For those grammarians who have read Twilight

[Whereneverever]

Have you seen this blog? It goes through Twilight with a fine toothed comb. She even attempts to diagram some of the sentences.

http://reasoningwithvampires.tumblr.com/

[Stacia]

:thumbup: :lol:

[ColoradoMom]

Wow - that person really needs to get a life. Who cares about the grammar in a piece of fiction? It's called voice. And while Twilight is not my cup of tea, nor up to my preferred reading level, the woman wrote several best sellers so her grasp on the art of writing is better than 99% of the people calling themselves writers.

 

Twilight, like it or not, was professionally edited by a major house.

[elegantlion]

:D

[mycalling]

 

Wow - that person really needs to get a life.

:iagree:

[Crissy]

Wow - that person really needs to get a life.

 

Oh, I think it's hilarious.

There is no shortage of criticism for published material in the world--that's not unique to this person. I love the specifics combined with the humor in this case.

[Mrs Mungo]

Wow - that person really needs to get a life. Who cares about the grammar in a piece of fiction? It's called voice. And while Twilight is not my cup of tea, nor up to my preferred reading level, the woman wrote several best sellers so her grasp on the art of writing is better than 99% of the people calling themselves writers.

 

Twilight, like it or not, was professionally edited by a major house.

 

LOTS of novels with terrible writing are edited by major publishing houses. I couldn't read Twilight because the writing was horrible. Selling well does not equal great writing.

 

Have you listened to SWB's lecture in which she talks about diagramming good sentences v. bad? I think this is a great exercise in how NOT to write sentences.

[Whereneverever]

LOTS of novels with terrible writing are edited by major publishing houses. I couldn't read Twilight because the writing was horrible. Selling well does not equal great writing.

 

Have you listened to SWB's lecture in which she talks about diagramming good sentences v. bad? I think this is a great exercise in how NOT to write sentences.

:iagree:

[dansamy]

LOTS of novels with terrible writing are edited by major publishing houses. I couldn't read Twilight because the writing was horrible. Selling well does not equal great writing.

 

I read it because all the girls at work raved about it like mad. I watched the first movie and then decided to read the books. However, I was cognizant the entire time that it was less-than-stellar writing. I like HP better. :lol: :tongue_smilie:

[Surlygirlie]

LOTS of novels with terrible writing are edited by major publishing houses. I couldn't read Twilight because the writing was horrible. Selling well does not equal great writing.

 

Have you listened to SWB's lecture in which she talks about diagramming good sentences v. bad? I think this is a great exercise in how NOT to write sentences.

 

:iagree:

 

Thanks for sharing the link, OP. I'm sharing it with family and friends that had to listen to my rants last year when I tried reading it and was personally offended by the poor writing.

[Whereneverever]

:iagree:

 

Thanks for sharing the link, OP. I'm sharing it with family and friends that had to listen to my rants last year when I tried reading it and was personally offended by the poor writing.

No problem!:001_smile:

[Mimm]

I hate Twilight and the whole Twilight craze and I think it's generally very unhealthy for young girls to be so obsessed with this "ideal" boy... But yeah, I think this is a little over the top. I hate Twilight for the annoying characters and weak plots, and the absolutely mind bogglingly bad fourth book. I think some grammar rules are meant to be broken in fiction like this. Honestly, browsing that blog for a few minutes made me self conscious about my own writing. The author of that blog would probably hate me if she saw any of my posts on here. And I feel that I manage to express myself fairly coherently most of the time.

[KnitWit]

I think this is HILARIOUS!!! :lol:

[laughing lioness]

:iagree::lol:

[iona]

i never saw it as great writing, but a love saga that really drew a lot of people in. i kept reading, wanting to find out what happened, but at the same time wanting to stab a fork in my eye. she's the one with sparkly millions now, so a money making genius maybe, but not a great writer.

 

(i'm a horrible writer so i know)

 

i don't consider myself a grammarian...maybe a fragmentarian

Edited September 22, 2010 by iona
reread the op title

[smrtmama]

Wow - that person really needs to get a life. Who cares about the grammar in a piece of fiction? It's called voice. And while Twilight is not my cup of tea, nor up to my preferred reading level, the woman wrote several best sellers so her grasp on the art of writing is better than 99% of the people calling themselves writers.

 

Twilight, like it or not, was professionally edited by a major house.

 

That's not "voice." It's poor writing and was shoddily edited.

[Forget-Me-Not]

Ha ha! Love this:

 

EDITING IS HOW YOU IMPROVE WHAT IS WRITTEN SO THAT HUMANITY IS NOT MENTALLY ASSAULTED BY YOUR INARTICULATE, UNEDUCATED TEXT.

[Pretty in Pink]

:D Thanks for sharing!

