Ok, FIRST of all let me begin with my problem with it. The twilight books have got to be the biggest overrated piles of crapola i have ever read. But, hey, thats not my problem, a bad book is a bad book - what really pisses me off about them is that they are so popular despite this, and then i realised why. (Oh, you're waving the opinion card? Keep reading) The author is adept at the manipulation of her target audience. NOTHING more, the creativity in those books is shockingly cheesy and her application of the 'Gothic vampire love story' genre (yes i can call it a ****ing genre, thats how many times its been used) is predictable and gives light to how utterly ridiculous the fact that the author makes so much money is. They are CLEARLY written to appeal to her (well researched) target audience, of which may i add is vulnerable teenage girls. Whats wrong with having such a chosen market? Well, it means she gets away with writing terrible literature, and no, this isnt opinion, i have seen more creative stuff written by people in college. The genre, the theme, the characters, the plot, its ALL predictable to the extent that half the people i ask about it say that they had of course guessed the end by 1/4 through the whole thing. But, with a happy smile and a nod of 'it doesnt matter how predictable it is, I still love it' glance from about every girl i talk to about it - It really did hit me why they were selling like hotcakes. Its simply the romantic 'subplot', i wouldnt even call it a subplot which the author has the manipulative air of suggesting.. The rest of the linear tripe is simply there to provide a stage, a preface, a treadmill of predictability for the angsty teen romance to jog relentlessly over. BOOM, thats the majority of your audience sorted. Teenage girls who would love the idea of falling in love with a truely unique 'man' and having more meaning in their lives than going out to parties every night. Their jouls hit the page as they read anything remotely 'relationship' related, a character takes a shirt off, does what they expected him to do, but they feint anyway and then go buy the sequel. So. What about the rest of its sales? Well, like every piece of well selling ficiton, there are still others outside of its intended audience who will buy it. Im sure there are many men who are open to the idea of the vampire genre, and thats where the 'Main' (its not the ****-ing main) plotline comes in. They read it all, enjoy the more genre/story related parts, hell, everyone loves vampires, and a lot of people love werewolves, that alone is enough to attract some of its 'other' audience, so along it rolls on its well oiled audience manipulation wheels to further wealth. But hey, who cares if its badly written? Who cares if its predictable? It drives home with a romantic plot of which is adept at reaching out to a specific audience, an audience of whom the majority of which dont give a toss. And it does it all sucessfully, despite being utter tripe. So yeah. **** twilight. The money its making would have gone to much better use elsewhere.
Hey guess what? I am neither a teenager, nor am I a female. I think twilight is awesome. So you need to GTFO. Poorly written to you, who gives you the right to say with such zeal that she is a terrible writer? If you don't like them, THEN DON'T READ THEM! I love vampires, everyone on this site knows it, 99.9% of people in general who know me know this about me. I prefer romantic vampire novels over the horror ones, because that's the way vampires really are. Being vampiric is poetically romantic in itself. I bet you loved Bram Stoker don't you? Dracula? Psh, was horrible in my opinion. I however don't make a thread about it. Dracula is way more popular then Twilight is. Yet you don't address that at all. Name some vampire animes/books/movies that you like.
