Dissecting a Speculative Fiction Bestseller - Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Every so often, a book breaks out of the normal literary confines and becomes a runaway success. In recent years we have had The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. And the latest in this line, the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer (and all are Speculative Fiction, showing just how appealing the genre is!). Unless you have been living under a proverbial rock for the past 2 years, you will know that Twilight is the story of Bella Swan, a normal teenager who moves to a small town, where she meets and falls in love with a vampire, Edward Cullen. Their relationship is tumultuous – she longs to be with him and he wants the same thing, however he must also fight off the desire to drink her blood.
While the series does have a male following, it primarily appeals to females. It was written as a Young Adult novel, however it has broken out of this category to become a hit with females of all ages.
Twilight has met with a certain amount of controversy, as highly popular books tend to. Stephen King famously claimed that Stephanie Meyer was a terrible writer, and many critics have panned the series, dismissing it as poorly written and poorly constructed.
And yet, it has sold millions of copies all around the world, has been bought and read by people who normally have little interest in reading, has spawned countless fan websites and fan fiction, and has been adapted into a successful Hollywood film.
So what is it about this series that has made it so universally appealing? This article will dissect certain elements of the first book, Twilight, that have arguably contributed to it’s status as a best seller.
The Hook
Often a writer will use a prologue or a preface that takes place at the climax of the action, and then start the first chapter in the past and work forwards towards the climax. This is a form that Meyer utilises in Twilight.
The First Line
Read any “how-to-write” book and you will likely find a lengthy section regarding the importance of the opening scene, in particular the first line. If someone is picking up your book in a bookstore, you have very little time to impress them. If they like what they read on the back cover they will usually turn to the first page to see how the story starts, and to get an idea of whether they will enjoy your style of writing. A shopper is not likely to stand in the shop reading for 3 chapters until your action speeds up! You have one sentence, maybe two, to convince them that yours is a story worth reading. Good writers know how to hook a reader in from the very beginning.
“I’d never given much thought to how I would die – though I’d had reason enough in the last few months – but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.”
This is a very clever first line. We are immediately introduced to the first-person narrator and we are brought in on what is obviously and intense moment. The words used set the tone – dark and mysterious, which is continued in the rest of the book.
Notice how, in this one sentence, Meyer poses a lot of questions for the reader –
• Who is the narrator?
• What sort of predicament are they in that makes them so certain they are about to die?
• What happened over the last few months?
• How were these events so important that they have changed the way the narrator thinks?
Posing all of these questions is how Meyer hooks you in – at this stage you don’t know who the narrator is, although you would guess if you read the back cover, so you have no reason to care about her. And yet, your curiosity is piqued and you feel compelled to read on.
The First Page
The remainder of the preface is just as successful as the opening line. The unnamed narrator continues to fill the reader in on events that have lead up to her predicament, however this is done cryptically in a way that continues to arouse our curiosity. The narrator gives us lines such as -
“I knew that if I’d never gone to Forks, I wouldn’t be facing death now”
“When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, it’s not reasonable to grieve when it comes to an end”
“The hunter smiled in a friendly way as he sauntered forward to kill me”
Notice how there is no “info-dump” of back story, or details about anything that has happened in the past that has lead to the narrator being in such danger. The entire preface is set up to pose as many questions as possible to the reader, to hook them in and keep them reading when the story begins.
Bella Swan
The narrator, as you have probably guessed, is Bella Swan. She is the only point-of-view character in Twilight, and we get to know her in a first-person voice.
Keep in mind that Twilight is a Young Adult book, and therefore aimed at teenagers. So, Bella Swan is of course a teenager, and must be relatable to those around her age. Twilight has received criticism for the way in which it is written, and although it is admittedly not a book with stand-out prose, it is successful in how relatable it is, which is done chiefly through Bella.
Meyer makes Bella instantly relatable by making her self-aware. From our view from inside her mind, we can see that Bella is not just watching life go by in a detached manner. She is introspective, aware of herself, and from her “self-imposed exile” we see that she takes charge of her own life, even though we are not sure of the reason.
In a less subtle way, Meyer makes Bella relatable by making her incredibly clumsy. It is perhaps a little over-done in some places, but by having Bella be prone to slipping, tripping and falling, it makes the character more real – she is not a perfect, plastic, Hollywood-type, she is just a normal girl.
However, the more we read into the book, the more Bella moves past this “normal girl” status. When she makes friends at school such as Jessica, Meyer paints these people as your arch-typical, all-American teenagers. And then, she shows how Bella does not fit in – she thinks differently and is her own person. She does not feel pressured to go to the school dance or to start dating the popular boy. Instead she is drawn to the other people who are seen as outcasts – the Cullens.