 

I did read the books and really liked the story, though the author's grammar did bug me off and on throughout. Unfortunately not all of the mistakes in that saga can be chalked up to style.

[Mrs Mungo]

Unfortunately not all of the mistakes in that saga can be chalked up to style.

 

:lol:

[Heather in WI]

:lol:

 

So funny! Off to share with a few friends in my never-ending teasing of them for reading this book! :D

[ColoradoMom]

That's not "voice." It's poor writing and was shoddily edited.

 

 

Well, millions of people disagree with you. I'm not saying it is "great" writing by any mean. I could never get through it myself.

 

But grammar freaks are my pet peeve. It's so...uppity. And to spend so much time, as that person did on that blog, doing nothing but trying to convince one's self that they are so much better than the millionaire writer because they don't have a run-on sentence in any of their blog posts is sort of pathetic in my opinion. No - not sort of. Really pathetic.

 

I bet she's a "writer"...how much you wanna bet? :lol:

 

The "writers" did the same thing to Eragon. I thought that was just as pathetic as well. The kid wrote a book and LOTS of people liked it. Get over it.

 

Ditto for Stephenie Meyer. She managed to do what millions of wannabes could not - and she did it without being grammatically correct or spending years learning about "literature". She wrote what she felt and people related to her story - run on sentences and all. That alone beats "bad grammar" any day.

[Mrs Mungo]

Far be it for me to take away from someone's financial succuess. Kudos to both authors on their money-making abilities, even though I could not bear to read their books. :001_rolleyes:

 

FWIW, Jennifer Weiner is also a financially successful author. She's also the author of the WORST book I've ever read. Popular writing and good writing are often mutually exclusive.

Edited September 22, 2010 by Mrs Mungo

[jazzyfizzle]

Am I the only remaining person on the planet who has not read Twilight? :mellow:

 

I was of the understanding it was thought she plagiarized Charlaine Harris? This turned me off the whole hurrah from the get-go and I would not pick them up. Anyone know if it is true? I remember looking at the dates for the first True Blood blook and the first Twilight book, I believe Charlaine wrote her book first. I do have them on my list to finally read this winter.

[Slartibartfast]

I think I could count on one hand the number of "financially successful" writers I truly love.

 

 

It is important to mention the bad grammar and poor writing skills. I would hate to see them held up as some sort of example that people should aspire to. We should set our goals higher, even if it doesn't make a quick buck.

 

Millions of people love crappy writing. Yay.

 

My grammar is NOT GOOD and if the grammar in a book is disturbing even me then that is very bad. :lol:

Edited September 23, 2010 by Sis

[LizzyBee]

LOTS of novels with terrible writing are edited by major publishing houses. I couldn't read Twilight because the writing was horrible. Selling well does not equal great writing.

 

Have you listened to SWB's lecture in which she talks about diagramming good sentences v. bad? I think this is a great exercise in how NOT to write sentences.

 

:iagree: Bestseller or not, the grammar in Twilight is atrocious. It's a voice I'd rather not hear because it grates on my nerves!

[staceyobu]

I must have been too busy falling in love with the Cullen men to notice the grammatical errors. Oh well. ;) I can appreciate a classic. I can also appreciate a really fun, romantic read.

[Garga]

Aww. Reading the blog made me feel a little sad. Yes, it was funny...but something about it was sad, too.

 

I guess I feel sad because I heard that the author of Twilight had a dream about a girl falling for a vampire, and then woke up and wrote the story, for her own self. Someone read it and said, "You should try to get it published," and the next thing you know it was published and everyone loved it.

 

I just picture the author happily writing away, for her own enjoyment, being thrilled that people actually enjoyed her writings, and then having this backlash against her about her writing. It's not like she was trying to write The Great American Novel. It's just a simple love story that the author wrote for fun.

 

It kind of gets on my nerves when people pick it apart. Fine, you don't like it. That's really fine. But why be so aggressive in how much you don't like it? Why pick apart every comma, etc. Just leave her alone.

 

I agree with the poster who said the blogger has too much time on her hands.

[Shawna in Texas]

Am I the only remaining person on the planet who has not read Twilight? :mellow:

 

I was of the understanding it was thought she plagiarized Charlaine Harris? This turned me off the whole hurrah from the get-go and I would not pick them up. Anyone know if it is true? I remember looking at the dates for the first True Blood blook and the first Twilight book, I believe Charlaine wrote her book first. I do have them on my list to finally read this winter.

 

I've read both (all four Twilight books and however many True Blood). Completely different. Harris' books have a definite southern twang to them, and an adult feel. They both have vampires and wolves in them, but still very different. I read Twilight out of necessity because I could not stand not knowing what every woman in my family was talking about. I read Harris' books because I enjoy the show. I like the show better. :D

[Crissy]

I just picture the author happily writing away, for her own enjoyment

 

 

There is a tremendous difference between writing for ones own pleasure and publishing a book for public consumption.

