1. Most of the fans seem to be girls. Not a big problem, except that she seems to be missing about 50% of the YA demographic. I read somewhere that a female MC will not appeal to male YA readers, only to female YA readers, whereas a male MC will appeal to both. It's an interesting conundrum.
2. Stephanie Meyer has an interesting publication story for her first novel. Check out her website if you're not familiar with it - it's motivational for those of us who remain unpublished.
3. There's one particular part in the linked article that really caught my attention.
quote:Has anyone read these books? Can you confirm this? I can't see how hat level of detail would be even slightly readable - I try to show as much as possible when I write, and use body language and other non-verbal queues to get across attitude as much as possible without resorting to telling, but it sounds as if Ms. Meyer is going a little overboard with this.
"...and attribute their love of Meyer’s books to her “realistic” writing style. It’s not unusual in her books, which are 550 pages on average, for a scene to span twenty pages, long enough to mention every sound, every change in speaking tone, every infinitesimal change in facial expression. But what may come across as flat-footed to an adult reader seems to hold youngsters in a hypnotic sway. “It’s like you’re actually living it,” said a freckle-faced 13-year-old girl..."
4. People are calling her the second coming of JK Rowling. Did I miss the boat on this? I've never heard of this series before this article. Albeit I never heard of Harry Potter until the fourth book came out, but still.
Jayson Merryfield
As for the male/female MC split, yeah, it's kind of unfair but a well-known fact that if you want to have the widest appeal, you need a male MC. HOWEVER, women read more than men, especially as teenagers, so you're not losing 50% of your potential readership by appealing to girls. I don't know what the actual stats are on that, but you can get a solid, loyal following of teenage girls and there have historically been many more YA series geared for them than for boys. In fact, I seem to recall an agent at a conference telling us a few years back that there is a need for YA for boys, especialy on the younger side of the teenage scale.
As for the 20 pages to describe every sound in a scene...well, I haven't read them but I have trouble believing that this plays well for anyone, especially a teenager. As a teen, I proudly skimmed through long paragraphs and picked out what I perceived as the most important details. I had less patience then than I do now. I missed a lot in some books, not so much in others.
As for the description thing, I'd have to see it to make the call. I'm a very visual person, and if someone is describing something that doesn't jive with what they caused me to imagine, it bores me. I suppose I could conceive of someone controlling the description in such a way that that doesn't happen.
Like I was listening to an audiobook that mentioned Nineveh last night. Since I already have a mental picture of Nineveh in my head, their effort to describe it was laborious to get through. But I could imagine some things I wouldn't get tired of hearing described.
Still, all that said, I couldn't put them down. And that really is saying alot. Just to illustrate: in recent weeks I rented His Majesty's Dragon, read about 100 pages and lost interest. Then, I checked out The Naming by Alison Croggon. 50 pages or so, and set it aside. I even rented the classic Wizard of Earthsea. I didn't get 40 pages into that. It's still sitting on my nightstand, unfinished. THEN, I checked out Eclipse, the thrid book in the series and I finished it in 3 days.
Now, I know some will decry my lack of culture and appreciation for great literature. Go ahead, even though it is absolutely not true. I revel in many of the more dense literary works, but an irresistable story is hard to ignore, no matter what it's flaws may be. Two words. Harry Potter.
Just my personal opinion.
[This message has been edited by wrenbird (edited September 27, 2007).]
quote:
I've read this stuff! My daughter was bringing it home, and raving about it (she's 19). It is sllllooooowwwwww! Which means that the story arc is rather flat, with most of the detail devoted to character and setting. She had some nice Native American riffs included.
There's a niche for everything. If this sells, maybe Tolkien really would have sold in this century, too. Everyone says no way it would have sold, but who really knows?
I wondered at first if maybe it was just slow in places. Detail is a tool for pace and extending tensions, so I thought maybe that's what this author was doing. But from what Deb said, I guess not.
That's very interesting.
Maybe my automobile romance, the love affair between a Volvo and a Porche, just needs to be slower with lots of immersive details!
With that said, this might be another Harry Potter, at least for the teenage female populace, but it is far too soon to tell.
They're not the second coming of Rowling, but the one I've read is good, and my wife read the second two compulsively.
Yes, the books seem slow-paced, but I never found myself bored.
They're relatively slow to start. Maybe more people than you would expect are willing to get through the slow parts because she starts each novel with a 1-page prologue that is, essentially, the exact moment before the climax of the book, when bad things are about to happen, and then she goes back and tells you why that's happening.
