Twilight

[Adaryn]

Horror movies have always been a part of the cinematographic industry, it just went stronger and stronger in showing things you would not have imagined before, I am not a specialist of the whole genre but it seems that horror movies went underground for a while but they are coming back stronger, meaner and more mainstream than ever these last few years.

I don't really know about horror movies (by horror movies, I mean "splatter movies"), as I can't stand them but it seems to me that violence is indeed becoming more and more acceptable and "mainstream"; what was extreme then is becoming common now.
There's an interesting thread on Horror Movies here.

I think this is valid for books as well, look at all the vampire series coming out lately.

I've been thinking of the vampire theme in movies and books. I was a sucker (no pun intended ) for these for a long time - particularly Anne Rice's vampire series - and I still enjoy vampire movies.
Now, when I read this:

(L) Well, let me ask, while we are on the subject of writing, is 
Anne Rice channeling her concepts in her vampire books? 
A: She also is influenced by the Grays.

maybe that explains why they are pushing the vampire theme in Hollywood lately? Funny thing is that Anne Rice

returned to the Catholic Church in 1998 after several years of describing herself as an atheist. She announced she would now use her life and talent of writing to glorify her belief in God, but expressly has not renounced her earlier works

Stephenie Meyer, who wrote the Twilight series, is a dedicated Mormon.

Is there a pattern here?

I know someone who's not interested in horror movies but rather what he terms "dark material". As I think about it, it seems that he has identified with material of this genre and in my opinion, romanticizes it and by extension himself.

Judging from my own experience, there's indeed a romanticization aspect and a "need this rush to feel alive". Things that are dark and gruesome (like identifying with the victim of a vampire in a vampire film/book) are romanticized to the point of becoming appealing.
Just like splatter movies, such works are indeed an example of negative dissociation/addiction. This is an escape.

I was wondering why there's such a strong fascination / obsession for the vampire concept among some women. I read an interesting article that might give some clues.

http://mobile.salon.com/books/review/2008/07/30/Twilight/index1.html

No wonder the media has heralded Twilight as the next Harry Potter and Meyer as the second coming of J.K. The similarities, however, are largely commercial. It's hard to see how Twilight could ever approach Harry Potter as a cultural phenomenon for one simple reason: the series' fan base is almost exclusively female. The gender imbalance is so pronounced that Kaleb Nation, an enterprising 19-year-old radio show host-cum-author, has launched a blog called Twilight Guy, chronicling his experiences reading the books. The project is marked by a spirit that's equal parts self-promotion and scientific inquiry -- "I am trying to find why nearly every girl in the world is obsessed with the Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer" -- and its premise relies on the fact that, in even attempting this experiment, Nation has made himself an exceptional guy indeed.
Bookstores have been known to shelve the Twilight books in both the children's and the science fiction/fantasy sections, but they are -- in essence and most particulars -- romance novels, and despite their gothic trappings represent a resurrection of the most old-fashioned incarnation of the genre. They summon a world in which love is passionate, yet (relatively) chaste, girls need be nothing more than fetchingly vulnerable, and masterful men can be depended upon to protect and worship them for it.
The series' heroine, Bella Swan, a 16-year-old with divorced parents, goes to live with her father in the small town of Forks, Wash. (a real place, and now a destination for fans). At school, she observes four members of a fabulously good-looking and wealthy but standoffish family, the Cullens; later she finds herself seated next to Edward Cullen in biology lab and is rendered nearly speechless by his spectacular beauty. At first, he appears to loathe her, but after a protracted period of bewilderment and dithering she discovers the truth. Edward and his clan are vampires who have committed themselves to sparing human life; they call themselves "vegetarians." [interesting twist, isn't it? Now vampires are just harmless creatures who just feed on animals] The scent of Bella's blood is excruciatingly appetizing to Edward, testing his ethical limits and eventually his emotional ones, too. The pair fall in love, and the three books detail the ups and downs of this interspecies romance, which is complicated by Bella's friendship with Jacob Black, a member of a pack of Native American werewolves who are the sworn enemies of all vampires.
Comparisons to another famous human girl with a vampire boyfriend are inevitable, but Bella Swan is no Buffy Summers. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was at heart one of those mythic hero's journeys so beloved by Joseph Campbell-quoting screenwriters, albeit transfigured into something sharp and funny by making the hero a contemporary teenage girl. Buffy wrestled with a series of romantic dilemmas -- in particular a penchant for hunky vampires -- but her story always belonged to her. Fulfilling her responsibilities as a slayer, loyalty to her friends and family, doing the right thing and cobbling together some semblance of a healthy life were all ultimately as important, if not more important, to her than getting the guy. If Harry Potter has a vampire-loving, adolescent female counterpart, it's Buffy Summers.
By contrast, Bella, once smitten by Edward, lives only for him. When he leaves her (for her own good) at the beginning of "New Moon," she becomes so disconsolate that she resorts to risking her own life, seeking extreme situations that cause her to hallucinate his voice. This practice culminates in a quasi-suicidal high dive into the ocean, after which, on the brink of drowning, she savors visions of her undead boyfriend: "I thought briefly of the clichés, about how you're supposed to see your life flash before your eyes. I was so much luckier. Who wanted to see a rerun, anyway? I saw him, and I had no will to fight ... Why would I fight when I was so happy where I was?" After Edward returns, the only obstacle she can see to her eternal happiness as a member of the glamorous Cullen family is his stubborn refusal to turn her into a vampire: He's worried that she'll lose her soul.
Otherwise directionless and unsure of herself, Bella's only distinguishing trait is her clumsiness, about which she makes frequent self-deprecating jokes. But Bella is not really the point of the Twilight series; she's more of a place holder than a character. She is purposely made as featureless and ordinary as possible in order to render her a vacant, flexible skin into which the reader can insert herself and thereby vicariously enjoy Edward's chilly charms. (His body is as hard and cold as stone, an ick-inducing detail that this reader, for one, found impossible to get past.) Edward, not Bella, is the key to the Twilight franchise, the thing that fans talk about when explaining their fascination with the books. "Perfect" is the word most often used to describe him; besides looking like a male model, Edward plays and composes classical music, has two degrees from Harvard and drives several hot cars very, very fast. And he can read minds (except, mysteriously, for Bella's). "You're good at everything," Bella sighs dreamily.
Even the most timorous teenage girl couldn't conceive of Bella as intimidating; it's hard to imagine a person more insecure, or a situation better set up to magnify her insecurities. Bella's vampire and werewolf friends are all fantastically strong and fierce as well as nearly indestructible, and she spends the better part of every novel alternately cowering in their protective arms or groveling before their magnificence. "How well I knew that I wasn't good enough for him" is a typical musing on her part. Despite Edward's many protestations and demonstrations of his utter devotion, she persists in believing that he doesn't mean it, and will soon tire of her. In a way, the two are ideally suited to each other: Her insipidity is the counterpart to his flawlessness. Neither of them has much personality to speak of.
But to say this is to criticize fantasy according to the standards of literature, and Meyer -- a Mormon housewife and mother of three -- has always been frank about the origins of her novels in her own dreams. Even to a reader not especially susceptible to its particular scenario, Twilight succeeds at communicating the obsessive, narcotic interiority of all intense fantasy lives. Some imaginary worlds multiply, spinning themselves out into ever more elaborate constructs. Twilight retracts; it finds its voluptuousness in the hypnotic reduction of its attention to a single point: the experience of being loved by Edward Cullen.
Bella and her world are barely sketched -- even Edward himself lacks dimension. His inner life and thoughts are known to us only through what Bella sees him say or do. The characters, such as they are, are stripped down to a minimum, lacking the texture and idiosyncrasies of actual people. What this sloughing off permits is the return, again and again, to the delight of marveling at Edward's beauty, being cherished in his impermeable arms, thrilling to his caresses and, above all, hearing him profess, over and over, his absolute, unfailing, exclusive, eternal and worshipful adoration. A tiny sample:
"Bella, I couldn't live with myself if I ever hurt you. You don't know how it's tortured me ... you are the most important thing to me now. The most important thing to me ever."
"I could see it in your eyes, that you honestly believed that I didn't want you anymore. The most absurd, ridiculous concept -- as if there were any way that I could exist without needing you!"