 

If I paid the author for the privilege of reading her story, I believe I deserve to have an opinion on her thoughts and style. Apparently the author of the blog feels the same.

[Garga]

There is a tremendous difference between writing for ones own pleasure and publishing a book for public consumption.

 

If I paid the author for the privilege of reading her story, I believe I deserve to have an opinion on her thoughts and style. Apparently the author of the blog feels the same.

 

 

Sure, and that's fine (to have an opinion), but why the snarkiness (of the blog person--not you)?

 

And no, she did NOT write it for public consumption. She wrote it for her own pleasure. A friend told her to send it to a publishing company on a whim. So she did. The publishing company published it for her. What--she's going to say, "No, no. Don't publish my book. My grammar is bad." Of course not! She's going to be excited and thrilled that someone published her book. She didn't know that every single woman in America was going to read her book and critique it. She probably figured a few people would read her romance story and then move on to another fluff piece of writing.

 

Then, when they asked her to write more and she had ideas, why wouldn't she just keep writing? Is she going to say, "Oh, no no. Everyone likes my books, but I'm not good with commas, so never mind. I'm not going to subject people to my bad grammar any more."

 

 

It's fine if people don't like her stuff. No one is saying that it's great writing. These are books that are in the juvenile department at the library. They're not written for adults. They're just twaddle and everyone knows that.

 

It just so happens that this particular piece of twaddle became very famous. I think it's silly to go on and on about how badly written the books are. So what? Before buying a book, don't you read the first couple of pages to see if it's something you can stand? It's pretty clear in the first couple of pages what the book is like.

 

Caveat Emptor.

[Mrs Mungo]

Caveat Emptor, indeed. That is sort of the point of critics and reviews, is it not??

 

I have a friend who is an editor for a Christian publishing house. She works *hard* to clean up the grammar, plot inconsistencies, anachronisms and more of "her" authors. That is her job. That is the *job* of publishing houses.

Edited September 23, 2010 by Mrs Mungo

[Sandra in FL]

Am I the only remaining person on the planet who has not read Twilight? :mellow:

 

I was of the understanding it was thought she plagiarized Charlaine Harris? This turned me off the whole hurrah from the get-go and I would not pick them up. Anyone know if it is true? I remember looking at the dates for the first True Blood blook and the first Twilight book, I believe Charlaine wrote her book first. I do have them on my list to finally read this winter.

Well, I resisted for a long time. I thought that just the premise of wanting to be with a vampire was crazy. I gave it a shot and guess what - I couldn't put the books down.

 

No longer am I snob with "popular" books/artists such as Twilight, HP or Michael Jackson. I take them, as is, and enjoy them. It is so difficult to come up with a unique idea or to have a talent and use it and be successful. Who am I to look down on these people - especially in this economy with so many people out of jobs? Wish that I or one of my children had such talent. But alas, we don't.

Edited September 23, 2010 by Sandra in FL

[ColoradoMom]

 

I have a friend who is an editor for a Christian publishing house. She works *hard* to clean up the grammar, plot inconsistencies, anachronisms and more of "her" authors. That is her job. That is the *job* of publishing houses.

 

Yes. It is. And wouldn't Little, Brown, and Co. know what they were doing? I might add that they were so obviously correct in their decision to let the writing stand on its own that it bewilders me when people question them.

 

I leave this thread with the wise words of David Crockett:

 

"I have been told that I do not understand English grammar. That is very true. I have never been to school six months in my life. I have raised myself to be what I am by the labor of my hands. But I do not on that account yield up my privilege as a representative of freemen on this floor."

 

It is the message that counts, not the form it takes.

[Rhonda in TX]

I've read both (all four Twilight books and however many True Blood). Completely different. Harris' books have a definite southern twang to them, and an adult feel. They both have vampires and wolves in them, but still very different.

 

I agree with this. I've also read both and they are just... different.

 

You could make an argument that Charlaine Harris got her idea from Laurell K. Hamilton. LKH got her idea from who knows where.

 

They all have vampire/human relationship angles, but they're all very different.

[Lizzie in Ma]

That was just funny. :lol:

As both a Grammarian and a Twilight fan, I found it dang humorous.

[LizzyBee]

Just leave her alone.

 

Seriously? People get jumped on all the time about things posted on this board, and when someone says to back off, the response is that if you post on a public board, you should expect your comments to be critiqued and commented on, don't post if you can't take the responses, etc. But a best-selling author is not supposed to be critiqued? We can't point out that the grammar in her books is bad? I'm sorry, but I have to disagree.