Twilight

The Story Behind //Twilight//
I get a ton of questions about how I came up with the story of //Twilight// and how I got it published. I may be killing my FAQ page by doing this, but here is the whole story: (Warning: there are //Twilight// spoilers contained in the following; if you don't want to ruin the suspense, stop reading.....now. Warning #2: As you might have guessed from the length of my book, I can't tell a short story—this is going to take a while. You have been warned.)


 * The Writing**: I know the exact date that I began writing //Twilight//, because it was also the first day of swim lessons for my kids. So I can say with certainty that it all started on June 2, 2003. Up to this point, I had not written anything besides a few chapters (of other stories) that I never got very far on, and nothing at all since the birth of my first son, six years earlier.

I woke up (on that June 2nd) from a very vivid dream. In my dream, two people were having an intense conversation in a meadow in the woods. One of these people was just your average girl. The other person was fantastically beautiful, sparkly, and a vampire. They were discussing the difficulties inherent in the facts that A) they were falling in love with each other while B) the vampire was particularly attracted to the scent of her blood, and was having a difficult time restraining himself from killing her immediately. For what is essentially a transcript of my dream, please see Chapter 13 ("Confessions") of the book. Though I had a million things to do (i.e. making breakfast for hungry children, dressing and changing the diapers of said children, finding the swimsuits that no one ever puts away in the right place, etc.), I stayed in bed, thinking about the dream. I was so intrigued by the nameless couple's story that I hated the idea of forgetting it; it was the kind of dream that makes you want to call your friend and bore her with a detailed description. (Also, the vampire was just so darned good-looking, that I didn't want to lose the mental image.) Unwillingly, I eventually got up and did the immediate necessities, and then put everything that I possibly could on the back burner and sat down at the computer to write—something I hadn't done in so long that I wondered why I was bothering. But I didn't want to lose the dream, so I typed out as much as I could remember, calling the characters "he" and "she."

From that point on, not one day passed that I did not write //something//. On bad days, I would only type out a page or two; on good days, I would finish a chapter and then some. I mostly wrote at night, after the kids were asleep so that I could concentrate for longer than five minutes without being interrupted. I started from the scene in the meadow and wrote through to the end. Then I went back to the beginning and wrote until the pieces matched up. I drove the "golden spike" that connected them in late August, three months later.

It took me a while to find names for my anonymous duo. For my vampire (who I was in love with from day one) I decided to use a name that had once been considered romantic, but had fallen out of popularity for decades. Charlotte Bronte's Mr. Rochester and Jane Austen's Mr. Ferrars were the characters that led me to the name Edward. I tried it on for size, and found that it fit well. My female lead was harder. Nothing I named her seemed just right. After spending so much time with her, I loved her like a daughter, and no name was good enough. Finally, inspired by that love, I gave her the name I was saving for my daughter, who had never shown up and was unlikely to put in an appearance at this point: Isabella. Huzzah! Edward and Bella were named. For the rest of the characters, I did a lot of searching in old census records, looking for popular names in the times that they'd been born. Some trivia: Rosalie was originally "Carol" and Jasper was first "Ronald." I like the new names much better, but every now and then I will slip up and type Carol or Ron by accident. It really confuses the people who read my rough drafts.

For my setting, I knew I needed someplace ridiculously rainy. I turned to Google, as I do for all my research needs, and looked for the place with the most rainfall in the U.S. This turned out to be the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. I pulled up maps of the area and studied them, looking for something small, out of the way, surrounded by forest... And there, right where I wanted it to be, was a tiny town called "Forks." It couldn't have been more perfect if I had named it myself. I did a Google image search on the area, and if the name hadn't sold me, the gorgeous photographs would have done the trick. (Images like [|these of the Hoh Rainforest] (a short drive from Forks). Also see [|forks-web.com] ). In researching Forks, I discovered the La Push Reservation, home to the [|Quileute Tribe]. The Quileute story is fascinating, and a few fictional members of the tribe quickly became intrinsic to //my// story. All this time, Bella and Edward were, quite literally, voices in my head. They simply wouldn't //shut up//. I'd stay up as late as I could stand trying to get all the stuff in my mind typed out, and then crawl, exhausted, into bed (my baby still wasn't sleeping through the night, yet) only to have another conversation start in my head. I hated to lose anything by forgetting, so I'd get up and head back down to the computer. Eventually, I got a pen and notebook for beside my bed to jot notes down so I could get some freakin' sleep. It was always an exciting challenge in the morning to try to decipher the stuff I'd scrawled across the page in the dark.

