Lessons Learned

Birol

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That's a good question right now.
Some books are classics from the moment they are first published. Destined to stand the test of time, the enlighten as well as entertain. As writers, it is important for us to study such texts, both those published in days past and those published today. With that in mind, what is the single most important lesson that you, as a writer, have learned from Twilight?
 

Horserider

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Twilight is a classic now? Sweet! (Please don't shoot me) Let's see... It's possible for your debut novel to be really long, though not recommended. Teenage girls are crazy. Don't use really long words that you looked up in a thesaurus (like scintillating. who uses that word??) Oh wait, that's three not single most important lesson...
 

MattW

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Twighlight is a flash in the pan, destined to spawn dozens of knockoffs in print, and thousands that would be so lucky.

It is The da Vinci code for teen girls.


Lesson learned: know your market.
 

PrincessKitten

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What has Twilight taught me? Plot, characterization, and narrative can be replaced with sparkles, adverbs, and emotional abuse, and a majority of readers won't care!
 

backslashbaby

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I haven't read Twilight, but I've learned from it not to worry so much if I'm not as deep as Kafka ;)
 

MattW

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What has Twilight taught me? Plot, characterization, and narrative can be replaced with sparkles, adverbs, and emotional abuse, and a majority of readers won't care!

Lesson learned: if your audience hasn't read much, they won't know how bad your story might be

Same lesson applies for Eragon.
 

bohica

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Lesson learned: little inspires more bitterness than another's success.

Although I do agree with most of the previous posters' criticisms of said novel. ;)
 

MattW

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Lesson learned: little inspires more bitterness than another's success.
Critical /= Bitter

Although I do agree with most of the previous posters' criticisms of said novel. ;)
Careful, someone might accuse you of something...
 

Philky

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I haven't read it, but I have learned once again how obsessive my female students are.
 

Toothpaste

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I have learned that expressing a negative opinion about a popular author means I'm jealous, and expressing a positive one is jumping on the bandwagon.

I've also learned I don't care.

Twilight hasn't so much taught me anything, but confirmed ideas for me. That lots of women really do like that romantic trope of obsessive love, that him being rich and cold, and she being poor and practical has been a magic combination for forever (Pride and Prejudice anyone?), and that character really does triumph over plot. I don't think Meyer did any of these particularly well. I think that she succeeded through a lot of timing and luck and coasted on the strength of the above scenario, but that is not the debate here. Amazing really the power of the good old fashioned love story.

(fwiw, I am having a P & P marathon on Friday! - the 1995 mini-series, not the Knightly film, which is quite good, but will never be as fab as the former)
 

Judg

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Actually Toothpaste, that was probably the single best answer to the question.

I haven't read the book nor seen the movie, but the lesson I take from what I do know is that if you tap into a powerful emotion and set somebody's fantasies aflight, you can hardly lose.
 

Fulk

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Oh boy. Something tells me this thread won't last very long before it ends up locked. :roll:
 

Birol

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That's a good question right now.
Twighlight is a flash in the pan, destined to spawn dozens of knockoffs in print, and thousands that would be so lucky.

Matt, you really should study Twilight a little better. First, it's YA and the books we read and enjoyed as young adults are often the same books we give to our own children to read. Thus, with the millions of copies that Twilight has sold, and the number of young women who have enjoyed it, it is very likely to be around for years and years to come as those teenage girls grow up become mothers and pass Twilight on to their own daughters.

I haven't read Twilight, but I've learned from it not to worry so much if I'm not as deep as Kafka ;)

This is good. Do you think it's possible to be deep and entertaining, though? Since you haven't read it, do you think it's possible that there might be more to the story than what you've heard? You really shouldn't judge books that you've never read.

Oh boy. Something tells me this thread won't last very long before it ends up locked. :roll:

Why do you say that?

Lesson learned: if your audience hasn't read much, they won't know how bad your story might be

Same lesson applies for Eragon.

Again, Matt, the first thing you should do as a writer is respect your reader. If you can't respect them, how do you expect them to respect you or your work?
 

KikiteNeko

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I have learned that in the good old US of A, a mormon housewife can write a morally sound novel of fanfic quality about an abstinence-pushing vampire with poison sperm and sparkly nipples, and a cardboard cutout with the most cliched name imaginable, and reach worldwide fame. With the same publishing house that printed Catcher in the Rye and White Oleander.

Sometimes the good lord throws me curve balls that I don't understand.
 

Birol

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That's a good question right now.
Tomo, your bitterness over Meyer's success is well-known on AW. However, since Publisher's Weekly has declared 2008 the year of Stephanie Meyer and her success helped Hachette Book Group have a 26% increase in sales, it might be better to lay your personal feelings aside and examine the books for why they succeeded as well as they did. Afterall, they're going to be around for a long, long time.
 

KikiteNeko

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Tomo, your bitterness over Meyer's success is well-known on AW. However, since Publisher's Weekly has declared 2008 the year of Stephanie Meyer and her success helped Hachette Book Group have a 26% increase in sales, it might be better to lay your personal feelings aside and examine the books for why they succeeded as well as they did. Afterall, they're going to be around for a long, long time.

Clever marketing? I'm sure dollar signs and vulnerable fad-hungry teenage girls were all the publishers saw when reading that manuscript. Twilight is the Britney Spears or N'Sync of books.
 

KikiteNeko

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So what you learned from the Twilight books was marketing? How so?

I have learned that I don't want to live in a world where Twilight can be published with ease but I can get past an editor, review panel and associate-publisher, only to be turned down by not one but FOUR publishers. I laugh on the outside, but the pain's real.

*sniff*