"For this one night, could we try to forget everything besides just you and me?" He pleaded, unleashing the full force of his eyes on me. "It seems like I can never get enough time like that. I need to be with you. Just you."
Need I add that such statements rarely issue from the lips of mortal men, except perhaps when they're looking for sex? Edward, however, doesn't even insist on that -- in fact, he refuses to consummate his love for Bella because he's afraid he might accidentally harm her. "If I was too hasty," he says, "if for one second I wasn't paying enough attention, I could reach out, meaning to touch your face, and crush your skull by mistake. You don't realize how incredibly breakable you are. I can never, never afford to lose any kind of control when I'm with you." As a result, their time together is spent in protracted courtship: make-out sessions and sweet nothings galore, every shy girl's dream. [looks like Harlequin revival with a twist to make it more thrilling]
Yet it's not only shy girls who crush mightily on Edward Cullen. One of the series' most avid fan sites is Twilight Moms, created by and for grown women, many with families of their own. There, as in other forums, readers describe the effects of Meyer's books using words like "obsession" and "addiction." Chores, husbands and children go neglected, and the hours that aren't spent reading and rereading the three novels are squandered on forums and fan fiction. "I have no desires to be part of the real world right now," posted one woman. "Nothing I was doing before holds any interest to me. I do what I have to do, what I need to do to get by and that's it. Someone please tell me it will ease up, even if just a little? My entire world is consumed and in a tailspin."
The likeness to drug addiction is striking, especially when you consider that literary vampirism has often served as a metaphor for that form of enthrallment. The vampire has been a remarkably fluid symbol for over a hundred years, standing for homosexuality, bohemianism and other hip manifestations of outsider status. Although the connection between the bloodsucking undead and romance fiction might seem obscure to the casual observer, they do share an ancestor. Blame it all on George Gordon, aka Lord Byron, the original dangerous, seductive bad boy with an artist's wounded soul and in his own time the object of as much feminine yearning as Edward Cullen has been in the early 21st. Not only did Byron inspire such prototypical romantic heroes as Heathcliff and Mr. Rochester (a character Meyer has listed as among her favorites), he was the original pattern for the vampire as handsome, predatory nobleman. His physician, John William Polidori, wrote "The Vampyre," a seminal short story that featured just such a figure, Lord Ruthven, patently based on the poet. Before that, the vampires of folklore had been depicted as hideous, bestial monsters.
Bram Stoker's Count Dracula was the English bourgeoisie's nightmare vision of Old World aristocracy: decadent, parasitic, yet possessed of a primitive charisma. [psychopathic, in short!] Though we members of the respectable middle class know they intend to eat us alive, we can't help being dazzled by dukes and princes. Aristocrats imperiously exercise the desires we repress and are the objects of our own secret infatuation with hereditary hierarchies. Anne Rice, in the hugely popular Vampire Chronicles, made her vampire Lestat a bisexual rock star -- Byron has also been called the first of those -- cementing the connection between vampire noblemen and modern celebrities. In recent years, in the flourishing subgenre known as paranormal romance, vampires play the role of leading man more often than any other creature of the night, whether the mode is noir, as in Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series of detective novels or chick-lit-ish, as in MaryJanice Davidson's Queen Betsy series.
The YA angle on vampires, evident in the Twilight books and in many other popular series as well, is that they're high school's aristocracy, the coolest kids on campus, the clique that everyone wants to get into. Many women apparently never get over the allure of such groups; as one reader posted on Twilight Moms, "Twilight makes me feel like there may be a world where a perfect man does exist, where love can overcome anything, where men will fight for the women they love no matter what, where the underdog strange girl in high school with an amazing heart can snag the best guy in the school, and where we can live forever with the person we love," a mix of adolescent social aspirations with what are ostensibly adult longings.
The "underdog strange girl" who gets plucked from obscurity by "the best guy in school" is the 21st century's version of the humble governess who captures the heart of the lord of the manor. The chief point of this story is that the couple aren't equals, that his love rescues her from herself by elevating her to a class she could not otherwise join. Unlike Buffy, Bella is no hero. "There are so many girls out there who do not know kung fu, and if a guy jumps in the alley they're not going to turn around with a roundhouse kick," Meyer once told a journalist. "There's a lot of people who are just quieter and aren't having the Prada lifestyle and going to a special school in New York where everyone's rich and fabulous. There's normal people out there and I think that's one of the reasons Bella has become so popular."
Yet the Cullens, although they don't live in New York, are rich and fabulous. Twilight would be a lot more persuasive as an argument that an "amazing heart" counts for more than appearances if it didn't harp so incessantly on Edward's superficial splendors. If the series is supposed to be championing the worth of "normal" people, then why make Edward so exceptional? If his wealth, status, strength, beauty and accomplishments make him the "best" among all the boys at school, why shouldn't the same standard be applied to the girls, leaving Bella by the wayside? Sometimes Edward seems to subscribe to that standard, complaining about having to read the thoughts of one of Bella's classmates because "her mind isn't very original." But then, neither is Bella's. In a sense, Bella is absolutely right: She's not "good enough" for Edward -- at least, not according to the same measurements that make Edward "perfect." Yet by some miracle she -- unremarkable in every way -- is exempt from his customary contempt for the ordinary. Then again, by choosing her he proves that she's better than all the average people at school.
Such are the tortured internal contradictions of romance, as nonsensical as its masculine counterpart, pornography, and every bit as habit forming. Search a little deeper on the Internet and you can find women readers both objecting to the antifeminist aspects of Twilight and admitting that they found the books irresistible. "Sappy romance, amateurish writing, etc.," complained one. Still, "when I read it, I just couldn't put it down. It was like an unhealthy addiction for me ... I'm not sure how I could read through it, seeing how I dislike romances immensely. But I did, and when I couldn't get 'New Moon' I almost had a heart attack. That book was hypnotizing."
Some things, it seems, are even harder to kill than vampires. The traditional feminine fantasy of being delivered from obscurity by a dazzling, powerful man, of needing to do no more to prove or find yourself than win his devotion, of being guarded from all life's vicissitudes by his boundless strength and wealth -- all this turns out to be a difficult dream to leave behind. Vampires have long served to remind us of the parts of our own psyches that seduce us, sapping our will and autonomy, dragging us back into the past. And they walk among us to this day.

