I don't think Meyer did anything to make the books connect with readers. They certainly did not connect with this reader, or millions of others, though they did find millions who did like them.
What I think Meyer did with regard to her books was write them. The way she liked, and as she saw fit. End of.
With a lot of highly successful female writers, this is what I've noticed. They always say they wrote the story for themselves. And they are usually first time writers, the average Jill Shmoe who had a regular job, had an idea that struck her particular fancy, and wrote it.
And maybe just as important, how many failures has she had and how did she deal with them?
I remember reading that she had 15 rejections before the agent accepted her, which seems startling low, doesn't it?
I suppose we could learn from Twilight that one route to a successful book might be to present abusive relationships as romantic. For myself, I wouldn't want success on those terms. YMMV.
There are a lot of things wrong with Twilight that I've noticed, but abusive wasn't one of them. 50 Shades is emotionally abusive and manipulative and (considering its source), takes it up a notch.
Edward was this perfect guy who followed Bella around. He was constantly drawn to her (via her smell) and this put strain and taboo on the pretense of their relationship.
Most girls in the generation that I come from (20-25 year olds), and that age of this generation, at some point wanted a man like that. Most teenage girls have fantasized about being the core of a man's life, the thing that drives him, entices him, and at the same time, the thing he would put his life on the line for.
SMeyer was outstanding at creating this plain Jane cardboard cutout that any teenage girl could insert themselves in. A lot of young girls of this generation will keep a guy on the back burner "just in case" only to friend zone him later on, will follow a guy across the world and back to make him reconsider things, and, secretly, wants to be watched while she slept, because it shows he cares.
There's nothing '
wrong' with SMeyers books, there's something significantly wrong with this generation if they can idolize this man (and his doppelganger, Christian Grey). Her books weren't literary masterpieces; she was an average person, so she wrote with average person tendencies. Bad grammar, poor prose, improper sentence structure. But the average teenage girl picking this book up, won't notice any of this, she'll be too engrossed by Edward's declaration of love despite his insatiable blood lust for her.
So I think a lot of what it boils down to is that a lot of these best sellers aren't literary classics. They tell a decent story that the target audience can insert themselves into, without the prose being too difficult for them to follow. Because, and I think you might notice, the ones who are bashing these authors for bad grammar or poor character development, aren't the people who seldom pick up a book for sport, it's the ones who pour their lives into the craft and know the rules like the top of their pen.
We
know that these rules are followed for a reason, and can't possibly fathom how something that has broken 8/10 rules can sell a million copies and have a movie deal. If these things were okay to deviate from, then why do we even bother? Why aren't we all throwing caution to the wind and dumbing down our stories so more people will pick it up? Because we have too much respect for ourselves and won't succumb to selling out like that. These authors, these multimillion dollar, first time authors, don't know the first thing about
writing, they just had the right idea at the right time.
I don't think so. If I noticed those characteristics in a boyfriend, I'd dump him and move to another country. However, of all the authors the OP mentioned, Stephenie Meyer is the only one whose success I'm not jealous of.