'Twilight' Success Isn't In Quality Of Writing: What Makes It So Popular?

Telegraph:

The Twilight series is cack-handed in execution, bereft of originality, ludicrous in its plots and yet lapped up by hordes. Children's author Philip Womack asks: if it isn't the writing, what is it?

Read the whole story: Telegraph

Comments

[headtrip honey]

09:31 AM on 07/12/2010

Uh, I hate Twilight and all, but that was just a sad, pathetic critique.

Firstly, it gets salient facts wrong (Twilight takes place on the west coast, not the east...when trying to do a serious critique, you might want to sound like you know the material well enough to seriously critique it).

Second, it drags Harry Potter into the mix. I understand that everyone has different tastes, but I've always thought that the Harry Potter novels were some of the best written fantasy fiction to come out in the last 20 years.

This is just a strange critique - the author seems to be lamenting that protagonists in children's books have no personality, yet then goes on to mention Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I find this interesting, because Charlie Bucket is one of the blandest characters to ever be written. So bland they had to make him a little more interesting in the Gene Wilder adaptation.

So this would mean, if you follow the author's logic, that Roald Dahl is not a good children's writer, which is just incomprehensible to me, and millions of children.

[Harvey Manfrangensonton]

11:55 AM on 06/28/2010

Ugly girl gets to choose between a selection of supermen. Its essentially porn for teenage nerd girls.

[Khoun Samphors]

11:31 PM on 06/27/2010

I like twilight too much. I love to watch it rather than read.......

[Shawn de Montaigne]

01:12 PM on 06/27/2010

Sad, the snobbery of the article and the vast majority of the commenters below.

The author of the article, sadly, writes as poorly as anyone I've ever attempted to read, which utterly defeats his criticisms out of hand. And the commenters display a genuine lack of humanity and originality that buttresses, not erodes, the better notion that both the Twilight and Harry Potter authors are genuinely good writers who don't kowtow to double-chinned puffballs like this article's author.

Sad, folks. Really sad, the lot of you.

Please get a life.

[Coryct]

10:02 AM on 06/27/2010

It is every "plain" girls fantasy to be desired by the most desirable boy in school. Pure and simple. That is why so many young girls are crazy about this series. The fact that he wants to marry her...well you just closed the deal. The book goes to great detail to describe Bella are ordinary and plain (Kristin Stewart, not so much) but Edward sees her as the most exciting and beautiful girl he has ever laid eyes on, of course young teens are going to eat this up...lonely housewives too

[dsdem]

03:03 AM on 06/25/2010

Read, study, breath, eat and sleep the Twilight series. Then write the opposite.

[Super Mitt]

12:06 AM on 06/25/2010

Hello , It is the waiting to have sex until after marriage that is the real meaning
of " Twilight " and the romance of a family .

" Twlight " was written by a Mormon .

[ESerafina42]

12:36 AM on 06/25/2010

And the girl being covered in bruises after her wedding night? Doesn't sound that great to me.

[alteredstory]

01:15 PM on 06/25/2010

all depends on what you're into, I suppose. If you have a thing for the undead, why not a little S&M too?

[mmm pecan pie]

10:38 PM on 06/24/2010

Teen angst, forbidden love, darkness, the question of who do I love and who loves me-who loves me more-who am I safer with... Kids have always loved these kinds of books. Catcher in the Rye, Joy in the Morning, Once is Not Enough. Every generation has its own kind of angst, but the underlying problems are the same.
While the writing may not measure up as great literature, most teens don't write great literature themselves. It is always the story that pulls them in. How many times have avid readers loved a book that wasn't very well written? I can name a few books that I have loved, but cringed at the writing or writing style.
The story is what sells us. If it is good, we can forgive a lot.

[JDM73]

05:11 PM on 06/24/2010

"Twilight"'s success lies in the fact that it masturbates its readers. That's all.

[c-tom]

03:07 PM on 06/24/2010

The Pacific coast is not where one finds "the dreary towns of eastern America".

[Andrew Shaffer]

04:02 PM on 06/24/2010

D'oh!

[MCJanes]

03:05 PM on 06/24/2010

I like how HP enjoys criticizing the hell out of the books, films, and stars, yet they continue to publicize the hell out of it.

Maybe if you stopped e-jaculating whenever Kristen Stewart so much as farts, the whole thing might go away.

[Andrew Shaffer]

04:00 PM on 06/24/2010

Wait a minute...Kristen Stewart farted? When?!!

[Four0Four]

02:47 PM on 06/24/2010

It's legal porn for teens.

[c-tom]

03:09 PM on 06/24/2010

Only read the one book (to see what my daughter was going on about) but I don't think you know what "porn" means.

[MCJanes]

03:14 PM on 06/24/2010

I don't think you know what "a joke" means. It's alright though, it was a bad one.

[shiningstarra]

09:56 PM on 06/24/2010

Unless the definition used was "any material devoid of content that induces sexual thought" in which case it might qualify.
'