As society grew, we were more and more detached from our own feelings and emotions, so instead of being given real tools or stories to confront our own shadow, horror movies filled the gap.

I thought that many people who are not outright pathological, were interested in horror movies, as an unconscious drive to express vicariously angry or violent emotions repressed from early on, as a form of catharsis that can never be fulfilled, it just helps them to be pushed further into a nightmarish state into the unconscious osit.
Also it does not give a very positive outlook on human nature in general.

It made me think how in Japan, mangas were free to explore any kind of topics, from the cutest to the most vile.
And how do we see Japanese people ? as people who repress every emotions since they are babies.

Yes, I think you have a point. It can lead to really extreme things like this story Hildegarda quoted in the Positive dissociation thread:

Taichi Takashita launched an online petition campaign that will allow him to marry his beloved Asahina Mikuru legally. But the problem is that Asahina Mikuru is a fictitious anime character of “Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya”. Surprisingly more than 1000 people supported his online petition. He needs a total of 1 million signatures for this petition. So far there’s only 999,999 signatures to go.

“I am no longer interested in three dimensions. I would even like to become a resident of the two-dimensional world.”

“However, that seems impossible with present-day technology. Therefore, at the very least, would it be possible to legally authorise marriage with a two-dimensional character?”

“For a long time I have only been able to fall in love with two-dimensional people and currently I have someone I really love,” one signatory to the petition wrote.

“Even if she is fictional, it is still loving someone. I would like to have legal approval for this system at any cost.”

Look at old and well known children stories, like the little red riding hood or The wolf and the seven little goats, they were quite horrific in themselves but they served (I could be wrong) a purpose of teaching children basic knowledge about the world.
Unless they were already created by pathological individuals ?

I don't know if you read Clarissa Pinkola Este's Women who run with Wolves, but she shows in that book that traditional tales (like Blue Beard) are powerful tools to decipher what goes on in our unconscious and to teach us about the ways of the predator (inner and outer as well).
Also, have you checked the Thought-provoking kids fiction thread?

So horrific stories could not always be a bad thing, as they could help to express the shadowy part we all have but it has become rare.

As has already been said, the bottom line is really the intent, whether one shows dark and horrific things to teach about reality and how to find one's way out of it, or to just wallow in it and encourage it.
My 2 cents.

 

[truth seeker]

I thought the Twilight article was interesting as well. I've seen the ads for the show and was aware peripherally of its popularity but couldn't bring myself to watch it.

And as for comparing them to Harry Potter... HA. Bella isn't a protagonist by any stretch, she's just some girl to whom all this 'stuff' happens, most of the stuff being pretty dramatic, granted, but her reactions are just pathetic. It screams helpless dependent woman, and I agree with the author - Buffy made a much better protagonist.

I also find it disturbing that Buffy was very popular in its day and now there's this Twilight series that by others definitions doesn't seem to compare.

The "underdog strange girl" who gets plucked from obscurity by "the best guy in school" is the 21st century's version of the humble governess who captures the heart of the lord of the manor. The chief point of this story is that the couple aren't equals, that his love rescues her from herself by elevating her to a class she could not otherwise join. Unlike Buffy, Bella is no hero. "There are so many girls out there who do not know kung fu, and if a guy jumps in the alley they're not going to turn around with a roundhouse kick," Meyer once told a journalist. "There's a lot of people who are just quieter and aren't having the Prada lifestyle and going to a special school in New York where everyone's rich and fabulous. There's normal people out there and I think that's one of the reasons Bella has become so popular."

In the versions of the "humble governess who captures the heart of the lord of the manor.", what you will see quite often is while the humble governess is lacking in social status, many times she is not only an intellectual equal to the lord of the manor, but sometimes his superior. I think the same holds true with Buffy. She could not only physically fight but mentally fight. This is what in my opinion really got her through most episodes. What I liked about that series was that even though it takes place in high school, you can clearly see the parallels to real life. This is also what I like best about the Harry Potter series (you can see how politics/government/laws affect life, you're given clear examples of how the truth can get distorted). In short, the character is empowered from within.

This seems (from what I can tell by just reading) to be one of the things that is missing from the character in the Twilight series.

 

[Tigersoap]

I was wondering why there's such a strong fascination / obsession for the vampire concept among some women. I read an interesting article that might give some clues.
http://mobile.salon.com/books/review/2008/07/30/Twilight/index1.html

Thanks for the article.

The same thing is happening with True blood, HBO.
It's exactly the same plot as Twilight but it is also the anti-Twilight because it's more raunchy and vampire actually have sex.
You can't escape the fangs.