(essentially the first book's prologue is "and then a very bad person came towards Bella and there was nothing she could do, he was going to murder her", a scene we don't reach for another 400 pages)
I would say there are definitely slow parts. The first half of books 1 and 2, I was essentially waiting for something interesting to happen, watching all the character-buiding going on with little to no actual plot (that I cared about anyway). We get to hear a lot of how beautiful and Godlike Edward Cullen, the vampire, is, because Bella is so googily over him. We get to hear about how horribly normal and unfascinating Bella is, because that's what she thinks about herself. We get to hear about Bella's fear of waking up one day to find Edward doesn't lover her anymore, even though he's more dependable and loyal than a golden retriever.
The thing is, despite all that, if you make it sufficiently far into the book, you really do care about the characters. And you wonder what all the rules are for her vampires (I'm not a huge vampire fan, but they seemed slightly unusual, not just the cut-and-paste vampire rules, but maybe that's just because I don't know any better.) And despite how slow it tends to go, it's an easy read. I don't want to make more Harry Potter comparisons, but it is kinda like reading Harry Potter. You see some literary things that make you wince, but you look past them.
I wouldn't say this is the next Harry Potter, but maybe it's too early to tell. By the time HP got to books this thick, each one left me thinking "OMG what happens next! I can't believe I have to wait to find out!!" but after reading all 3 Twilight books, which I admit I enjoyed thoroughly (and I'm male, btw) I finished the 3rd one thinking "wow pretty good. Wonder what'll happen now..."
It's late and my brain is tired. I'll stop rambling now.
as for Twilight i have heard of it but never read it. some of my friends have said it is good, and the others said it was alright. whenever i read it i will make up my own mind.
Rommel Fenrir Wolf II
quote:
Maybe more people than you would expect are willing to get through the slow parts because she starts each novel with a 1-page prologue that is, essentially, the exact moment before the climax of the book, when bad things are about to happen, and then she goes back and tells you why that's happening.
Oooohhhh...all right, this series just lost any possibility of my reading it. I absolutely HATE this approach. It completely fail to create the proper dramatic tension (because when they first tell you about bad things, you aren't emotionally invested in them), but then it snail. Often, these beginning are done this way to give the author time to snail crawl through background information and info dumps.
Inevitably, TV shows have an episode formatted that way too. They always make me cringe and it's almost never necessary, especially since with a TV show, you are already emotionally invested in the situation and already motivad to wade through whatever real opening they have to get to the action.
However, I found it somewhat pointless. The description is so vauge that it really doesn't mean much to you. If I had picked up the book in the bookstore, having never heard of it, and read the prologue, I don't think it would make me say, "Oh, I have to read this now."
So, I guess I'm defending Meyer's choice, but also saying that it probably didn't have the desired effect on me, so she could have done without it.
[This message has been edited by wrenbird (edited September 28, 2007).]
No, Stephenie (that's the correct spelling) Meyer is not like R.L. Stine, she's actually good.
If you ignored the prologue/tease thingy, which is really only a paragraph anyway, it wouldn't change the book. I really enjoyed it, I liked the character development, I liked the love story, I liked the climax. You actually get to know and care about the two leads. And I think it adds to the vampire mythos very well with Meyer's take on vampires and how this particular group of vampires has evolved.
I think of it like this. The teaser has two possibilities.
1. It creates dramatic tension
or
2. It does not.
I don't think Meyers can win in this case, according to me, because if it does create dramatic tension, that usually requires something to be spoiled on some level. And I hate spoilers, even intentional ones. And if it doesn't spoil anything, and correlatively doesn't have any dramatic tension, then it is uninteresting and serves no purpose in being there, chopped out of context.
Ultimately, no matter which direction it errs, it isn't worth it.
[This message has been edited by Zero (edited September 28, 2007).]
However, I don't mind some types of prologues. If it is the inciting incident like THE murder or when John learns for the first time he's an alien. Okay. Then chapter one starts with the police finding the body or John sneaking around Area 51 to find his father.
In both cases there is a reason to put the story event in a prologue -- a large break in time or pov or something.
So, I've sampled. I read the prologue/teaser. Hated it. Why? I think because it was so blatant. It didn't really show a story incident or a plot point. Just was there to yank my chain to get me to worry about the pov. Didn't work.
Oh well. I never buy a book or pass on because of a prologue anyway. A lot of times I skip the prologue and head for the opening of chapter one. That's more indicative of the novel.
TWILIGHT'S chapter one was okay. As I read along I felt secure with the author's writing. I don't know how to say it otherwise. It was good enough that I trust the author won't let me down -- even though many have after a good first chapter.
And where does a character story begin? You've got to get out why they are telling the story (particularly in 1st person), then it can happen that the POV character reflects on how they got there. At least, I think that's why Nick Carraway does it.
I wonder if Twilight has an amazing plot, or compelling characters, or if maybe success is somewhat random/lucky. Maybe it's like what one of you said, can't remember who, but that it has a flare of fantasy in an otherwise normal (identifiable) world.