Indeed, i covered the other audience. You read them because you like vampires, you like the genre. Just like a boy who loves dinosaurs would love jurassic park, the creativity and predictability, and all the other factors that make up essentially if the piece (whatever it may be) is well made or not dont affect the forming of your opinion. Predictability, and a lack of creativity has nothing to do with opinion. If you want to learn what is well written literature i suggest you start at what they base 'a good piece of writing' as being on at competitions perhaps. Again, its as if you didnt read half of my post - she writes predictably, she abuses a genre that has been used to death. Im not going to tell you in different words why shes a terrible writer (excluding opinion) when i just did at the thread opening. Its a bit late now isnt it? Seriously though, this is a forum, im allowed to discuss this appropriatly. Telling a critic to not read a piece is like telling your self to not hate mondays, you're just gonna wake up on the next monday and be angry about the same things. You're not part of the audience that the author is abusing to reach high sales, you're a minority, a happy minority, but not the minority that im specifically ranting about. You would do well to argue instead that your love of vampires is on the same level as the love for a romantic plot. Yes, but that doesnt change the fact that the books are predictable and un creative does it? That doesnt change the fact that the author is using a tried and tried again genre and basic themes? Even taking essential plot lines from other books of its genre? Again, a kid who loves dinosaurs is gonna love jurassic park, regardless if its badly written and predictable. Dracula was a triumph for its age, it was creative and shocking which succeeded in scaring its audience on all levels. Do i enjoy it now? No, its kinda boring, but this is a result of it being outside of our current age period. To tell you the truth though, there are thousands of things like Twilight that you could pull up and say 'Hey, why dont you have a go at this! it does exactly the same things as Twilight' But when it comes down to it, twilight sums it all up, i see it all over the news, it gets hammered into my head, and its enough to drive my hatred for it in this thread. (Main point) I frankly dont. However, im sitting here thinking, everyone loves some things.. Even if they are **** they can still be entertaining. Hell, i'll meet you half way here, i enjoyed the original Blade. It was predictable, it was badly made, so to speak, but you know what? It was pointed out to be so, it was put in at ground level and everyone accepted that it really wasnt well made. Thats where Twilight is different. The majority of creations that only achieve on the entertainment level, and fail on the basic principals of what makes them 'skilled' or 'talented' creations are hammered down, they are not hyped, they are not trailing millions of angsty female fans like Twilight is. I think i perhaps put my point across better in this last paragraph..
+1 for Ren on this one (HOLY ****). She's an absolutely horrible writer, her storytelling needs an insane amount of work, and seriously, sparkly vampires? wat. The whole phenom surrounding the Twilight series is nothing more than 'my group of friends read it and loved it so I do too.' Problem is, everyone thinks that. Bram Stoker's Dracula is a masterpiece. While that story will last nearly forever, Twilight will be forgotten in five years by everyone. You think maybe there's a reason for that? I do.
/agrees with this thread. saw the movie.. the only good thing about it is that i didnt have to "Watch" it due to me being there with my girlfriend but from what i saw.. shiny vampires = fail.
Who cares if an author publishes a bad book. I mean if it makes enough money then why not? If these books aren't your flavor of fiction then maybe its time you upgraded to a higher form of literature? To be honest with you the majority of the books that get famous aren't considered well written for many reasons. Doesn't mean they aren't good books. The sales say if its good or not. However, the well written aspect of a book isn't judged by the customers, but by other authors who have experience writing. I doubt you have much experience in writing. I'm not saying your bad at it or that you don't write. I'm just saying I doubt you have ever published anything. So until you do, or until you get a degree that says you know what your talking about. You should keep your opinion to your self until your more researched, and along with that have facts as to how to prove your point. If you want examples of how to bash a famous story in an acceptable form. Look up the people who say Stephen King is a fraud. Majority of people who have read his books won't agree. How ever scholars who have degrees and know what they are talking about usually do agree. Basically what I am saying to you is simple. Unless you have a similar accomplishment as this writer. You shouldn't bash her publicly. Because the fact that she got published at all and was able to attract an audience like she did means she IS successful, and the story is too. As far as the quality of the story... Well.. It's like a lot of things. The people who know the most about the subject question it, and the people who don't enjoy it. So just leave it alone until you got a more intelligent way to bash.
Jshep89, I'm sorry, but you're completely wrong. Sales are NOT an indication of quality. Look at the second Matrix film. Or Soulja Boy's record sales. Or the amount of domestic truck sales. Basically, what you're saying is you can't boast if you can't beat. This is utterly wrong. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable in literary techniques, I've written a few indie book review for my school's paper, I know exactly what I'm talking about. The series isn't popular because of it's inventive storyline (Vampires+Harlequin romance novel-risque scenes=Twilight), it's not popular because of her magnificent writing abilities (Christopher Paolini [Eregon] who's somewhat a joke is a better writer), it's popular because it fills a niche which has exploded. There's no skill involved, there's no clever marketing scheme, there's blatant whoring of the IP.