On a side note, as in the serie True blood where vampire are living in the open,what if psychopaths were actually coming out from the shadow ?
Many people would fall for the line "we have to respect all living..err...dead being", claiming a right to be who they are and legal status...
That would be something

A few vampire movies are less sympathic like 30 days of night or let the right one in, although if you're projecting glamour on them you'll miss the beast.

I don't know if you read Clarissa Pinkola Este's Women who run with Wolves, but she shows in that book that traditional tales (like Blue Beard) are powerful tools to decipher what goes on in our unconscious and to teach us about the ways of the predator (inner and outer as well).
Also, have you checked the Thought-provoking kids fiction thread?

Not read that one yet. It's on my list.

 

[Biomiast]

Thanks for the article Luthien.

My sister(13 years old) is completely into these kind of movies and books. It is quite painful to watch her obsessively read everything about Twilight or other vampire related books and talk about them as they are the best. She has some friends who believe in vampires etc. For the sake of communication and to understand her better, I tried to read a book called New Moon in the series. After eight page, I got a brain fog and after twelve page I felt sick and couldn't read more. I am not talking about the actions of the characters here, but the overall style of the book is quite disturbing in my humble opinion. In every page Meyer describes how vampires are beautiful or handsome or how their hair is shiny, how their eyes are perfect etc. These things are repeatedly mentioned in the book, almost as if they are trying to create a set of belief around those books, as if this is the way you should live your life.

Yesterday, I came across a passage from Women Who Run With the Wolves, I think it might be related here. In page 129, it says:

Women often crave a mate who has this kind of endurance and the wit to continue trying to understand her deep nature. When she finds a mate of that substance, she will give lifelong loyalty and love.

So, it seems to me, Edward provides a fake possibility of someone who can understand this deep nature in their psyche. They are looking for something outside(even this thing be in their imagination) to satisfy themselves, and forget to look inside to understand their own nature.

And in page 127 it says:

As in the other fairy tales, masculine forces can carry Bluebeard-like or murderous Mr. Fox sorts of energy and thereby attempt to demolish dual nature of women. That sort of suitor cannot tolerate duality and is looking for perfection, for the one truth, the one immovable, unchangeable feminina substancia, feminine substance embodied in the one perfect woman. Ai! If you meet this kind of person, run the other way as fast as you can. It is better to have a Manawee-type[the character who respects and understands the dual nature of women] lover both within and without: He is a much better suitor, for he is intensely devoted to the idea of the Two. And the power of the Two is in acting as one integral entity.

My analysis about the Twilight series is that they use this craving of women to get them into a trap where you don't have to do anything like Work, let your vampire boyfriend do everything, oh, and don't mind he doesn't exist, just dream about it. This makes women lose connection with their wild nature as Clarissa Pinkola Estés puts it. They feel helpless and use their creative forces for the fantasy of a savior instead of facing the reality as it is.

On a side note, my sister told me, now that she have read Twilight, she find Harry Potter boring.

 

[Adaryn]

Thanks for the article Luthien.

and thanks for your account - I haven't read those books but your description confirms my impressions of them (I've seen the movie though).

Women often crave a mate who has this kind of endurance and the wit to continue trying to understand her deep nature. When she finds a mate of that substance, she will give lifelong loyalty and love.

So, it seems to me, Edward provides a fake possibility of someone who can understand this deep nature in their psyche. They are looking for something outside(even this thing be in their imagination) to satisfy themselves, and forget to look inside to understand their own nature.
As in the other fairy tales, masculine forces can carry Bluebeard-like or murderous Mr. Fox sorts of energy and thereby attempt to demolish dual nature of women. That sort of suitor cannot tolerate duality and is looking for perfection, for the one truth, the one immovable, unchangeable feminina substancia, feminine substance embodied in the one perfect woman. Ai! If you meet this kind of person, run the other way as fast as you can. It is better to have a Manawee-type[the character who respects and understands the dual nature of women] lover both within and without: He is a much better suitor, for he is intensely devoted to the idea of the Two. And the power of the Two is in acting as one integral entity.

My analysis about the Twilight series is that they use this craving of women to get them into a trap where you don't have to do anything like Work, let your vampire boyfriend do everything, oh, and don't mind he doesn't exist, just dream about it. This makes women lose connection with their wild nature as Clarissa Pinkola Estés puts it. They feel helpless and use their creative forces for the fantasy of a savior instead of facing the reality as it is.

I think you have figured it out very well. Yeah that's exactly how I see it, and these things are dangerous. They disempower women. They take a legitimate desire (=> the longing for someone who tries to understand their deep nature) and subvert it. They rip them off of their creative energy, turning them into passive and dependent creatures. Of course this doesn't only applies to women, but within the Twilight context and Este's quote, it's spot on.

 

[Hildegarda]

also find it disturbing that Buffy was very popular in its day and now there's this Twilight series that by others definitions doesn't seem to compare.

[..] they use this craving of women to get them into a trap where you don't have to do anything like Work, let your vampire boyfriend do everything, oh, and don't mind he doesn't exist, just dream about it. This makes women lose connection with their wild nature as Clarissa Pinkola Estés puts it. [..]

[..] disempower women. They take a legitimate desire (=> the longing for someone who tries to understand their deep nature) and subvert it. They rip them off of their creative energy, turning them into passive and dependent creatures.

I agree with the ideas that Twilight does something subversive with young girls' hopes and dreams, but not to the extent that the Salon piece takes it.

I don't think the series is specifically designed to promote an old-fashioned concept of "the traditional feminine fantasy of being delivered from obscurity by a dazzling, powerful men", and bring women down using it.

On an archetypal plane, I do not consider Buffy superior to Bella. The self-sufficient female heroine who acts like a male while slaying males is a creature of our time, of our society. She too is vulnerable because in many important aspects she is artificial. And a mini-skirted blond teenage version of it is even more artificial, because it has clearly been designed -- by men -- not only to walk man's path but also appeal to guys physically, which sort of takes away from her supposed independence and initiative, and adds a whole different dimension of vulnerability.

In any case, a female protagonist who is trying to walk the man's journey and use the man's tactics without any regard to woman's natural strengths and cycles of her life may be "owning her story", but in many ways she is stuck and sterile, and that's untenable. It is obvious in the society at large too. This is the key to the third-wave feminist debate and to understanding of such situations as, say, well-educated young professional women choosing to stay home and raise their children, drawing ire from their working feminist mothers.

