Dissecting Twilight

I hadn't even heard of the Twilight series of books until I wound up at the midnight launch party of Breaking Dawn (amidst countless teenage girls in prom dresses.)

However, Twilighters now seem to be everywhere and it seems like everybody's discussing them.

Stephanie Meyer's Twilight saga certainly has its detractors - Stephen King remarked that: "Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn. She's not very good."

However, that hasn't stopped the books being wildly popular. Now they're not my cup of tea (I find any books featuring vampires to be incredibly dreary) but I can see why they've become so successful. Say what you want about Stephanie Meyer as a writer, but you can't deny that she delivers very good 'product.'

I've heard accusations that the Twilight saga is nothing more than a teenage girl's wish fulfillment. Stephanie Meyer has certainly tapped into the eroticism and fantasies of that target audience - delivering a package that spoke directly to their subconscious desires.

However, on a deeper level, Meyer has written something about the nature of love and romance itself, which resonates with more than just the 'teeny Twilighters.'

Just like Harry Potter, to which the Twilight saga is often compared, Meyer's books have an appeal far beyond teenagers- although you wouldn't have thought that at the launch I went to.

In Twilight, Stephanie Meyer has done what every successful writer needs to, and focused on a specific audience when she created the characters, situations and emotions of the Twilight books.

As a result, that target audience of teenage girls love Twilight, because it speaks directly to them and their experiences. However, older women love Twilight too, because (to quote an old marketing manager of mine) "At heart, all grown-ups are aspiring teenagers."

But what specific elements make the Twilight books so popular?

Character Elements that make Twilight so successful:

Bella: The heroine of the Twilight saga is a blank slate, left deliberately devoid of distinguishing characteristics so the reader can more easily step into her shoes.

Second only to books written in the first person perspective, this is the easiest way for authors to suck readers into the world they have created.

Bella's story is one of a teenage girl's sexual awakening; her desire for Edward to turn her into a vampire is a grand, all encompassing romantic gesture similar to a teenage girl surrendering her virginity to the boy she loves. (It's hardly an original metaphor Meyer's used, but it's an effective one.)

Bella's final transformation, when she becomes a vampire in Breaking Dawn, is another metaphor - this time for the secret desire of every teenage girl to be transformed from an awkward, adolescent bundle of self-esteem issues into a beautiful, 'sparkling' creature full of grace, confidence and strength.

Bella's journey in the Twilight saga reads like a wishlist of teenage fantasies, which is compelling for her audience because Stephanie Meyer was so careful to avoid unnecessary characterization when she wrote about Bella. Therefore, it's blissfully easy for women and girls to see themselves in her stylish (yet affordable) shoes.

Edward: Impossibly beautiful, moody and sullen, yet incredibly seductive; Edward is the living embodiment of every teenage girl's crush.

Edward at first treats Bella abominably (just like kids at school bully the girls or boys they secretly fancy.) Then he reveals his hunger for Bella - in the entirely literal sense (he wants to drink her blood.)

Out of all the characteristics that make Edward every teenage girl's dream date, it's that hunger that's the most important. His desire for her blood is a metaphor for him desiring her - and for the danger that desire poses. Danger is sexy - and what's more exciting and erotic to a teenage girl than a beautiful, mysterious boy who desires her deeply, desperately and dangerously?

and that's not just a teenage girl's fantasy. Even my wife agrees that one of the sexiest things a man can do for her is make her feel beautiful and desirable.

Given that women are assaulted from all angles by unattainable representations of feminine beauty (the skinny girls in posters, the anorexic models on TV) perhaps the most powerful part Edward plays in the Twilight saga is simply making Bella (and, by extension, the reader) feel beautiful, sexy and desirable.

But to a lesser extent, Edward also represents the unattainable boy in high school. In addition to being beautiful and seductive, he's got all of the materialistic possessions teenage girls are supposed to be impressed by. A 'stupid, shiny' Volvo S60R [Yawn - Editorial Bear] and an Aston Martin V12 Vanquish.

Finally, you have to remember that Edward was born and raised in the early 19th century, making him the quintessential gentleman of every girl's fantasy. The fact that he refuses to make love to Bella until they're married is further wish fulfillment - the very opposite of most teenage girl's first experiences of love and sex.

Edward represents respect and romance and appreciation for Bella and for the gift she's honoring him with (her virginity.) That's a sharp contrast to the 'real world', where horny boys, devoid of romance, just want to 'do it' in the backseat of their Pontiac Sunfire.

