Saying Stephenie Meyer is a poor author because she does not write like what YOU define as a talented author is asinine.

Stephenie Meyer did NOT set out to write the great literary piece of her time, she set out to create a viral, buzz inducing tween story. And despite what you can say about the quality of her writing, she succeeded in every way imaginable. No, Stephenie may not be a master of prose but she clearly has a brilliant eye for business and how generate desire. For example:

She created a chief protagonist that really is a chameleon. Bella was NOT designed to be some deep character. She was designed to be a blank canvas for the imagination of the reader. Essentially, Meyer wanted to created a character that would allow ANY tween girl to visualize HERSELF as Bella. And it worked.

The music thing, while unorthodox. is also brilliant. What it does is it creates an emotional and psychological bridge between her brand (twilight) and popular songs. Thus when the music in question is played, (on an ipod or the radio) the listener’s mind jumps to Twilight. Simply put, the music compels the obsession, it makes the readers think about Twilight as much as possible. Which in turn makes them more likely to invest further into the Twilight Marketing Machine.

So, in conclusion, is Meyer a great author? No. Is she worthy of her success? Most Definitely. She is very talented at what she set out to do. And no, Twilight won’t go down in literary history, it will, however, bring her a lot of fame and success.
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And wait a minute… She has playlists????

I still say it’s remarkably bad judgment. A shared religion isn’t something that automatically makes something either palatable or *right*. (Just like “other” religions aren’t automatically wrong in everything. That’s simply not honest or true.)

I think I’m allergic to bad judgment.
Tesh´s last blog ..Torchlight, Torchbright

If anything, I’m more bothered by Meyer’s incompetence; it does indeed put a bad example out there, and way too many people use it as an excuse to dismiss the church. Sort of like how easy it is to watch Rev. Jeremiah Wright and figure that all black preachers are scum, or Congressman John Murtha and conclude that politicians are all corrupt megalomaniacal psychopaths. It’s patently false to argue backwards like that… but all too easy, especially if there’s an axe to grind. (Disclosure: I have nothing against black people or preachers in general, but I do generally distrust politicians…)

It goes the other way, too; I know Mormons who look at Meyer’s books as “one for the team”, or “we’re hitting it big time, so it’s gotta be good” instead of really looking at the books on their own merit… and tossing them for the trash they are.

Funny how we can be blind to details and logic when we’re emotional about something, for good or for evil. (Believe me, I’ve known my share of bitter ex-religious folk. I was in Alabama for my LDS mission…)
Tesh´s last blog ..Torchlight, Torchbright

And it is hype and marketing machines that run the franchise now. It’s like my wife says: that’s why they’re pushing the movies out so quickly now. So they can get all the money they can before people realize just how worthless Twilight is and forget about it. It’s not “lasting” literature. It’s a fad. Look at how the companies are doing Harry Potter films in contrast. They are rare, but the quality is higher and will eventually lend themselves to becoming a part of a literary canon. They CAN come out slowly because people will still care about it whenever they are released.

And yeah, I can understand why people get annoyed that someone who isn’t actually very good gets all of the fame and glory. Of course it does also sound like a little bit of jealousy too

Unfortunately for most of us we don’t live in a world where rewards are handed out purely based on talent.

If anything though, you gotta admire the hype and marketing machines that drive the franchise.
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