The article makes an interesting statement:

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was at heart one of those mythic hero's journeys so beloved by Joseph Campbell-quoting screenwriters, albeit transfigured into something sharp and funny by making the hero a contemporary teenage girl. Buffy wrestled with a series of romantic dilemmas -- in particular a penchant for hunky vampires -- but her story always belonged to her.

This may be a proper comparison, but if so, I disagree that it would hold and make an enduring archetypal story, simply because a woman's hero journey is completely different from the man's.

I am drawing on the works of Lois McMaster Bujold, a prominent sci-fi writer, and on a great interview with her that can be found here (\\\http://womenwriters.net/june09/paladin_interview.html). She talks about her new novel and its heroine, a 40 y.o. mother of grown children who doesn't do any martial art stuff:

It was clear to me from reading Campbell and listening to his recorded lectures that while he was very big on the Hero’s Journey, he was utterly clueless about women. The journey into maturity (for which the above was metaphor, in Campbell’s view) has an entirely different structure for women than for men, starting from the fact that while the male goes out into the world and returns to his starting point to take over the role of his father, the successful female (in exogamous cultures, which most are) goes out and keeps on going, never to return. The Hero’s Journey is just the wrong shape for the Heroine.
[..]

The old model of “maid, matron, crone” for women’s lives was based on a much shorter average life-span. Modern technology, over the past 150 years, has literally doubled the life expectancy of women in industrial societies (from 40 to 45 years to 80 to 90 years). With lower birth rates, “matron” takes less of a bite than ever out of the prime years, and the debilitation of old age is pushed off for decades. This gives instead a life structure of “maid, matron, 20-or-30-year-blank, crone.” There are no historical social models for that second-maturity period. It’s something our time is having to invent. Men’s life spans have been extended as well, to be sure, and we’re seeing more fellows re-invent themselves with second and third careers (and sometimes families). But for men, it seems to be a smoother extension of what they were doing already, and less of a terra incognita.
[..]

for all the attendant sword-swinging, her journey is truly at its core a spiritual one, a pilgrimage of cleansing and redemption, of serious spiritual rebirth[..]

Q: Many fantasy stories have heroines exercise power by taking on male-style violence, often becoming experts in the martial arts, for example. Ista does not. Why not?

A: Besides being forty years old, having led an enforced sedentary life for the past two decades, being maybe 5’3”, and being the queen mother of her country, that is?

There are many and subtle forms of very real power that have nothing to do with young males whacking each other frantically about the head in a quest for enhanced bio-social status. [..]

Back to Twilight: I think that the very reason Bella's archetypal story has caught on among girls is precisely because Buffy's couldn't deliver some very important things. It is a pity that there is nothing more enduring and thought-out as an alternative though. As has been pointed out, Bella, as a character, is distinctly flat and inexpressive. Or may be it's a tall order to expect one character to deliver everything, I don't know ...

What I suspect has happened is that Meyer has stumbled on two amazingly enduring themes that are important for young girls who are just starting their journey into womanhood and are trying to see what it's like in the fog of the future.

One is the idea of being loved unconditionally and nurtured by a wonderful person -- not for any achievement or anything you did, but just because it's you. This is something we want in our lives. This is not weakness, passivity or old stereotypes of femininity, that's a deeply spiritual need. And I think it's a really an unfortunate state of affairs that women are so under-nurtured in our society, that even grown-up women get totally hooked up and addicted to this theme when it's offered in teen fiction; obviously, the real life experiences were few and far between for them. Partly because nobody ever talks about how much work goes into creating, manifesting these experiences in your life.

The other idea has to do with sexuality: the fear of first intimacy, the profound desire for it, and an even more profound desire for the man you are with to respect and support you throughout it, be in it not for himself but for you -- because it is harder for you, both physically and emotionally. Edward's character fits this fledgling emotion, as does the looming dynamic of "making a vampire", in a metaphoric way. Caitlin Flanagan catches this one very well, IMO, in her essay )(\\\http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200812/twilight-vampires):

The Twilight series is not based on a true story, of course, but within it is the true story, the original one. Twilight centers on a boy who loves a girl so much that he refuses to defile her, and on a girl who loves him so dearly that she is desperate for him to do just that, even if the wages of the act are expulsion from her family and from everything she has ever known. We haven’t seen that tale in a girls’ book in a very long time.

She makes one more obsevation there which IMO is very astute:

The salient fact of an adolescent girl’s existence is her need for a secret emotional life—one that she slips into during her sulks and silences, during her endless hours alone in her room, or even just when she’s gazing out the classroom window while all of Modern European History, or the niceties of the passé composé, sluice past her. This means that she is a creature designed for reading in a way no boy or man, or even grown woman, could ever be so exactly designed, because she is a creature whose most elemental psychological needs—to be undisturbed while she works out the big questions of her life, to be hidden from view while still in plain sight, to enter profoundly into the emotional lives of others—are met precisely by the act of reading.

This suggests that young girls are not simply especially prone to this kind of dissociation; for them, it can carry positive meaning. And the Twilight books are great at delivering that and dissociating them exactly into the place they, at that time, want to be. And only there -- this is what I recognized when I read the first book. It plunged me straight into the mood I had at 14 or so during my first crush into a guy I only knew from seeing in the school hallways from time to time, or when I was infatuated with this or that popular artist. I recognized the shy and silly smile that came into my face, the flutter of the heart, everything.

This is where, I think, the bad and subversive part starts for the Twilight series, because, aside from that, there's nothing else. This dreaming and dissociation is a nice and necessary part of the girl's life, but it is designed to be temporary and morph into the next lesson of life, as it happened in other great stories of the past, e.g., Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin". But to pull four stiff books out of this one point, that's overstretching the story past the point of viability. No offense, Meyer's just not a very good writer, that's number one, and number two, she has a poor grasp of the inner world of the guys and any growth in general. So a lot of the developmental threads get locked early on, and she is trying pathetically to detangle them, while in a big picture, nothing is moving anywhere, nothing happens. And lastly, the demands of the commercial book market are also to blame: you have to have a series, the companion guide, a product line and a movie in the works, and eventually the sales machine starts moving on its own.

As a result of all this, everything gets trivialized, over-exposed and dumbed down. Very much in the same vein as drawing hearts and sparkly stars on the picture of a guy you have a crush on, and talking about him to all your girlfriend day after day, month after month, totally ruins whatever point there was in it. If a girl gets hooked up on Twilight, she risks getting stuck in an emotionally immature stage of development -- infantilized for life, as it were.

