Recipe: Ingredients for a super blockbuster novel

[lobelia321]

I can't believe it. I'm reading Stephenie Meyer's Twilight. And enjoying it! Argh.



I first read about it in the fabulous magazine about and for women writing, mslexia. And then everyone's teenage daughter seemed to be wolfing it down.

Plus me.

Who am not a teenage daughter.

But clearly am (inside).

This novel is about a high school girl on the West coast of the United States of America, somewhere in the foggy north, who falls in love with a mysterious pale and beautiful boy who is a vampire. Yes. *groans* I hate vampire books. And now I am reading one.

A number of fascinating things about this super-blockbust-bestselling novel.

• It is aimed at the young adult girlie market. This reminds me of Harry Potter, another super-blockbust-novel that was aimed at young readers. It focuses entirely on this market's obsessions and daydreams.

• It combines a prosaic high school setting with elements of the supernatural. This reminds me of Harry Potter, another super-blockbust-novel wot i know. HP, too, combines a prosaic high school setting (trivial bitchiness, everyday worries about homework) with elements of the supernatural. Do I detect a theme here? Is this what prospective readers part with their money for?

• It has the second-biggest Mary Sue in it that I know. The first-biggest Mary Sue is, um, Harry Potter, that other well-known super-blockblahblah. Get this: the girl in this novel (who writes in the first person singular) makes every single boy in her new high school fall over with lust; has boys throwing themselves at her and asking her for dates left, right and centre, dates that she (note the mark of the truly heroic Mary Sue) refuses one by one, while eyerolling; she is clever and effortlessly solves tasks at school. But now, for the ecstatic heights of Mary Sue delirium: she is not conscious of her power over boys. She thinks of herself as a lowly, ordinary girl although she keeps being told by these various boys and by the most beautiful boy in the world who likes nobody else, that she is incredibly special and extraordinary and amazing. But she remains so modest!! She denies it all!!! Yet these boys keep saying it!!!!

The Mary-Sue-genius of this blockbustblah takes my breath away. Hats off, Ms Meyer.

• There are some very evocative landscape and weather descriptions. The prose is straightforward and unpretentious and occasionally grammatically incorrect. The speech words employed only occasionally resort to 'he said', 'I said'; instead, the following are favoured: 'I verified', 'he explained', 'I instructed', 'he clarified', and so forth. This reminds me of some fanfic wot i have read in my life.

• It totally speaks to the inner teengirl in me. When I was fourteen, all there was to read was Fifteen by Beverly Cleary.


Here is a frock wot i love. *fangirls*


Green shoes and gloves with yellow. Sensational. I am so copying that colour combo.

Comments

[bunnysquee.livejournal.com]

i can't believe you got sucked into twilight, of all things!

and yes, that is an outfit that i love.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I know! I can't believe it myself!

I tried to resist for so long! And then I told myself I would read it for 'research'. Into 'blockbuster novels'. *nods*

I'm still reading! It hasn't fallen from my hands as yet! I do feel as if I want to wrap it in a neutral brown cover, though...

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Noooooooooo! I am still firmly in 'refusing to read Twilight' mode. Plus I seem to have constructed myself a 'to-read' list about five miles long. And that doesn't even take into account the pile I already have in the house. These vampires will just have to wait.

Anyway, too many people write about vampires nowadays. By the time I actually properly start writing mine, nobody'll want 'em any more! *grumble*

Love that outfit, though. And that picture. :)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

But... you're into vampires, surely?

This novel is one long teenie ust. That's the main button it pushes. That and the extraordinary Mary Sueishness. You've got to hand it to the woman (who, btw, judging from t'novel, believes in creationism, aargh). Here's a sample:

I ended up in my only skirt -- long, khaki-coloured, still casual. I put on the dark blue blouse he'd once complimented. A quick glance in the mirror told me my hair was entirely impossible, so I pulled it back into a ponytail.

"Okay." I bounced down the stairs. "I'm decent."

