst her many literary sins, was given a name that was misspelled), does not have--at least as evidenced by the Twilight books, as I haven't been able to bring myself to read The Host--richly detailed worlds, deep characters who grow and learn, or a decent writing style.  So why is she so popular?  Well, that was my epiphany.

Her world is our world.  That world is the Pacific Northwest, which, if you haven't been there, is easily imaginable by most people.  It's rainy and dreary all the time (not in reality).  Most people have experienced at least a little bit of that.  There's nothing exciting about it whatsoever.  Her characters are flat and one-dimensional.  They have basically no interesting traits (unless they're the vamps, who have supernatural abilities, but those basically only serve to explain why they're wealthy or know everything--ways to forward the plot or explain events, but they don't really enrich the characters) and they have boring histories (even the vamps are fairly uninteresting).  The werewolves could be interesting, but as their histories are tied into the vampires, that falls flat and boring as well.   Ultimately, though there is action in the books, the plots are thin and poor retreads of other plots by better authors (Romeo and Juliet, for one).  And the characters do not grow or change from the action.  Edward is the same, one-dimensional, boring, obsessed with a girl character in the last book that he was in the first book.  The only change that Bella has is that a) she becomes a vampire and b) she has slightly more self-confidence. But she's still obsessed by Edward and has no defining traits of her own at the end, so really, not much change.  Worst of all, though, is that Meyer's voice and writing style are atrocious.  As I've previously mentioned (also here, which discusses talking around sex), she writes in first person, and does it badly.  Her language is clunky and uninteresting, and the first person voice enhances that (and also makes it harder to deepen a world, which I touched on in that first link).

So now that I've trashed Twilight, why are the novels so popular?  Simple.  Meyer left the characters, settings, and plot fairly empty so that the reader could put her or himself into one of the characters.  When there are no exceptional defining traits about a character, nothing unique or different about his or her circumstances, you can easily imagine yourself into that role.  Bella is nobody, so she can be anybody.  And if you choose to imagine yourself into Bella, well, Edward is plenty one-dimensional (and so obnoxiously nice and good), so that hottie you have a crush on can easily be Edward.  That hottie's a jerk, you say?  He never talks to anyone, you say?  Well, Edward was standoffish too--he didn't want to get close to anyone because he's a vampire.  Convenient, eh?  You can dump anyone you know into the characters, and because they don't do anything, you can imagine them to do what you want them to do.  They have no personalities, so you can fill them with the personalities you want.  And let's face it, if you don't like the weather of Forks, WA, you can even imagine that away pretty easily--or maybe that's just me because I know the Pacific NW weather.

I can't believe that I'm the first person to figure this out, and I'm sure I'm not, but I really can't believe it took me so long to realize this.  A part of me wonders if Meyer did this intentionally, but I don't think she did.  I just think she's not very good, and that was the happy (?) side-effect of her mediocre writing.

And no, I have not re-read the books.  Gag.