OSIT

 

[Gaby]

One is the idea of being loved unconditionally and nurtured by a wonderful person -- not for any achievement or anything you did, but just because it's you. This is something we want in our lives. This is not weakness, passivity or old stereotypes of femininity, that's a deeply spiritual need.

I second your review. All wounded women cherish to be loved unconditionally, so that is why I think that Meyer touched a very deep wound with Twilight.

Stephenie Meyer portrays the vampire as the Knight and that is pretty twisted and it seems she does something similar (but inverse) with The Host where Souls and Seekers are the ones who invaded the Earth, a la "body snatchers". Perhaps we can say that symbolically, this reflects her spiritual views and archetypal energies. She is after all, mormon. Is she trying to make sense of her religion by portraying it as a savior? In reality, vampires – pathological people like malignant narcissists and psychopaths - really suck our life force and creativity. Monotheistic religions (a psychopathic system) does the same thing, but with millions of people. A blood thirsty God, a blood thirsty vampire. So Meyer brings some elements of the Knight archetype and merges it dangerously with the vampire archetype. That is what I found most creepy.

The psychopath/vampire "steals" the concept of courtly love and corrupts it for his own devious purposes. This is why positive illusions and lack of knowledge of psychopathy leave women susceptible to their predations, as they wish for a happy ending with such devious and charming creatures that live among us in the highlight of society. I think here is where Stephenie Meyer makes her greatest damage, she sustains and enhances this illusion, leaving women more susceptible to the predatory schemes of psychopaths. In real life, women will NEVER see courtly love by a devoted "Edward Cullen" personified as a charming vampire/psychopath.

Meyer portrays a scenario where the Vampire/Psychopath will love us unconditionally, where he has a Soul. She really hasn't done anything extraordinary, as people usually project their conscience and empathy into the Psychopath who lacks capacity of both. Twilight can be even a "symbol" of the result of projected higher emotions into a Psychopath, a truly impossible scenario. This does not exists within the Psychopath, he is not capable of such higher emotions. Therefore it is useless and counterproductive to imagine that it can be the case, as it only re-enforces the illusion that this is so.

Twilight doesn't give any means to actualize women needs and dreams within their reality and daily life. Perhaps it can give an idea of what the needs and wounds are, and how deep they run, but it can only go so far. Women are still left with their own devices.

Only knowledge protects and it can be a savior if applied. Reading and digesting the psychology books are highly advisable, specially Unholy Hungers, since it is about "real vampires" and about how projected romantic love can be actualized within the self. But also the psychopathy material is highly recommended.

My 2 cents.

 

[truth seeker]

On an archetypal plane, I do not consider Buffy superior to Bella. The self-sufficient female heroine who acts like a male while slaying males is a creature of our time, of our society. She too is vulnerable because in many important aspects she is artificial. And a mini-skirted blond teenage version of it is even more artificial, because it has clearly been designed -- by men -- not only to walk man's path but also appeal to guys physically, which sort of takes away from her supposed independence and initiative, and adds a whole different dimension of vulnerability.

This is an interesting point you bring up. The Buffy character I was thinking of when I wrote the comment comparing Buffy to Bella was the one from the series which in my opinion was very different from the one in the series. The one in the movie (which was the original) was in my opinion girly and cartoonish as opposed to the one in the series which was more fleshed out.

The one in the series to me was more realistic because she was very often vulnerable (as people are) and had help from her friends (not only to help her in fighting, but also in gaining knowledge/information that helped in problem solving. It has been a long time however since I've seen that show and I'm not sure what I would think now if I were to watch it again.

 

[Nathan]

How to Write a Bestseller Just Like Twilight

This really made me laugh:

_http://psa.blastmagazine.com/2008/08/23/twilight-a-follow-up-and-a-promise/

How to Write a Bestseller Just Like Twilight:

1. Abuse the thesaurus (correct word usage optional; purple prose is a must). If you want to ‘spice up’ your writing so that it sounds just like Meyer’s, a handy thesaurus is key. Then you too can write glorious and dazzling (and dazzlingly glorious) passages like the following:

He lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted, incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare. His glistening, pale lavender lids were shut, though of course he didn’t sleep. A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal.

If you do not have at least three modifiers* for every noun, you’re doing it wrong. Some authors like George Orwell (1984, Animal Farm) have rules like “Never use a long word where a short one will do” and “If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out”, but since Stephenie Meyer is apparently the golden standard for writing young adult literature these days, it’s probably best to ignore Orwell and follow her example instead.

* Bonus points if you use the same modifier multiple times in close proximity of one another. Good examples of words to use this way include “chagrin”, “murmured”, and “chuckled”.

2. Do not research. It is not necessary to waste time getting biology facts, cultural lore, or cultural history correct. For example, if you choose to set your novel in a real-life place, don’t bother visiting it. If you incorporate the ideas of another culture, such as that of the Sioux Native Americans, absolutely do not speak to any Sioux elders or Sioux scholars-as the author, you have no responsibility to accurately portray anything. Instead, take what history you can find out on the Internet and feel free to bastardize their cultural lore so that it fits into your story. Also, if you decide to use science to explain some of your fantasy elements, don’t bother making it logically or factually sound.

3. Do not give your characters personalities. Instead, make sure that your female lead is as perfect as possible (but don’t forget to give her a contrived sense of humility). Obviously she must be pretty and smart, but don’t bother giving examples of her intelligence; all you have to do to tie up that loose end is mention bad interpretations of classic literature. To make sure that she isn’t TOO perfect, she needs a flaw. This is where it gets tricky; if you give her a true flaw, like hubris, she is less appealing. Therefore, use a “flaw” like clumsiness so that a) she is endearingly klutzy (allowing socially awkward young girls to put themselves in her shoes) and b) you have a great deus ex machina that allows your male lead* to swoop in and save the heroine from impaling** herself on a pencil after an attempt at a magic trick.

* It is sometimes helpful to give your female heroine an Electra complex, as this further romanticizes the idea of the male hero carrying her around, watching her as she sleeps, being 100+ years older than her, etc., etc.

** It is important to note that the heroine should not have to sacrifice anything besides her ambition. If you think she SHOULD sacrifice something, make sure that she’s only giving up her family and friends so that the she can devote her entire life and purpose of being to the hero. She should NOT have any kind of hobbies, interests, etc. outside of the hero, and if he leaves her she should become suicidal.