He was waiting at the foot of the stairs, closer than I'd thought, and I bounded right into him. He steadied me, holding me a careful distance away for a few seconds before suddenly pulling me closer.

"Wrong again," he murmured in my ear. "You are utterly indecent -- no one should look so tempting, it's not fair."

"Tempting how?" I asked. "I can change..."

He sighed, shaking his head. "You are so so absurd." He pressed his cool lips delicately to my forehead, and the room spun.


Try and top that! I can't.

I don't think there'll be a vampire inflation any time soon, dear. *pats you* I think the appetite is insatiable. Harhar, pun, har.

I have put the Outfit on my Desktop. For permanent fangirlage.

The Obamas are squee. (That is the right way to refer to one's sophisticated political views, is it not?)

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

But... you're into vampires, surely?

Not really.

Still not feeling a burning desire to read this, Mary Sue-ishness notwithstanding. Maybe it's because I never read Flowers in the Attic when everyone else in my class did. I don't seem to have much teeny UST to revisit - how sad!

The Obamas are squee. (That is the right way to refer to one's sophisticated political views, is it not?)

It is now, baby! It is now! :D

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Politics = green gloves.

In the new millennium.

And how cool is The President for appearing on an Arab news channel? I am totally in awe. Is he actually real? Or will he ping into a thousand pieces if touched?

Yes, stick to your list. This is much more sensible than detours into Meyer-land.

[rinsbane.livejournal.com]

You make me grin so madly. The jubilation in your tone! Embrace it, baby.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I know. *facepalm* The embrace is close to embrassassing. I want to walk down the road with a neutral brown porn cover wrapped around my tell-tale teen indulgence...

[birdgerhl.livejournal.com]

i thought i'd give it a whirl, as folks on my flist had been sucked into the mania. but i found it absolutely unreadable. i actually thought the writing was worse than harry potter. i couldn't even enjoy it on a knowing, ironic level. trash, and not in a good way.

b.x :(

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

The writing is not worse than Harry Potter, certainly not worse than vols 4 ff of that oeuvre. Meyer doesn't have the piling up of adverbs that Rowling has (not that I don't love the ADVERB, somebody forbid, but still...!) nor does she repeat the same word thrice in one sentence nor are her sentences five miles long nor is the ellipsis the only punctuation she knows.

So in my book that makes Meyer's writing better than Rowling's. Ack.

Ah, baby, your inner teen is quite clearly skating on some other rink. *g*

[birdgerhl.livejournal.com]

it's just deadly, deadly dull writing - a complete lack of feeling for language, or joy in words. ugh.

my *actual* teen self - never mind my inner teen - would have hated it too.

b.x :(

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

*laughs*

I'm telling you: it's still miles better than Beverly Cleary. *shudders* (Although, come to think of it, I may have to revisit that book. It's got prom dates in it! And frat pins!)

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Okay! I am being pressured from all sides to read "Twilight," but have held off so far. But now that I know you're reading and *gasp* enjoying it, I'll do it!

And yes, that outfit is marvelous. They are such a handsome couple, aren't they?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Far be it from me to pressure anybody!! But is this book not set somewhere near where you live? Unless it's all an invented geography. is there an Olympic peninsula? Or somesuch? A town called Forks?

But if you have an inner teen waiting to be indulged in some total Mary-Sueish ust, then by all means: go for it!

Now that your love life is reeling ever closer to the teenish stage... *g*

And gods, I love the Obamas. As I said to Sheldrake, expressing my considered and sophisticated political views: The Obamas are squee!

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Yes, this place actually exists! It's not terribly close to me, but I used to drive up the Olympic Peninsula often on my way to Canada. I'm not sure about Forks, but I've heard it's a real place that the author never visited before she started the books. She just thought it sounded cool. :-)

My boss keeps threatening me with the books, so I'll just have to give in. Since I am my own Mary Sue these days, I will totally relate!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

If you live there it might give you a kick. She's not too bad on locations, actually. And the fact that she never went there? I love that, I do! How a place can be more real if invented than described.

But beware of bad!fic moments!!