I am not saying you can't boast if you can't beat. What I am saying if you have never even beat the drum before then you shouldn't bring down someone who has done it and made something of them self's. Theirs obviously people out there who do enjoy the series. They enjoy the way its written and how the plot line goes. These people are not your experienced readers. These aren't people who read books daily. They are regular people who found a book that appealed to them and they started reading it. Basically what YOUR saying is that they are stupid or uneducated because they enjoy the book. Just because your opinion is that the book is bad doesn't mean its fact. Yeah some people don't like it, however a lot of people do. Success comes from the money you get from the product you produce. So why do you go so far to try and bash this book? If your opinion is that you didn't like it. Then okay state it as YOUR opinion. Do not try and state it as fact, because unless you are in a similar field your opinion isn't anywhere close to fact. So what if the story was written for teenagers. The author isn't the first to try at this audience, and for some reason because she's successful you feel the need to bash all her readers (Which are not on the same level of education as you. Again THEY ARE TEENAGERS!) for enjoying a story? Who cares if they enjoy it. It is NONE of your business. Your opinion is NOT fact, and unless you beat the same kind of drum as the author, and been recognized for it (I'm not saying been successful, but at the very least published.) then you shouldn't put your opinion has hard fact. Which Renatus is clearly doing. The people who read this are kids, and for a children's book for people from the ages of say 9-14 I would say its written well enough. Maybe not for someone say 17 and up, but definitely good enough for kids still in middle school.
As i said, i dont care if she publishes a bad book - i care if it becomes the thing everyone flocks to because their friends flock to it or because it oils their ego, despite being terrible. In a manner of speaking, justice is not being served by having it paraded over the news like its the next 'to kill a mocking bird'. I hate the smell of ****, but i hate it even more when people pretend it smells nice, or that there is no smell at all. Ok, for starters - no, i have never attempted to get anything published. Secondly, this is irrelevant, it doesnt take a line of publification trailing behind someone to point out the ineptitudes of this author. She fails on the basics, as i explained in my original post, i have written a bit, and frankly, you dont even need to have much writing experience to be able to point out the flaws in her writing. Infact, the very point that people can pick up on these things and point out that hey, this was predicable as me going downstairs to get another Kitkat, really does give light to how... (I hate to say it).. Basic, her writing really is. Erh, no. Read the above and dont pretend that her work requires anything more than knowledge of the alphabet to see the holes. Regardless; I have done plenty of research, please, read my original post - it doesnt take much research or even logic to point out how shes being carried by her intelligent abusual of the female teen audience. Infact my sister even reminded me of this after she read it. In respect to facts. I dont have time to sit here and take quotes from the text then analyse why the quotes make that paragraph a bad one, or why that paragraph fails at plot. It would simply take ages. If you want evidence - go read the books yourself. If you dont pick up on why its badly written literature, then i suggest you do some research of your own about badly written literature. I'll look into it, regardless you do nothing to address my points about predictability or lack of creativity in Twilight, im sorry, but pretending that I need some kind of elitist knowledge to pick this stuff up does not constitute an argument here. See above. No you silly billy*, i never said she wasnt successful. And if the basis she attracts that large audience on is a terrible use of good marketing and not intelligent literature then i have every right to point this out. The story being sucessful too is simply a secondary means of the romance plot being enjoyed by the target audience, that does nothing to change the fact that its badly written drivel. More intelligent way to bash it? How would you like me to do it? Would you like a 10 page essay with quotes proving with evidence and sources which prove that it is badly written and predictable? Im sorry, but the fact that you dont realise how obviously badly its written simply by reading it yourself is leading me to think that perhaps you didnt read them at all. Or, you didnt read my original post in entirety.
Never read the books, but saw the movie. And while the action scenes were interesting, the 'shiny vampire' thing completely kept me from taking the rest of the movie seriously. That explanation for staying out of the sun was so horribly stupid. Personally, I'd rather see Eragon again: dragons > vampires.
I am doing no such thing. I'm saying the book, as a literary object, sucks large hairy taper balls. Yeah. I'm a teenager too son. Age is no excuse. They make it my business by their unfailing repetition of merchandise, Team Jacob ****e, and overall fangirling. They make it my business by freaking out whenever there's a trailer for the next film on TV or at a movie. They make it my business when a vampire pretty boy is on my goddamn cup at 711. My opinion, though not fact, is echoed by most educated readers. Eventually, it gets difficult to deny. And yes, I am actually published. Not a novel, no, but a few research papers. Have you, by chance, read these books? They are most definitely not written for a 9 year old.
