Hey, all.
So usually, I'm an easygoing kind of girl. I don't get easily offended by other people's opinions, particularly in regards to amoral issues like books and films.
Usually. But not this time.
The evil that is the Twilight series needs to be addressed. Not only are these books terribly written, but they have also turned hordes of otherwise tolerably literate teenyboppers into rabid, slavering mind-slaves. I can only assume Stephenie Meyer plans to march them on Washington. HOW did a book full of passages like this...
"He lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted, incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare. His glistening, pale lavender lids were shut, though of course he didn’t sleep. A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone,
smooth like marble, glittering like crystal."
...end up raping bestseller lists across the country? Any fan will tell you it's the story, the passionate entanglement of two souls in a forbidden romance. A plot that compelling overrides the bad writing, right?
I see where this is coming from. I've skirted quite a lot of bad writing in my time for the sake of a worthwhile plot, especially if said plot had to do with vampires: a whole lot of Anne Rice is oversensualized drivel, but I was willing to look past it because the characters she presented were so compelling. Most were horny, whinging sociopaths clad in entirely too much velvet, but they were compelling nonetheless. But Twilight doesn't even have that going for it. The plot is notable only for its virtual nonexistence, and the characters are about as dimensional as the stick figure cartoons I used to make in math class.
Maybe I'm just bitter because I'm trying to write a novel in a month: I'm finally getting how difficult it is to produce book length, worthwhile prose, while seeing Meyer's success smouldering at me from beneath its sculpted brow on every other magazine cover and website banner I pass. Actually, my daily wordcount has improved ever since I started letting my dislike of the series really get under my skin. So I guess that's one good thing.
Even still, there is no excuse for such horrible prose to exist outside of fanfic.net. Until the army of fangirls come to their collective senses, I will continue to steep in my own hatred like a tea bag full of rage.
