How To Achieve Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Writing Success
Some writers struggle for decades, turning out novels, short stories, submitting to literary journals, agents and publishers, collecting small royalty payments here and there and working their 9 to 5 job for the duration of their writing careers. Others have a dream about a vampire who loves a human but wants to drink her blood, knock a novel out in three months and sell it for a $750,000 advance. Stephenie Meyer falls into the latter category, which alone is enough to make a vast number of less fiscally successful authors want to stab her with a blunt crucifix.
Twilight, in case you have been hiding under a rock with your ears plugged to the shrieking of hundreds of thousands of teen girls, is a tale of a fairly whiny teenage girl with low self esteem falling obsessively, head over heels in love with Edward, a brooding vampire whose family conveniently only drink animal blood and enjoy the all American sport of baseball as a past time.
Stephenie Meyer is quite often compared to JK Rowling due to the fact that her accessible and popular books have found a widespread fanatical following worldwide. Opinions on the caliber of her writing vary, with Stephen King famously quoted as saying: "Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn. She's not very good."
The rub here, the bitter pill for creative writing majors to swallow is that it doesn't matter whether or not Meyer's writing is "good". All that matters is whether or not it can draw its audience into this fantasy world where they can be loved by this superhuman beautiful vampire man for all eternity. Judging by the sheer popularity of the series, it is obvious that Meyer's writing more than suffices on this front.
The formula:
- Take an existing best selling classic novel plot. (Twilight was based on Pride and Prejudice, and the ensuing books in the series took their cues from other classics such as Romeo and Juliet, and Wuthering Heights.)
- Add a pinch of the supernatural and a heavy dose of wish fulfillment.
- Knock that sucker out. Don't worry about being "literary", in fact, eschew all literary aspirations, write for the common man. Most importantly, finish the damn thing. (Writers know what I am talking about.)
Is it really this easy? Keep an eye out for my upcoming novel: 'Netherworld', the story of an average middle aged divorcee office assistant who discovers that her sexy brooding boss is a daemon king.
