That which we call a fanfic, by any other name would smell as sweet. Maybe.
Courtesty of Twilight commentary by an awesome person (discovered via kenzimone), I was reminded (while laughing up my spleen) that Wuthering Heights is mentioned in the book. Which I knew for some reason, because I remember a conversation about it once, but since forgot entirely because I don't care.
Now, I know that ridiculing Twilight is a fish-in-barrel sort of situation, and my familiarity with it extends to watching the movie (against my will, because I was expressly forbidden to snark), conversations with random fans, and interwub mockery, I nevertheless feel qualified to comment on this. I actually read Wuthering Heights when I was sixteen, and found it a completely awful, painful exercise, and I wasn't even doing it because it was assigned for school. In fact, a friend and I later refused to do it when it was assigned, and ended up doing Heart of Darkness instead.
Both of these books are actually very good, but I'm not ashamed to say that at sixteen I completely didn't get why. At that age, you need to be skillfully led through that kind of literature, something my high school did not excel at, because it is highly unlikely you'll have the experience to allow you to really grasp what's going on. I've since reread both, and although I can now appreciate Wuthering Heights, I've never enjoyed it. In fact, I'd be inclined to have a careful talk with someone who did, and an urgent one with someone who said it was their favourite book. Especially at that age. Especially if they think that Heathcliff is romantic and studly.
If we roll with the idea that Bella is an author avatar (and everything I've heard suggests this is very much the case), then what SMeyers has done is taken Heathcliff, defanged him (oh the irony), and written him falling in love with herself instead of Cathy. Crossed with her Mormon theology and presumably reading Anne Rice at a formative age. (If she says she hasn't - and I've no idea what she has to say on the matter, see above, re: don't care - then she's a lying liar who lies.) And somewhere in this stew of bookworm-appreciating-classic-literature-at-a-tenth-grade-level comes her dream which inspired the book, and there we have it. It's like teenagers believing Romeo and Juliet is a beautiful love story. It's a sixteen year old writing herself in a romantic adventure with her favourite lead man, indiscriminately including all her favourite romantic ideals (at a sixteen year old writing level, from the sounds of things). And that is precisely why it is so popular with anyone who never got around to graduating from that mentality. Which is a lot of people, frankly.
This peddling of wish fulfillment is a large part of the popularity of Harry Potter, too. Which I have actually read, although not because I much wanted to. I'm not lumping JKR in with SMeyers in terms of basic writing ability; for one thing, JKR's English heritage stands her in good stead, in that they seem to take a much higher pride in turning out functionally articulate human beings from their school system, and have a higher expectation of basic literacy from the general population. For another, she clearly has a much livelier imagination, as well as a sense of humour. Fair play to you, JKR.
What I will note, however, is that at the fourth-book mark, when she became popular enough to overrule her editors, the writing became sloppy and bloated, and not at all well plotted, which says a lot about imagination vs talent (and by that I mean the talent of the editors). And while something has been made of the books being written from Harry's point of view (and therefore has an element of unreliable narrator toward the characters he doesn't like), there is absolutely no evidence that JKR doesn't entirely share that point of view, to the point where she can't evaluate her own creation from the outside of it. The fact that she can't understand why people like, feel sorry for, or totally crush on Draco Malfoy illustrates that rather starkly. And then there's the fact that Harry Potter is essentially Enid Blyton + Wheel of Time. To be fair, Wheel of Time is basically Lord of the Rings + Star Wars, with no self-respecting editor in sight.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with borrowing concepts and characters and plots and producing something new with them. Writers have been doing it forever; good writers do it extremely well, because they understand what they are playing with, what made it interesting and gave it potential, and how to draw that out. Less confident or established writers, for some reason, seem to think not original = bad; Margaret Mitchell claims she never read Vanity Fair (itself inspired by a scene in Pilgrim's Progress) until after she wrote Gone With the Wind, which anyone who's read them both will find very, very hard to believe. Personally, I'm fine with her exploring the potential in Becky and Rawdon's relationship (which Thackeray hamstrung to serve the morality tale it was supposed to be), even if it was in historical romance pulp format. She did a good job. - And speaking of morality tales overtaking the actually interesting plot/characterization, hello Mansfield Park. Anyway.
Bad writers imitate without understanding. Which also means they lack the awareness to self-edit, which all good writers must do; it's one of the most critical parts of producing something worth reading. But if they can vicariously deliver on the uncritical desires of much of the public, they will still sell like wish fulfillment is going out of style.
