In Conclusion...

The press has made a great deal this summer about Stephanie Meyer being the next J.K. Rowling. The number of books sold and amount of money made, I believe, was the focus of journalists' interest.

I think these two authors are similar in other ways. They're both women who, according to press accounts, come from outside the literary establishment. They are not graduates of fine arts programs in writing. They haven't spent years attending writers' conferences and workshops. In short, they came out of nowhere with stories people wanted to read.

Keep in mind that there are thousands of people who think they've come up with stories others will want to read. Either they don't have the native skill to write them coherently, or they're just plain wrong. So Meyer's and Rowling's connection with readers is a major achievement. It doesn't matter what they write in the future.

I enjoy this outsider, maverick pattern, which is probably why I kept reading these books, even when I had complaints about them. I'm kind of psyched to see how long we have to wait for another Meyer or Rowling to come along.

So What Was The Problem?

Can you believe Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer has been out less than a week, and I've already finished reading it? Big book, too.

Okay, so I rushed to read this book because of talk about disappointed fans. I checked out some of the 1,800+ customer reviews at Amazon this afternoon and stopped by a Twilight Moms forum. While there certainly are plenty of unhappy readers, there are plenty of happy ones, too. Plus, some of the negative responses at Amazon seem to come from readers who weren't hardcore fans to begin with.

I think one thing to keep in mind with the Twilight series is that it's what might be called a paranormal romance with a big, big emphasis on romance. Laura Miller in Salon said the Twilight books are "romance novels, and despite their gothic trappings represent a resurrection of the most old-fashioned incarnation of the genre." Many of the negative comments I've seen about Breaking Dawn object to its ending. (I'm trying not to give anything away.) Two other recent series, Harry Potter and The Underland Chronicles, ended with bloodbaths. The Twilight Saga ended differently because it is a romance. I think some readers may have been confused by the vampires and werewolves.

Some readers also objected because they felt that some characters, in particular Bella, behaved out of character in Breaking Dawn. I think Bella remained Bella pretty much right to the end of the book. She is a female who is defined totally by her relationships to others. She has no real "self." When she appears to behave differently in Breaking Dawn, she does so because of her relationship to someone else. For instance, she appears to grow a backbone in this last book, both literally and figuratively. But when she does so, it's because of her relationships with two other characters. She becomes powerful, even, but only because of her love for others. And in the final sentences of the book, the power she's developed she gives away as an act of love.

Love--romantic, familial, maternal, and even sexual--is treated pretty much as a cult here. Some readers objected to a character who had never shown any interest in children suddenly being willing to die for one. But that makes sense if you're into the cult of maternal love. I found an extended section regarding a pregnancy and childbirth sadistic, and it appears that a number of other readers were turned off by its "ick" factor. But, again, when you're talking the cult of maternal love, a woman becomes noble through such suffering. Is this a storyline that's going to be compelling to YA readers, though? I wonder if the whole maternal love thing is an adult interest, not YA.

In fact, The Twilight Saga may have moved out of YA in this final book, which could explain the response from some of its readers. Bella and Edward are no longer in high school. They're dealing with grown-up, family problems, not teen problems. When young readers were reading about people they could relate to in the earlier books, they were willing to ignore the way so many characters roll their eyes, chuckle, and snore, the improbabilities regarding plot, and the scenes that went on way too long. But Bella becomes matronly in Breaking Dawn, and Edward seems as if he ought to be out playing golf.

These characters may have outgrown their readers.

Information Dumps

One of the things I learned about sometime during my reading weeks this past summer was the information dump. Information dumps occur when a writer is trying to get out a lot of material readers need to know about. They slow down the ol' narrative flow and bore the living daylights out of readers.

I'm afraid that's what I've been dealing with this past week--an information dump. One way to make these things less dumpy is to break them up with dialogue. Preferably, of course, witty repartee. Witty repartee that moves the story along and doesn't just bear the burden of the dump.

Yeah, we'll have to see how that works for me.

You Know, Except For Having Murdered Someone, He Was A Marvelous Guy

Gail Giles is a member of one of my listservs, and I've been interested in reading her work for some time. And now I have.

Kip McFarland was nine years old when he set a nine-year-old boy on fire and killed him. After years in an institution, he and his father start out on a new life, in a new state, with new names. Right Behind You is the story of what it's like for him to carry that kind of past around with him. It's highly suspenseful but not in the sense that readers will be waiting to see if Kip kills again. Rather, they'll wonder what he's going to do to himself.

I think Giles was better on Kip's dark and miserable side then she was on the lighter portion of his life when he's fitting into high school post-murder and post-institution. I felt that portion of the book seemed a little rushed. Or maybe I just like dark and miserable more than I like happy high school. But, all in all, I'd say Right Behind You could be described as both thought provoking and a bit of a thrill ride. A very good combination.

Take a look at Giles' other titles and covers. Do I see some kind of pattern here? Perhaps thought provoking and thrill ride is her thing.

