I'm partway into the second Twilight novel - my God, what awful purple prose.

[Rabrrrrrr]

And yet, I can't put the damn things down. I started on Thanksgiving!

Like a Dan Brown book, they're written in an immediate style that keeps me turning pages; while simultaneously groaning over the lurid writing, 4th-grade vocabulary, wooden characters, and lack of (real) emotional depth.

She's a crappy writer, but a darn good story spinner.

[keroro gunsou]

1. my sister told me

that the twilight series might would have been better if a competent writer was at the helm... though i disagree... it has to be a competent writer with some fucking clue about the whole vampire mythos....

[Mutley]

2. I got sucked in just like you.

And the whole time I was reading them I couldn't stop thinking about how terrible it was, but I couldn't STOP reading them. I read all four in less than a month.

AND I went to see the movie that just came out.

What is wrong with me?! :cry:

[rcrush]

3. Are the chapters two pages long like in DaVinci Code?

[MrCoffee]

5. Those little mini-chapters are still what annoy me the most about that pile of crap.

And there's a lot about it that annoys me.

[EOTE]

4. I remorsefully read the first two books.

Like you, I don't really know why, the bulk of it is just utter crap. And Stephenie Meyer is truly awful at writing anything pertaining to action. I know that car chases aren't typically very good in books and that the immediacy of film is really a much better medium for them, but the car chase in New Moon was the most boring and pathetic "action" scene I've ever read in my life. It was like by then she knew the books would be turned into movies, so she wanted something that would appeal to guys, so she gave it her best go. Her attempts at romance are only slightly better, but still damned unbelievable. I started reading a bit of the third book and I don't know if I'm going to go any further. I can luckily say that I've never paid for any of it, but even though I've invested a good amount of time reading the first two, I can't say it would be worth it to finish. Although I've read enough about the 4th book to make me somewhat interested in all the craziness. Sounds like some really sick Mormon porn. Maybe I'll skip directly to it. I haven't seen any of the movies, but if they make the 4th into a movie, I just might go see it for shits and giggles.

[PVnRT]

6. Let us know what you think of #4

Like when Edward rips Bella's baby out of the womb with his teeth, and then the werewolf-dude totally wants to fuck the baby.

[Fleshdancer]

11. way to spoil it for someone you know who's reading the series

:eyes:

[Orrex]

15. That's 110% not creepy at all.

[kiva]

7. I did that years ago with V.C. Andrew's

Flowers in the Attic series - read the first 3 books even though it was like watching a really bloody train wreck, just because you want to know how it ended. I swore never again, and thank you for the warning.

[rcrush]

8. I never read the book but I saw the first movie

I dunno man. Sparkly vampire dorks who play baseball and some girl who just cant stand to be away from her pale sparkle dork. It was more annoying than entertaining.

And whats up with the second movie? I saw the trailer and it looks like Sparkles the Vampire dumps her and she goes after the Wolfboy? Does she not like being single that much?

[phasma ex machina]

12. .

[NV Whino]

9. I read the first two

only because I bought the suckers. Silly me.

I have no intention of seeing the movies... even if they're free on Netflix.

[Fleshdancer]

10. Yep. Weird, isn't it?

It doesn't make sense, but you get sucked in pretty quickly. FWIW, the second book is the worst. The writing is bad through the whole series of course, but the story actually gets better.

:shrug:

[lifesbeautifulmagic]

13. Check this out

very, very funny writer blogging about reading Twilight. Very funny stuff.

http://vampirely.wordpress.com/

[Odin2005]

14. My latest crush loves the books.

She came to work today with a "Team Edwards" shirt! Us Aspies can be so cute with out "special interests, can't we? :rofl:

[Orrex]

18. Are you sure it wasn't a shirt from campaign 2008?

[Odin2005]

19. Nope. It was this:

[Flaxbee]

16. Haven't read them, but I did read most of J.K. Rowling.

Did you read any of the Harry Potter series? Do you think Rowling is a good writer?

Just wondering how the two compare...

[Orrex]

17. It's like comparing a writer with someone who should never be allowed to pen another word.

Not a fan of Harry Potter, but Ms. Rowling certainly knows how to craft a story.

[Flaxbee]

20. Good to know. I enjoyed the Potter books I read, mostly,

and admire Rowling's abilities. Will stay far away from these other ones.

[RoyGBiv]

21. They aren't in the same universe ...

Even if you are not a fan of Potter, at the very least Rowling has a vocabulary. With Meyer, the "4th grade" writing style quip above is only barely an exaggeration. I understand why the comparison is made, but it's damn near offensive to put the two side by side. The OP's comparison to Dan Brown is far more appropriate.

The difficulty with offering a critique of her books is that, as the OP said, they are decent stories, and the way they are written makes it hard to stop reading them if you recognize that the story is in there. (I mean, I keep reading them, even though on one level I absolutely hate them. I force myseld to do penance afterward by reading something written in Gaelic.) That makes them successful writing on one level. I think Meyer has a good imagination, that she has a decent story in her head somewhere, but her writing ability makes it nearly impossible to get it out. The style she uses, however, like Brown, makes her books page turners, so a reader who likes a good story and gets sucked into wanting to know what happens next ends up having an internal deliberation about whether the sheer awfulness of the writing is overpowered by the story that seems to be there. That debate continues throughout the length of the books, which of course distracts from them.

I dunno ... her writing is so bad I find it painful, but the ways in which it is bad are difficult to explain simply because she does have a creative streak that's hard to deny.

Another thing about the comparison of Meyer and Rowling is that Rowling got better as her stories progressed, which was partly a function of refining her talent with time and partly the success of her books prompting her editors and publisher to give her more free reign (and pages) to explore. There's a clear delineation in the series between "Prisoner" and "Goblet" due to this. The last chapter of "Prisoner" could have been an additional hundred pages or so. As the characters in the stories matured, so did the story and the writing itself.

Meyer, in my view, is just getting worse. She seems to view her success as validation of her bad prose and a motivation not to bother actually learning to write. As also implied above, she seems to be writing for the movies now, with the book form being secondary to that goal.