One day, I will get the hang of a short, chatty lj post.
Or maybe not.
Now, I know that ridiculing Twilight is a fish-in-barrel sort of situation, and my familiarity with it extends to watching the movie (against my will, because I was expressly forbidden to snark), conversations with random fans, and interwub mockery, I nevertheless feel qualified to comment on this. I actually read Wuthering Heights when I was sixteen, and found it a completely awful, painful exercise, and I wasn't even doing it because it was assigned for school. In fact, a friend and I later refused to do it when it was assigned, and ended up doing Heart of Darkness instead.
Both of these books are actually very good, but I'm not ashamed to say that at sixteen I completely didn't get why. At that age, you need to be skillfully led through that kind of literature, something my high school did not excel at, because it is highly unlikely you'll have the experience to allow you to really grasp what's going on. I've since reread both, and although I can now appreciate Wuthering Heights, I've never enjoyed it. In fact, I'd be inclined to have a careful talk with someone who did, and an urgent one with someone who said it was their favourite book. Especially at that age. Especially if they think that Heathcliff is romantic and studly.
If we roll with the idea that Bella is an author avatar (and everything I've heard suggests this is very much the case), then what SMeyers has done is taken Heathcliff, defanged him (oh the irony), and written him falling in love with herself instead of Cathy. Crossed with her Mormon theology and presumably reading Anne Rice at a formative age. (If she says she hasn't - and I've no idea what she has to say on the matter, see above, re: don't care - then she's a lying liar who lies.) And somewhere in this stew of bookworm-appreciating-classic-literature-at-a-tenth-grade-level comes her dream which inspired the book, and there we have it. It's like teenagers believing Romeo and Juliet is a beautiful love story. It's a sixteen year old writing herself in a romantic adventure with her favourite lead man, indiscriminately including all her favourite romantic ideals (at a sixteen year old writing level, from the sounds of things). And that is precisely why it is so popular with anyone who never got around to graduating from that mentality. Which is a lot of people, frankly.
This peddling of wish fulfillment is a large part of the popularity of Harry Potter, too. Which I have actually read, although not because I much wanted to. I'm not lumping JKR in with SMeyers in terms of basic writing ability; for one thing, JKR's English heritage stands her in good stead, in that they seem to take a much higher pride in turning out functionally articulate human beings from their school system, and have a higher expectation of basic literacy from the general population. For another, she clearly has a much livelier imagination, as well as a sense of humour. Fair play to you, JKR.
What I will note, however, is that at the fourth-book mark, when she became popular enough to overrule her editors, the writing became sloppy and bloated, and not at all well plotted, which says a lot about imagination vs talent (and by that I mean the talent of the editors). And while something has been made of the books being written from Harry's point of view (and therefore has an element of unreliable narrator toward the characters he doesn't like), there is absolutely no evidence that JKR doesn't entirely share that point of view, to the point where she can't evaluate her own creation from the outside of it. The fact that she can't understand why people like, feel sorry for, or totally crush on Draco Malfoy illustrates that rather starkly. And then there's the fact that Harry Potter is essentially Enid Blyton + Wheel of Time. To be fair, Wheel of Time is basically Lord of the Rings + Star Wars, with no self-respecting editor in sight.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with borrowing concepts and characters and plots and producing something new with them. Writers have been doing it forever; good writers do it extremely well, because they understand what they are playing with, what made it interesting and gave it potential, and how to draw that out. Less confident or established writers, for some reason, seem to think not original = bad; Margaret Mitchell claims she never read Vanity Fair (itself inspired by a scene in Pilgrim's Progress) until after she wrote Gone With the Wind, which anyone who's read them both will find very, very hard to believe. Personally, I'm fine with her exploring the potential in Becky and Rawdon's relationship (which Thackeray hamstrung to serve the morality tale it was supposed to be), even if it was in historical romance pulp format. She did a good job. - And speaking of morality tales overtaking the actually interesting plot/characterization, hello Mansfield Park. Anyway.
Bad writers imitate without understanding. Which also means they lack the awareness to self-edit, which all good writers must do; it's one of the most critical parts of producing something worth reading. But if they can vicariously deliver on the uncritical desires of much of the public, they will still sell like wish fulfillment is going out of style.
One day, I will get the hang of a short, chatty lj post.
Or maybe not.