Yes, Perhaps I'm Overthinking This

Usually I try to stay home on Mondays so that after I'm through with my ritual time-wasting, I'll have a little more time to write. Yesterday, however, I had to go run an errand. Just before I left the house, I decided to hit the library to see if by some stroke of luck I'd find Breaking Dawn just sitting on the new book shelf. Hey, it wasn't just a fantasy. It happened to me with one of the Harry Potter books.

Well, sure enough, there it was. So I've got it before all the teen girls in town (except for the one who, the librarian told me, had reserved the second copy).

Okay, so here's my thought after reading maybe a quarter of the book--Forget about the vampires, the Twilight series deals specifically with traditional (or stereotypical, depending on how you look at it) women's issues. It's very retro, meaning it deals with women's issues from a time when the mainstream didn't understand that everything--science, economics, religion, war, peace, the fate of nations, the fate of mankind--was a woman's issue. Our heroine is totally focused on love/mating. The female vampires are all about beauty, fashion, and the home. None of them hold jobs. (Though, in all honesty, only one male vampire has enough interest in life to go out and work.) All of the female vampires are coupled up with a male. So far in this fourth book, everything is built upon a traditional women's issue that hadn't come up before.

Now, I think that when a book becomes wildly, wildly popular, the reading public is interested in the content more than the quality of the writing. There's something in the story that means so much to readers that any failings in the quality of the writing just don't matter. For instance, readers wanted a story in which Christ got to have a family and become a father, with descendants who walk among us today. (The DaVinci Code) Readers wanted a story in which a put-upon child becomes a magical, heroic figure. (Harry P.) And, right now, female readers want these stories that are throwbacks to an earlier time when women were considered to be weak and frail and needing to be cared for by men.

Why? Why, why, why?

We Were Just Talking About This

Mitali Perkins brought up blurbing at her blog last week and now Salon has an article on the same subject.

I may have mentioned before that no one at my publishing house has ever said a word to me about blurbs for my books. This may be that I'm so far down the food chain it doesn't matter. I wasn't even aware that authors had to look for their own blurbs until I heard writers talking about it on-line. I don't think I even wondered about why other authors' books had blurbs and mine didn't. Though, I hope that at some point I would have just as proof that I wasn't braindead.

I don't think I have to worry too much about my publisher asking me to look for blurbers at this point because of all the negative things I've said about blurbs here at Original Content. Plus, there's a possibility that I may have ticked off a lot of people here and so would be wasting my time asking for blurbs, anyway. So I'm hoping I'm safe from the whole blurb issue.

Uh-oh. What Happened With The Twilight Series?

I just saw a letter at one of my listservs that suggested that reader had a negative response to Stephanie Meyer's new book, Breaking Dawn. I didn't read more than the first couple of sentences because I was afraid there'd be spoilers. Then this is just in from Justine Larbalestier's blog. Some disappointed readers among the 439!!! reviewers at Amazon.

Even though I've gone on record as not being crazy about the Twilight series, I don't take any pleasure in seeing Meyer hammered by her fans. I enjoyed her first book, and I definitely respect that, according to press accounts, she comes from outside the literary establishment and made a success of herself.

I wasn't all that enthused about reading this last book, but now I can't wait to see what she did to tick off those people! I'm in your corner now, Steph!

Getting Into Work

When I am seriously working on a project, I'll continue "working" even when I'm not at my desk. I've called it immersion theory in the past. For several weeks this past month, I was stuck on the same paragraph, which you may remember because I whined about it here. Part of what held me back on that, I'm sure, was that I kept taking time off from work to go here and there and never got immersed in the job.

Last week immersion finally came. Yesterday, an intense housework day for me, an idea came related to a chapter I'd just finished revising. And today, while driving for a couple of hours, I got a big idea for changing a character in that same chapter. I didn't even know there was anything wrong with her. But now I'm sure she's just a dull, hollow shell.

She won't be after tomorrow.

It's good to be immersed.

Do Bloggers Who Review Even Want The Same Kind Of Respect Print Reviewers Receive? I Mean, Received?

In Will Blogs Save Books?, Lisa Warren opens with news about two more newspapers cutting back or possibily even eliminating book reviews. After which she asks, "...why don't we as readers give book reviews on blogs as much respect as book reviews in major market papers?" Then she goes on to advise bloggers on how they can write reviews that will sound more like the print reviews that nobody wants any more.

Also, I wasn't terribly surprised to hear that The Hartford Courant showed its book editor the door. The Courant is in the midst of cutting its staff by...ah...some huge percentage. The Courant cut back on the space it gave to books a year or two ago and given the way things are going with book reviews over all, I sort of expected its book editor was on her way out.

The paper rarely covered children's literature, so I don't think the loss of its book editor will have much impact on kidlit in Connecticut. We have the largest children's literature archive in the northeast, plus at least two very good annual children's literature events--The Connecticut Children's Book Fair and The Rabbit Hill Festival of Literature. Children's literature is well covered here.

You Can Read About Me All Over Again

This month's Carnival of Children's Literature is up at Read. Imagine. Talk. Among the offerings you'll find there is Jen Robinson's interview with me for my Three Robbers Blog Tour. So you can read it all over again!