During the day, I couldn't stay away from the computer, either. When I was stuck at swim lessons, out in 115 degrees of Phoenix sunshine, I would plot and scheme and come home with so much new stuff that I couldn't type fast enough. It was your typical Arizona summer, hot, sunny, hot, and hot, but when I think back to those three months, I remember rain and cool green things, like I really spent the summer in the Olympic Rainforest. When I'd finished the body of the novel, I started writing epilogues...//lots// of epilogues. This eventually clued me in to the fact that I wasn't ready to let go of my characters, and I started working on the sequel. Meanwhile, I continued to edit //Twilight// in a very obsessive-compulsive way. My older sister, Emily, was the only one who really knew what I was up to. In June, I'd started sending her chapters as I finished them, and she soon became my cheerleading section. She was always checking in to see if I had something new for her. It was Emily who first suggested, after I'd finished, that I should try to get //Twilight// published. I was so stunned by the fact that I'd actually //finished// a whole, entire book, that I decided to look into it.

I subscribed to [|WritersMarket.com] and compiled a list of small publishers that accepted unsolicited submissions and a few literary agencies. It was around this time that my little sister, Heidi, mentioned Janet Evanovich's website to me. In her Q and A for writers section, Janet E. mentioned Writers House, among a few others, as "the real thing" in the world of literary agencies. Writers House went on my wish list as the most desirable and also least likely.
 * Getting Published**: To put it mildly, I was naive about publishing. I thought it worked like this: you printed a copy of your novel, wrapped it up in brown paper, and sent it off to a publishing house. Ho ho ho, that's a good one. I started googling (naturally) and began to discover that this was not the way it is done. (Movies lie to us! Why?! A side note: you will not be able to enjoy the new Steve Martin version of Cheaper by the Dozen when you know how insanely impossible the publishing scenario it contains is.) The whole set up with query letters, literary agents, simultaneous submissions vs. exclusive submissions, synopsizes, etc., was extremely intimidating, and I almost quit there. It certainly wasn't belief in my fabulous talent that made me push forward; I think it was just that I loved my characters so much, and they were so real to me, that I wanted other people to know them, too.

I sent out around fifteen queries (and I still get residual butterflies in my stomach when I drive by the mailbox I sent the letters from—mailing them was terrifying.). I will state, for the record, that my queries truly sucked, and I don't blame anyone who sent me a rejection (I did get seven or eight of those. I still have them all, too). The only rejection that really hurt was from a small agent who actually read the first chapter before she dropped the axe on me. The meanest rejection I got came //after// Little, Brown had picked me up for a three-book deal, so it didn't bother me at all. I'll admit that I considered sending back a copy of that rejection stapled to the write-up my deal got in Publisher's Weekly, but I took the higher road.

My big break came in the form of an assistant at Writers House named Genevieve. I didn't find out until much later just how lucky I was; it turns out that Gen didn't know that 130,000 words is a whole heck of a lot of words. If she'd known that 130K words would equal 500 pages, she probably wouldn't have asked to see it. But she didn't know (picture me wiping the sweat from my brow), and she //did// ask for the first three chapters. I was thrilled to get a positive response, but a little worried because I felt the beginning of the book wasn't the strongest part. I mailed off those three chapters and got a letter back a few weeks later (I could barely get it open, my hands were so weak with fear). It was a //very// nice letter. She'd gone back with a pen and twice underlined the part where she'd typed how much she enjoyed the first three chapters (I still have that letter, of course), and she asked for the whole manuscript. That was the exact moment when I realized that I might actually see //Twilight// in print, and really one of the happiest points in my whole life. I did a lot of screaming. About a month after I sent in the manuscript, I got a call from Jodi Reamer, an honest to goodness literary agent, who wanted to represent my book. I tried really hard to sound like a professional and a grownup during that conversation, but I'm not sure if I fooled her. Again, my luck was tremendous (and I don't usually have good luck—I've never won anything in my life, and no one ever catches a fish when I'm in the boat) because Jodi is the uber-agent. I couldn't have ended up in better hands. She's part lawyer, part ninja (she's working on earning her black belt right now, no kidding), a pretty amazing editor in her own right, and a great friend.

Jodi and I worked for two weeks on getting //Twilight// into shape before sending it to editors. The first thing we worked on was the title, which started out as //Forks// (and I still have a teeny soft spot for that name). Then we polished up a few rough spots, and Jodi sent it out to nine different publishing houses. This really messed with my ability to sleep, but luckily I wasn't in suspense for long.

Megan Tingley, of Megan Tingley Books, of Little, Brown and Company, read //Twilight// on a cross-country flight and came back to Jodi the day after the Thanksgiving weekend with a preemptive deal so huge that I honestly thought Jodi was pulling my leg—especially the part where she turned the offer down and asked for more. The upshot was that, by the end of the day, I was trying to process the information that not only was my book going to be published by one of the biggest young adult publishers in the country, but that they were going to //pay// me for it. For a very long time, I was convinced it was a really cruel practical joke, but I couldn't imagine who would go to these wild extremes to play a hoax on such an insignificant little hausfrau. And that's how, in the course of six months, //Twilight// was dreamed, written, and accepted for publication.