That brings me to the male lead. While it’s a given that he must be a perfect physical specimen, be careful not to give him any actual identifying characteristics because this will reduce your reader’s ability to superimpose the image of her own ‘perfect man’ over the hollow shell of your character. As for personal traits, it’s extremely effective to write him as a caricature of the Byronic hero. Your hero should be brooding, pseudo-dangerous, and have a deep, dark secret to cement his status as a sexy ‘bad boy’. Additionally, he must be extremely wealthy, drive fast cars, and enjoy watching the heroine sleep unawares.

4. Ensure that your heroine and hero’s relationship is abusive. An effective way to do this is to make sure that your male hero fulfills several of the requirements for relational abuse. A good definition of that is this one, from Wikipedia:

Abusive relationships are often characterized by jealousy, emotional withholding, lack of intimacy, infidelity, sexual coercion, verbal abuse, broken promises, physical violence, control games and power plays.



Personally, I recommend using jealousy, lack of intimacy, sexual coercion, broken promises, and controlling behavior because those are all quite easy to justify; all the hero must do is claim that he acts out of his desire to protect the heroine from danger because of his overwhelming love for her. Additionally, if there is another possible romantic interest for the heroine outside of the hero, isolating the heroine from him is a particularly effective method for the hero to use. One example might be siphoning the gasoline from the heroine’s moped to prevent her from leaving her house.

It is especially important to note that the heroine must not find fault in the hero for his abusive actions, as that would make him much less appealing. Instead, she should excuse his behavior by saying “he just loves me” and then continue to submit to his will.

If you’re worried that this might send a bad message to young, hormonal teenagers struggling through their own romantic relationships, don’t be. After all, as Heather says, “This is a BOOK a FICTIONOUS BOOK”, and no one has ever been influenced by a work of fiction in the history of the world, ever. Not even people back in the 1800s who read books like Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In the same way that people are not influenced by advertising or by peer pressure, reading novels does not have the least bit influence on anyone, least of all teenagers whose brains haven’t finished developing.

5. There should be no plot. Even though you may think that rising action, climax, falling action, and character development are important in a novel, they’re not. Instead, focus on the perfection of the male hero. If your editor forces you to write a plot, make sure it’s just another opportunity for the hero to save the heroine.

6. Profit!

Well, there you have it! I hope this helps those of you hoping to write your own ‘Twilight’. And to those of you who were concerned over my literary critique of the series, I promise to follow the steps above before I even think about publicly disliking something again in the future.

 

[Nathan]

Re: How to Write a Bestseller Just Like Twilight

On a more serious note...

I have only read part of the first book (before losing the will to live), however I did find it disturbing that a character such as Edward, who strikes me as near-psychopathic, at the very least narcissistic, is regarded by many of my female friends (age group: 20-35) as the "perfect guy" and repeatedly fail to see his manipulative behaviour in these books.

This blog post from therejectionist.com puts it rather eloquently (and bluntly):
http://www.therejectionist.com/2009/11/todays-book-review.html

What we are heartily sick of, however, are feeble and inept teenage-girl main characters, whose lives come into focus only through the addition of some melodramatic attraction to a charismatic male figure who seems to carry all the personality in the relationship. Stiefvater's heroine Grace is even more insipid and insulting than Stephenie Meyer's Bella, who at least manages to commence Twilight with a predilection for the Brontes and an occasional demonstration of feistiness, even if she almost immediately devolves into a sobbing mess who hangs about in the more sordid corners of Forks awaiting rescue and who states repeatedly that she cannot live without vampire-beau Edward after spending all of a biology period with him (Grace thinks, I need this to live, the very first time her werewolf paramour kisses her). Yes, adolescence is a volatile time, and yes, adolescents (of ALL genders, thank you) develop obsessive and incredibly intense romantic attachments to all kinds of people who do not have their best interests at heart, and no, we don't have a problem with books willing to tackle those kinds of relationships head-on. But love that is self-abnegating, all-consuming, and totally erases any kind of independence looks a lot more like domestic violence than fabulous romance, and doormats aren't actually very interesting as protagonists. Grace has literally no interests outside of her werewolf boyfriend and COOKING; if Shiverwere set in the fifties, it might make a little more sense (parody? meta-commentary on heteronormative romantic narratives via the fantastic? something? something?).

So what gives? Why are we settling for the same old crap tied up in a paranormal package? Is this really what the ladies want? To hang out moping over some dude all day, occupying ourselves in the kitchen, hoping he does something exciting like get hurt or have a temper tantrum so we can engage in some high-stakes caretaking? Can we maybe aim a little f**king higher, please? Don't try and tell us This Is What Sells; plenty of books with toughass young ladies at their hearts have blown up all over the place. Pullman's (NYT bestselling) Lyra is as fierce and complicated a wee heroine as a reader could ask for; likewise Katsa of Kristin Cashore's (NYT bestseller) Graceling, who is an UNDEFEATABLE ASSASSIN, for pete's sake, and who refuses to marry her tasty morsel of a manfriend because she's worried about cramping her style; Clary of Cassandra Clare's (NYT bestselling) Mortal Instruments trilogy manages to harbor a salacious forbidden passion for a hot Bad Dude while having, you know, a rich inner life, worrying about her family, and delivering sassy one-liners; even Ever, the heroine of Alyson Noel's (NYT bestselling) supremely trashy (and not exactly infused with a feminist politics) Immortals series manages to cultivate a few hobbies whilst pursuing her Monosyllabic Tormented Demon Man.

So all we can say is: KNOCK IT OFF. Knock off buying this s**t, and knock off cranking it out. It is tough enough being a lady in this world, Author-friends, without having it hammered into our goddamn heads that we're STILL supposed to sit tight, shut up, and look pretty. We are NOT HAVING IT. If anybody around here gets to be a werewolf, it's gonna be US. And we will eat you right up, believe it.

I can only say I've read some of Twilight, but Edward's behaviour is pretty obvious. Why is it that his behaviour is not apparent to those who deem him the ideal man? Is it because they lack the knowledge of the psychopath? Or is it because they have not experienced such an abusive relationship first-hand? Or worse, perhaps they are experiencing abuse in their present or past relationship and yet are unable to see the forest for trees.

Any thoughts?

 

[Adaryn]

Re: How to Write a Bestseller Just Like Twilight

Hi Nathan,

Twilight has been discussed to some extent with interesting input here.
As for your question (and though I haven't read Twilight), I think that a lot of girls/women are attracted to that kind of character because they *seem* to give the image of unconditional love and passion, of protection, strength, etc. There might also be an aspect of wanting to "save" or "redeem" the dark man/bad guy -- of course they don't realise this man might be a psychopath. They just think that they can save him through their love. For more on that and why some women are attracted to this type of men (or more accurately, to the image they project), see Women who love psychopaths, by Sandra L. Brown.