I did read your post and I understand why you say it's a bad book. I'm not saying its a master piece what I am saying is that your opinion is not fact. Maybe its predictable by you because you have read higher forms of literature. This isn't the first book to be published towards a particular audience. Authors do it ALL the time, and the fact that the audience enjoyed it the way it does says that it was well written. If the author was able to catch the attention of the readers she was targeting then I don't see what the whole issue is. She isn't the first to do this, and the publicity that followed the books success was due to it being enjoyed by that audience. Which as I said in my previous post is teenagers, and these aren't your head of the class teenagers either. They are your average middle school students who don't have the ability to under stand what most adults consider a well written novel. The reason I would say it is well written is that it gets kids who are only again in middle school to understand it. That alone means that in a way it is written well, because the author was able to create a story capable of catching the attention of extremely young readers. Then get them to continue reading. Which in my opinion is good considering how hard it is to get kids in that age group to enjoy reading in the first place. As for people flocking to the store and buying it. Who cares? If these are kid's who are eleven to fourteen so what? As for older people who buy it, and give it good praise. So what? If like you say the majority of the people who enjoy this are kids who don't have the ability to read more advanced plot, and can't keep up with a more unpredictable story line. As for the adult's who read it well as you said it is a "minority" of course there are going to be adult's who find interest in it. Your bashing a childrens book for being successful. Which if your going to do that why not also bash Harry Potter and Ender's Game. Both of those books are extremely predictable to anyone ahead the age group it was written for. It doesn't mean they are bad pieces of literature. It just means that its not intended for adults. It just means when the author chose to write the story he or she decided that it should be for a certain age group and that they should write it in a manner so those who fall into that age group can best understand it. For this story obviously it was by making a less complex storyline, a more childish form of dialogue that the age group can relate to, taking a story teenagers are into to help grab their attention, and more predictable out comes for people in that age group to understand. The fact that she was able to follow these kind of guidelines and still come up with a story that even hit the book stores is unbelievable. Anyone who has ever worked with this age group knows how hard it is to get them to pay attention. Let alone care about anything that might help educate them. This author was able to get teenagers to read instead of doing things like video games or other things that might get them away from taking interest in school. The author was able to reach this age group very easily, and keep them interested in the story. It's because of its success in the age group that you see it on the news. It may not be the master piece of literature for our century. But that doesn't make it a bad book, and if you spent money on the book to read it only to find out it was a childrens book. Then that is your fault for not reading the back cover or taking ten minutes to flip through the pages at your local bookstore. Maybe a college student could come up with this story, and maybe its plot is extremely simple. However the fact still stands that it was able to take the interest of particular audience which before hand didn't really care for books at all. Then get them to keep interest for her other novels is an accomplishment. If it was so easy to get these kids interested in books then the text books you see in middle school classrooms would be taken more seriously by the students reading them. This isn't the only story like this however it is one of the few to capture an audience. So no its not a good book for you or people who are older, but its still a good book to teenagers.
These are not educated readers! They are below average and very hard to reach. If you are a teenager and think this is a bad book then maybe your just more mature then the average teenager. Most teenager's hardly read at all so again the fact that this author was able to get them to sit through more then one novel says that there was some effort put into writing it.
Yep, overrated. Definitely. A fan girl who's overly obsessed with a charming, affable guy who so happens possess extraordinary powers and cannot age. There will be trials and tribulations in their path of love. Not bored yet? The movie is just terrible, sub par effort to recreate something that is horrible to begin with results in a record low novel to film adaptation that received scorn from even the leninent reviewers. Yup, it's that bad. If you had a choice, just throw the film out, it's not worth crap.
At least a point were most people can agree, Twilight sucks really hard, and barely passes off the barrier of subliterature, or paraliterature. I didn´t even took the bother to read them after a friend told me about them, just by reading the plot in wiki was more than enough. Whoever wrote that was brilliant enough to fool large groups of people with the same kind of bull**** again...