Jacob: Oh, poor Jacob. He, too, represents a figure that features in most teenage girl's lives - the lovesick best friend - making him (like Edward and Bella) more of an archetype than a real character.

Jacob first appears in Twilight, where he suggests to Bella that Edward is a vampire. Bella likes Jacob enormously and Jacob develops a crush on her. What teenage girl hasn't experienced a male friend having a crush on her, while she's only interested in being friends?

This crush simmers through the book New Moon, but comes to a head in Eclipse, when Jacob (and his feelings for Bella) mature somewhat. In another twist that teenage girls will be familiar with, Bella discovers that she, too, has feelings for her 'just good friend' Jacob and they kiss.

Although the Jacob/Edward/Bella 'love triangle' totally fizzles out in the Twilight saga, it's another succulent situation Stephanie Meyer threw into her story, knowing that her target audience would devour it greedily, murmuring: "Oh, my God. This is just like my situation with [insert boy's name here.]"

Jacob makes the story of Twilight appear directly applicable to the reader's real life.

Jacob also serves as a reminder to Bella that her love for Edward is greater and more all-encompassing than her feelings for him. It validates the idealistic teenage belief that an unconsummated crush is more 'real' than feelings you might have for somebody you already know and care about.

Without Jacob as the 'friend with feelings' to mitigate Bella's romance with Edward, Edward could never ascend to become the archetypal romantic hero.

Jacob plays a vital role in making the Twilight saga resonate so successfully with female readers - but many agree with me that he basically got boned.

I was secretly delighted to to find myself discussing the situation with teenage Twilight fans at the launch of Breaking Dawn. Many of them hoped that the conclusion of the Twilight saga would see Bella end up with Jacob instead of Edward. No such luck!

Other Elements that made Twilight so successful:

Vampires: People love vampires. Just look at the success of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter. It was the books of Anne Rice that first invented the concept of 'noble' and misunderstood vampires - and the vamps of Twilight represent the very worst of those vampire clichés. They're beautiful and strong and sexy, rather than decaying corpses who thirst for blood. In Twilight, Stephanie Meyer has successfully tapped into the conventions that make vampire fiction so wildly popular.

High School: Twilight begins with Bella attending a new school in Washington, thousands of miles away from her old home in Arizona. The 'new school' scenario is tried and tested - one almost all of Meyer's readers will be familiar with, which just adds to the ease in which they can relate to Bella's story.

Sex: Stephanie Meyer writes about teenage sexuality with surprising skill and subtlety. Even Stephen King, who eviscerated Twilight in a recent interview, admitted that Meyer's description (and allusion to) teenage sexuality was what made the book resonate so strongly with a female audience:

"She's writing to a whole generation of girls and opening up a kind of 'safe' joining of love and sex. It's exciting and it's thrilling, but it's not particularly threatening because it's not overtly sexual."

"A lot of the physicality is conveyed in ways, for example, like how the vampire will touch [Bella's] forearm or run a hand over her skin, and she just flushes all hot and cold. And for girls, that's a shorthand for all the feelings that they're not ready to deal with yet."

Whatever shall we make of the Twilight Saga?

Stephen King attacked Twilight because is was compared to J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter saga - and it doesn't take a literary genius to spot that Stephanie Meyer is no J.K. Rowling.

However, she's still an immensely talented writer.

Rowling's gift was in her vibrant imagination and the beautiful way she laid her visions out on the page. Stephanie Meyer's talent, on the other hand, is a powerful empathy for her target audience and the ability to transcribe a fantasy that speaks directly to them.

I think the Twilight saga is more 'product' than literature. That probably explains why it was scooped up by Little, Brown and Company just months after completion (whereas it took J.K. Rowling several years and many rejection slips for her bestsellers to find a publisher.)

Because of all the elements described about, Twilight is simply more 'bankable.'

But as I've often said, the proof of a great writer is not the recognition of their peers or the appreciation of the critics. It's not even in the awards the writing has won (and Twilight won the New York Times Editor's Choice, Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year and a place on the American Library Association's "Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults" and "Top Ten Books for Reluctant Readers.”)

A good writer simply writes what people want to read - and what captures their imagination.

The Twilight saga, if its millions of fans are anything to go by, certainly achieved that goal - which makes it a damn good series of books as far as I'm concerned.