Because of her ability to be her own person and her confidence in acting on her attraction to Edward Cullen, Bella becomes involved in the world of the Cullens, and this is where the story happens.
As mentioned, Bella begins the story as a normal girl who is relatable. She then moves past this to be an exceptional girl, who is admirable. This is the real success of Bella. A successful protagonist will usually be someone that we can look up to, someone that we wish we were like, someone who is like us on the surface, but who does and says things that we only think of. It is the mix of vulnerability and conviction of beliefs that makes Bella a memorable character.
Edward Cullen
Edward Cullen has grown to be something of a pop culture icon in recent months. The popularity of the Twilight series, and the subsequent Twilight movie starring teen heart throb Robert Pattinson, have made Edward a world-wide phenomenon. But why is the character so appealing to females?
The first point that we note about Edward is his physical beauty. Throughout the book Bella often talks about how beautiful and handsome Edward is, and marvels at his physical perfection. Of course, an impossibly good-looking man is appealing, and his appearance relates back to the experiences of many of the members of the target audience – teenage girls. Most teenage girls will admit to being “in love” with someone who they consider to be incredibly good looking, and completely unattainable, whether in real life or towards a celebrity.
The appearance of such a beautiful man at a tiny school in a small town breaks this unattainability open for Bella. Not only does she go to the same school, but she sits next to him in one of her classes. This is tantamount to a normal teenager discovering that they share a class with Brad Pitt or some other handsome and charismatic celebrity. This is the initial attraction of Edward – the unattainable becoming accessible.
Next, Edward is shown to have a very strong reaction to Bella. Although this is negative – he seems to despise her, avoids her, and requests to be moved to another class – this comes back again to his unattainability. Not only is he accessible, but he is now affected by Bella’s very presence. Psychologically, this has roots in one of the basic human needs – significance. As Tony Robbins says –
“Deep down, we all want to be important. We want our life to have meaning and significance. I can imagine no worse a death than to think my life didn't matter.”
As the book continues, Bella is shown as being more and more significant to Edward. He saves her life by throwing himself in front of a car that is just about to hit her, he saves her again from a gang of men who try to attack her. He reveals that he goes as far as to sneak into her room and watch her while she sleeps. (This could be seen in a very different light, except that from Bella’s point of view, it is perfectly acceptable).
Further into the book, Edward admits that he is a vampire, and that Bella’s blood in particular smells so delicious to him that he finds it hard not to kill her on the spot. However, conflictingly, he is also in love with her, and wants to protect her. This conflict lasts for around two-thirds of the book, before Edward makes the conscious decision to not harm Bella, and the two begin their relationship.
In effect, Bella has tamed the ultimate bad-boy. The appeal of the bad-boy has been long explored in literature and other mediums, and generally is due to the chemical reactions they bring on in females, and the idea of a blood-drinking, inhumanly strong vampire more than fits the bill. The fact that Bella has managed to convince Edward not to kill her, simply by being herself, is very appealing to the average female.
Also of significance is that despite his bad-boy ways, Edward has a strong and protective nature. When not overcome by his animal instincts Edward is polite, well-spoken and gentlemanly. He is also very protective of Bella. This is a type of man that is unfortunately uncommon in today’s society and yet is something that women generally find very appealing.
The Relationship
It is the relationship between Edward and Bella that is the real talking point in this book, and is the focus of so many of Twilight’s fans.
The most engaging reason for it’s popularity is that this is BIG LOVE. This is not just a fleeting teenage romance. It is an attraction and a connection that is instant – right from the moment they meet. There is a deeper understanding of each other (again this harks back to the need of significance), and a strong physical attraction.
The main thing that makes their love BIG LOVE, is the obstacles they have to overcome. If they were not a perfect match for each other, then they would likely have run screaming in the other direction when faced with the trials in the book. Instead, they fight to overcome them in order to be together.
BIG LOVE, by definition, changes the lives of the people involved irrevocably. Both Edward and Bella were relatively unhappy before meeting each other, and it is their interaction and relationship that makes them come alive and brings them happiness. Regardless of how the relationship plays out in later books, it is immediately obvious that neither Bella or Edward’s lives will ever been the same again.
Conclusion
Although it can often be hard to pin point exactly what makes a book successful, there are often outstanding elements that we can see and learn from. In particular, looking at the audience with which the book is popular and discovering what is important and attractive to this group of people gives a good idea of exactly what elements within the story has appealed so significantly to them. With Twilight, the characters of Bella and Edward and their relationship is a good indication of what the mostly-female audience admires in a female, idealises in a man and longs for in a relationship.
References:
Meyer, Stephanie. Twilight. Great Britain: Atom (2009)
Robbins, Anthony. Unleash the Power Within. Robbins Research International (2007).