As it happens, the other day, I was reading some reviews of the movie Legend on IMDB, and there was some debate going on in the discussion board, because some women admitted that if they were Lily (the heroine), they would have chosen the character Darkness over the more "dull" hero (Jack). One of the guys taking part in the discussion couldn't understand how women could prefer such a horrible, abusive and dark character over a nice guy who would do anything for them. Some girls thought the male hero was whiny and they just preferred the bad guy because he had more "personality" (yup).
I'll copy a few posts from some of the female forumites. They might give a clue:

He's the ultimate bad boy. Girls love to try to save the bad boys.

Ummm that's not necessarily true...why would we want to "save" Darkness...we're attracted to him BECAUSE he's dark and evil, and we wouldn't be if he wasn't.

And chicks aren't usually attracted to slimy douche bags who abuse them, but Darkness is a FICTIONAL personification of evil, who happens to be way sexy. There's a difference.

I know I would choose Darkness if I were Lily. He's so dark and sensual, and the riches are a plus.

Comment from a guy:

All I have to say is that I was disgusted, but not surprised by the shallow answers given by the fangirls here. Um, ladies. Darkness is evil. He would have murdered Lily the instant his amusement of her had come and gone, or the instant she said or did something he didn't like. There was no actual relationship to be had. Just look at the scene where they interact while he's trying to seduce her. Everytime she "stepped out of line" as far as he was concerned, he turned feral and homocidal.

I think you're taking this a little too seriously. One of the great joys of fiction, and especially fantasy, is that it allows us to dream of a life we couldn't or wouldn't ever have in the real world. If a man/creature that looked and behaved like Darkness actually approached any woman in the real world, she would scream and do everything in her power to get away from him, sexy voice or no. But watching a movie, in the throes of suspension of disbelief, it's fun to set aside the reality of his horrifying aspect and focus instead on the raw, animal sexuality he presents. There's something arousing, on a primal level, about a huge, powerful, terrifying male who focuses his sexual energy on you. To have someone who could kill anyone, but doesn't want to kill you, trying to seduce you is a very alluring concept. So it's fun to live vicariously through Lily and to know what that kind of intense seduction would feel like, and that makes it easy to set aside the facts (e.g., that he's an ugly, evil monster who's hell-bent on destroying everything good in the world.)

The same goes for the Beauty and the Beast story. Of course no girl in her right mind would fall in love with the Beast, no matter how kind-hearted or sensitive he turned out to be: he's a huge hulking talking beast, and therefore an abomination. But it's nice to PRETEND that you'd fall for him, because there's a wonderful temptation in the idea of a beast, who was previously incapable of love, changing his ways and desiring nothing in the world but you. The story in Labyrinth is really just an adaptation of the Beauty and the Beast story, so the attraction is the same.

Another female forumite:

So, yeah, Darkness is incredibly sexy. But is he the best long-term partner? No. It's like the song at the end of the Theatrical Cut says; is your love strong enough? Jack was the "safe" choice, the right choice. He genuinely loved Lily and did whatever it took to save her, including risking his own life and the lives of his friends. Darkness...well, he was abusive, to put it mildly. He didn't love Lily for who she was, he only lusted for her body and wanted to transform her into something evil. Not the best choice!

So there's the lure of the unknown and the blatantly sexual versus the known and the less openly sexual. It's the question of what would you rather have: a non-loving, non-committed sexual relationship that's fun and passionate in the short term and horribly disastrous in the long-term (as in, the other partner's a homicidal, abusive control freak), or a stable and loving long-term relationship that includes sex with someone who genuinely loves you?

In short, bad boys (Darkness included) can be sexy, but would you want to end up with one? No. And Lily made the right choice by choosing Jack over Darkness. But I can definitely see why some female fans of Legend would be curious as to what Darkness has under his leather codpiece.

The whole thread has some other interesting comments (aside from the one liner comments) that might give a clue about what is in (some) ladies' mind:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089469/board/thread/92920283?p=1

 

[Third_Density_Resident]

Re: How to Write a Bestseller Just Like Twilight

I have only read part of the first book (before losing the will to live), however I did find it disturbing that a character such as Edward, who strikes me as near-psychopathic, at the very least narcissistic, is regarded by many of my female friends (age group: 20-35) as the "perfect guy" and repeatedly fail to see his manipulative behaviour in these books.

I was more or less persuaded to read these books. The women readers who encouraged me to read them said how "excellent" the books are, and how you "just can't put them down". I forced my way through three quarters of the first book, then gave up. It's teenage trash as far as I'm concerned, with some very disturbing elements. When I pointed out to someone how terrible the writing is, they just didn't know what I was getting at. Some people see purple prose as a plus, when nothing could be further from the truth.

 

[Tigersoap]

Re: How to Write a Bestseller Just Like Twilight

I haven't an answer myself but maybe it's time people start to realize that life ain't all thrills and sparkling lights all over.

I liked how in the book Unholy hunger, The author reminds us of this "oatmeal love" (if i am recalling correctly) and in Women who runs with wolves (guys you must read this as well !), she speaks of the skeleton woman with the ups and downs of a relationship.

If we weren't kept in this willing state of immaturity maybe this attraction for the bad guy (or bad girl in some cases) would not be sustained osit.

By the way I found this blog with this twilight article :

http://wandering-reflections.blogspot.com/

Who's the forumite owner ? the name seems familiar.

 

[Adaryn]

Re: How to Write a Bestseller Just Like Twilight

By the way I found this blog with this twilight article :

http://wandering-reflections.blogspot.com/

Who's the forumite owner ? the name seems familiar.

It seems it's our health expert, Psyche :)

 

[Gaby]

Re: How to Write a Bestseller Just Like Twilight

By the way I found this blog with this twilight article :

http://wandering-reflections.blogspot.com/

Who's the forumite owner ? the name seems familiar.

It seems it's our health expert, Psyche :)

LOL, I never thought that I would be found out. I guess it is easier to find it using psychology keywords and that if you use Twilight keywords, that blog will be buried down among thousands of entries. Still, I do believe that some Twilight fans had made it into the post and actually read the whole thing. But one has to be very picky with the search engine keywords.