Why I hate Twilight: Part I B

Why I hate Twilight Part I: Stephenie Meyer is a Horrible Person and Writer

Section B: Grammar

Has anyone noticed the amount of grammatical errors in the series? Because it drove me crazy. I realize a lot can be typos, and the editor should catch mistakes, and most errors have been corrected in later versions of the novels, but seriously. The woman is incompetent. "Who's" instead of "whose," "the" instead of "they," capitalizing improper nouns, disagreements between tenses...

“The room was familiar; it had been belonged to me since I was born.” –Twilight (page 9?) Nice huh?

There is more than terrible grammar that can make writing just plain bad. You need to have good structure. Something that flows nicely. I've found on more than a few occassions she will use a word that sticks out to me, one that isn't used too frequently in the English language, and then she'll use it two more times on the next page. It's called a thesaurus. Get one. Or maybe it's that she uses it too much. Some of those words couldn't be found without use of a thesaurus. How many times do you come across "masochist" in your everyday life? FLIPPING POTATOES! It's for teenagers.

Now let's talk about my favorite--the word "chagrin." You can really only get away with using a word like that once or twice in a book. It pops off the page and the reader remembers it. Steph? She uses it fifteen times throughout the series. That's excessive. It also says a lot about the general mood of the saga as a whole. Blegh.

So I came across this site that is hilarious. It breaks down Twilight into all of its ridiculous parts. My favorites are "The Number of Times Bella is Clumsy or Makes a Reference to her Clumsiness-- 26 and "References to Edward's Beauty"-- 165. And that is further broken down into fifteen subcategories. It's the funniest thing I've read regarding Twilight. Please take a peek http://otahyoni.livejournal.com/130432.html

So that was refreshing. I love writing when I'm angry. It's blograpy: blog therapy.

Today Dr. Lamb made a reference to the snake in "JUNGLE boy or whatever" when he said "trust me" over and over about the proper arrangement of atoms in molecules. I laughed out loud. I'm more dumbfounded by the fact that he's actually seen Jungle Book than anything.

P.S. Hazel? Where are you? It tells me your blog cannot be found and this is distressing :(

Why I hate Twilight: Part I A

You are now reading Part One, Section A of why Lexie hates Twilight. The first of many posts having to do with this subject. Please note that most of this is meant to be funny, not meant to spark a huge debate or offend anyone. It's just my opinion. I just like ranting and this is the perfect subject. Please Enjoy.

Why I hate Twilight Part I: Stephenie Meyer is a Horrible Person and Writer

Section A: Mary Sue

Stephenie Meyer can't write. Maybe it's just me, but a writer who uses a character as a wish fulfillment for herself isn't writing, she's pathetically fantasizing on paper. This does not take any skill, just an overactive imagination. There's no substance in Twilight, very few stylistic and linguistic devices. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is that damn apple on the cover. Forbidden fruit. *GASP* That symbol is so creative. Oh wow. She's the next Oscar Wilde for sure. You know, there are modern authors who actually get it right. John Green, for example, actually puts meaning into his work. John Updike, Toni Morrison, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, J.D. Salinger, and even J.K. Rowling all know (or knew) what they are (were) doing. Steph? Not so much. Let's first address an obvious flaw.

No writer ever wants to be accused of having a Mary Sue character (unless intended to be cliché for effect).

Let's look at a few tell-tale signs shall we?

1. Extraordinary beautiful--She will deny it. She will call herself "plain", but there's no getting around it. The main character's hot. Why else are all the boys staring at her and asking her to prom?

2. No real faults-- Oh sure, she will tell you that she's OH-SO-CLUMSY. She's stubborn. She's squeamish. She's lactose intolerant. Give me a break. The only thing those "faults" do is add to her "cuteness" factor.

3. Extremely two-dimensional-- No real personality. Perfect and boring. Whiney. ANNOYING.

4. At least one character falls DEEPLY in love with her-- Usually a hot guy. Or the hottEST guy.

5. Various talents and skills-- Everything comes easy to her. She's either Valedictorian, or she's so mysterious, she can block out the vampire hottie trying to read her mind ;) Usually she can play the guitar and has a black-belt.

6. Plays the helpless, but courageous damsel-in-distress role-- Or she's the one saving everyone.

Now who does that sound like to you? Her name is Beautiful Swan for Pete's sake.

The thing that annoys me most about Stephenie is that she makes people think that any old person can just take any idea straight from their ass, put it on paper and Voilà! A best seller. REAL authors take the time to put in all that, what my fellow classmates refer to as "extra boring crap". That "boring crap" is the very thing that establishes an author's credibility. People forget how smart authors are because of people like Stephenie Meyer. Symbolism, parallelism, anaphora, pathos, ethos, logos, allusion, repartee, metonymy, personification, hyperbole, synecdoche, antithesis, dramatic irony, contrast, imagery, litotes, foreshadowing!........ The things the majority of world couldn't care less about, are the things authors live for. You take away their craft, you take away the reason they write.

Some people don't know this, but writers actually MEAN to use style. It doesn't just happen. It's not just something English professors make up. If there's symbolism, the writer meant it to be there (With an exception being Metamorphosis. There is no way Kafka thought HALF the stuff critics seem to find within its 70 some pages. He would actually show his friends a chapter after he was done writing it, and they would laugh about it together).

I know I'm not a bestselling author. I know I don't have a piece of paper declaring me an expert in all things literary. But I have attended my share of English lectures, and I've read a fair amount of novels, short stories and poems. And I think I know just enough to know when someone is full hype. No substance.

I hope I didn't bore you with all that nonsense. Anyway, it felt good to get all that out of my head. Stick around for the rest of the series. Oh boy. I'm going to go eat some more peanut butter out of the jar.