The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide

It gets complicated because, as the author, I see the first-person perspective from more than one person‘s perspective. I started writing Bella in the beginning, but there are several voices that are first-person perspective for me while I‘m writing. So I know everything that‘s going on with those people. Sometimes it‘s hard for me to write from Bella‘s perspective only, because Bella can only know certain things. And so much of that story was first-person-perspective Edward for me.

I knew it was going to be a problem if Edward took off. [Laughs] I mean, even though Twilight had not come out yet, I was aware enough at this point that this is not the way you write a romance. You don‘t take the main character away — you don‘t take the guy away. [SH laughs]

But because of who he is, he had to leave — and because of the weakness that he has, he was going to come back. It was his strength that got him away, and it was the weakness that brought him back. It was a defeat, in a way, for him — but, at the same time, it was this triumph he wasn‘t expecting. Because he didn‘t see it going the way it does in the end.

He‘s such a pessimist — oh my gosh, Edward‘s a pessimist. And one of the fun things about Breaking Dawn for me was working through that with him, till he finally becomes an optimist. That‘s one of the biggest changes in Breaking Dawn, that Edward becomes an optimist.

So many things have lined up in his favor that he can no longer deny the fact that some good will happen to him in his life. [Laughs]

And so for me, New Moon was all about what Edward had to do to be able to call himself a man. If he hadn‘t tried to save Bella by leaving, then he would not have been a good person, in his own estimation. He had to at least try.

And it was really hard to write, because I had to live all that. Oh gosh — it was depressing! I was into listening to a lot of Marjorie Fair. [Laughs] But I was able to do some things as a writer that I was really proud of, that I felt were a lot better than what I‘d done in Twilight. I was able to explore some things that felt really real to me — even though I‘d never been in Bella‘s position. It didn‘t feel like sympathy; it was empathy. Like I was really there, like I really was her. And so that was an interesting experience… but it was hard. It does take up the majority of the book, and that was tricky. It‘s gratifying to me that, for some people — a minority— New Moon is their very favorite book.

SH: I have a book like that— Enna Burning—which has been my least popular book all around. But there is a core of people for whom that is their favorite. And it is tremendously gratifying, because that was a difficult book to write for me, too. It‘s a dark book, and I poured so much into it. I‘m really proud of that book. But to find that it spoke to someone else besides me makes me feel not quite so lonely as a writer.

SM: As a writer I don‘t think you always realize how lonely it is to feel like you‘re in this world all by yourself. That‘s why you end up sharing it, because there are some people who will get it.

On Criticism

Every book has its audience.

SM: What surprises me is not that there are people who don‘t get my book — because that seems really obvious and natural — but that there are people who do. And I do think that, as the series went on, the story started to get more specific, and possibilities were getting cut out. As you define something, all the ?might have beens? die as you decide things. And so I‘m not surprised that people had problems with wrapping it up, because it became more specific to me as time went on.

Every book has its audience. Sometimes it‘s an audience of one person — sometimes it‘s an audience of twenty. And every book has someone who loves it, and some people who don‘t.

Every one of those books in a bookstore has a reason to be there — some person that it‘s going to touch. But you can‘t expect it to get everybody.

SH: No.

SM: And you can‘t say: ?Well, there‘s something wrong if this book didn‘t mean the same thing to everyone who read it.? The book shouldn?t make sense to some people, because we‘re all different. And thank goodness. How boring would it be if we all felt the same way about every book?

People bring so many of their own expectations to the table that a story can‘t really please everyone.

SH: I really believe that, as writers, we do fifty percent of the work — and then the reader does the other fifty percent of the work — of storytelling. We‘re all bringing experiences and understanding to a book.

When you start with Twilight, you‘ve got one book and one story. There‘s still an infinite number of possibilities of where that story can go. So if you‘ve got, maybe, ten million fans of Twilight, by the time you get to New Moon, you‘re narrowing what can happen, because these characters are making choices, and so maybe you‘ve got seven million possibilities. By the time you get to Eclipse, you‘re down to, say, three million people who are going to be happy with the story. After Breaking Dawn…

SM: There are only twenty people who are going to get it. [Laughs] I think it‘s a weird expectation that if a story is told really well, everybody, therefore, will have to appreciate it.

People bring so many of their own expectations to the table that a story can‘t really please everyone.

SH: But is it still hard for you? Do you still have a desire to please everyone?

SM: Of course. I would love to make people happy. It‘s a great thing to hear that your book made someone‘s day brighter. It‘s amazing to think that you‘re doing some good, with a thing that just brings you joy in the first place. It‘s not why I do it, but it‘s a great benefit. It‘s the frosting.

It‘s hard when people who really wanted to like it don‘t. That makes me sad, because I know that there was a story for them, but it‘s just not the one that I could write. I think that sometimes for people who are that invested, it‘s because they‘re storytellers themselves. And maybe they need to cross that line — cross over to the dark side… join us! — and start creating their own stories.

I don‘t question the characters, which is why I‘m able to maintain my voice when I write — because that, to me, is the one thing that‘s rock-solid.

SH: That is an impossible situation, though. Because here you‘ve created these characters in Twilight, and then readers are creating their own versions of those characters. So then you go on and write another book, and what your characters did… isn‘t necessarily what their characters would do. Maybe from their point of view, you‘re manipulating their characters into doing things they wouldn‘t do, even though