'She was as attractive as something that society has deemed attractive.'

[tempestsarekind]

NPR bloggers read Twilight. I giggle.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2010/03/the_writing_style_of_twilight.html?ft=1&f=1032

(Link via Bookshelves of Doomor this one

Comments

[angevin2]

I have an unfinished vampire-related thing in which the vampire was a boy actor in Elizabethan England. It will even be Thematically Relevant if I ever actually finish the damn thing.

[tempestsarekind]

There is no response to this but SQUEE. And possibly OMG. It would be awesome. So, you must finish it. Pretty please with sprinkles? :)

[lareinenoire]

Those blogs made me very glad I wasn't drinking anything while I read them. Otherwise my laptop would be defunct. ;)

I agree with everything they say. Especially this bit:

They never talk! There is not one hint in their relationship that she has the slightest interest in him beyond his beauty and his vampireness, or that he has the slightest interest in anything about her. Their entire relationship exists as dramatic pronouncements of their burning fealty to one another, despite the fact that we're given absolutely no reason to understand why their feelings exist in the first place.

They may love each other, but I see no indication that they even like each other.

My God, that is so on the dot. I had no idea why those two were even together, aside from Bella's obsessive bad metaphors.

[tempestsarekind]

Oh, absolutely. I was glad no one else was around, because I kept laughing out loud.

And the whole Bella/Edward thing... I think the saddest thing is that in some ways, it's just a really over-the-top version of a storytelling principle that's all too common: why bother showing that people are actually in love or should be together? We'll just tell you about it, so we can get to the tragic separation/contrived misunderstanding faster!

Or maybe I'm just embittered by too many bad romantic comedies.

[lareinenoire]

I think the saddest thing is that in some ways, it's just a really over-the-top version of a storytelling principle that's all too common: why bother showing that people are actually in love or should be together?

That is completely true -- and it's lazy storytelling! Why the hell should we care about the relationship between two people if the author isn't competent enough to give us a legitimate reason? I'm sorry, but sparkly skin is NOT enough!

[tempestsarekind]

I know! I can only assume that the idea (if there is an idea, and it's not simply incompetence, which I don't deny it might be) is that too much specificity about who these people are is supposed to get in the way of "the reader" mapping him- or herself onto the appropriate member of the relationship. But since I don't read that way, and *want* to read/see stories about actual individuals having a relationship that is specific to them, I find this very irritating.

[cschells]

Thanks for the links!
You know, I've been reading some of Charlaine Harris' vampire novels this week, and it was so funny to me that her vampire protag is, like, "Yeah, OK. I guess I could talk to your grandma's Civil War history club if it would make you happy." So often the vamps are all, "NOOOO!!! It's a big secret!!" or, "I won't reveal my age!" or, "I CAN'T BEAR TO THINK ABOUT MY BENIGHTED PAST!!!"
Anyway, I don't believe I will be reading Twilight.
Oh, if you haven't read the "Kitty and the Midnight Hour" books, you might like them, because the heroine is a late night radio host who lives for getting immortals and supernaturals on the air and asking them all those pointed questions... *g*

[tempestsarekind]

You know, I saw a few episodes of True Blood once, back when my mother had HBO, and I'd forgotten about that bit of the show until you mentioned that it had happened in the books! I remember being rather charmed by that, actually. :)

And I'll have to keep an eye out for the "Kitty" books.

It's funny how becoming a vampire just erases the vampire's past, as far as so many stories are concerned. I always wonder: how do you learn to deal with new eras and new technologies and such? Do vampires still think in 19th-century terms, if that's when they were turned? I'm sure there are people who write about these things, but the most popular versions just seem to be about being really pale and handsome (where are the average-looking vampires?). And maudlin for totally unspecified reasons.

[tempestsarekind]

Glad to have passed it along!

[faeriemaiden]

Oh heavens, have you read Barbara Hambly's Those Who Hunt the Night & sequel? I keep recommending these all over the place, because: GOOD vampire books! With a philologist protagonist and his kickass scientist wife! And very fascinating vampires. But they have got that feeling of vampires being both intrinsically tied to time and history and yet outside it as well that I find gorgeous. (Also jealous. How do you internalise history well enough to write about tiny tiny bits of it so fluidly?) There are all of these passing references to, like, the Great London Fire and what it means for our primary vampire to be a Spaniard, still, with the cultural tension present even after centuries of living in London

[tempestsarekind]

Funnily enough, I just checked out Those Who Hunt the Night last week, because you'd mentioned it! But I haven't had a chance to read it yet (school, bah).

How do you internalise history well enough to write about tiny tiny bits of it so fluidly?

I wish I knew! I'm writing (well, completely stalled on) a story in which this is kind of an issue, and I haven't figured out how to do it yet. I keep feeling as though I sound horribly didactic: Here is a History Moment, shoved into the dialogue!

"Look, I RAN AROUND KILLING PEOPLE LIKE A MADMAN; I really do not want to talk about it now that I am REFORMED. It brings up BAD MEMORIES." "But -- tell me about the symphony!"

Heeeeee.

And yes--people who have passions, and enjoy them, and enjoy them together: that's very exciting! People who care about something are so much more appealing than people who seem to have no interests beyond staring at each other.