Things keep getting crazier, what with the movie deal and all the pre-publication attention that //Twilight// continues to receive. Though I've gotten impatient from time to time, I'm glad I've had the last two years to try to come to terms with the situation. I'm greatly looking forward to finally having //Twilight// on the shelves, and more than a little frightened, too. Overall, it's been a true labor of love, love for Edward and Bella and all the rest of my imaginary friends, and I'm thrilled that other people get to meet them now.

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=Reviews for //Twilight//= __Amazon.com__ "Softly he brushed my cheek, then held my face between his marble hands. 'Be very still,' he whispered, as if I wasn't already frozen. Slowly, never moving his eyes from mine, he leaned toward me. Then abruptly, but very gently, he rested his cold cheek against the hollow at the base of my throat." As Shakespeare knew, love burns high when thwarted by obstacles. In //Twilight//, an exquisite fantasy by Stephenie Meyer, readers discover a pair of lovers who are supremely star-crossed. Bella adores beautiful Edward, and he returns her love. But Edward is having a hard time controlling the blood lust she arouses in him, because--he's a vampire. At any moment, the intensity of their passion could drive him to kill her, and he agonizes over the danger. But, Bella would rather be dead than part from Edward, so she risks her life to stay near him, and the novel burns with the erotic tension of their dangerous and necessarily chaste relationship. Meyer has achieved quite a feat by making this scenario completely human and believable. She begins with a familiar YA premise (the new kid in school), and lulls us into thinking this will be just another realistic young adult novel. Bella has come to the small town of Forks on the gloomy Olympic Peninsula to be with her father. At school, she wonders about a group of five remarkably beautiful teens, who sit together in the cafeteria but never eat. As she grows to know, and then love, Edward, she learns their secret. They are all rescued vampires, part of a family headed by saintly Carlisle, who has inspired them to renounce human prey. For Edward's sake they welcome Bella, but when a roving group of tracker vampires fixates on her, the family is drawn into a desperate pursuit to protect the fragile human in their midst. The precision and delicacy of Meyer's writing lifts this wonderful novel beyond the limitations of the horror genre to a place among the best of YA fiction. (Ages 12 and up) --//Patty Campbell//
 * Here are some of the reviews that //Twilight// has received:**

From //Publisher's Weekly's// starred review: "The main draw here is Bella's infatuation with outsider Edward, the sense of danger inherent in their love, and Edward's inner struggle—a perfect metaphor for the sexual tension that accompanies adolescence. These will be familiar to nearly every teen, and will keep readers madly flipping the pages of Meyer's tantalizing debut."

From Becky Anderson, of Anderson's Bookshops: "What a totally amazing debut! //Twilight// is that rare story that combines suspense, desire, love and friendship with an awesome twist on the vampire genre! Both young adults and adults will be "sucked" into Edward's and Bella's world and beg for more, especially after they turn the last page. I can't wait for the next book!"

From Karen Rosenthal, Children's Department Manager for R.J. Julia Booksellers (printed in //Publisher's Weekly//'s "Galley Talk"): "I'm not usually a vampire book reader, but I haven't read a book in a long time that had as much sexual tension and creepy terror throughout as //Twilight// by Stephenie Meyer [Little, Brown]. The main character is extremely compelling. The protagonist is so consumed with her crush on him that she blocks everything else, and the fact that he's a vampire adds a whole other level. It really is the perfect crossover book. It will appeal to kids who read fantasy and darker books, but also kids who like more realistic fiction like //Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants//, and all those kids who read //Gossip Girl//... It's a riveting action book but thoughtful as well. Sometimes teen books can be plot-driven and the quality of the writing goes out the window, but this one has both."


 * And some reviews from teen readers:**

"//Twilight// is one of the most moving books I have read in a long time. It kept me thinking about it long after I read the last page. Its heartbreaking romance and suspenseful twists made it hard for me to put the book down. Twilight allows the reader to experience a whole new outlook on vampires and how they interact around mankind. After reading this book I recommend it to anyone who would enjoy reading about an incredibly suspenseful romance." Katie, age 16

"Stephenie Meyer's first novel //Twilight// is a gripping journey through the united worlds of fantasy and high school. As soon as I started reading //Twilight//, I couldn't stop. The plot is the thing that led me to the book in the start. Boy meets girl, girl likes boy, boy turns out to be a vampire. The characters are so vivid, so intense, that you feel like if you look up from the pages Isabella or Edward or Alice is going to be staring at you. This suspenseful novel leaves me with one question... Is there going to be a second?" Kelly, 15

"//Twilight// caught my interest so much, I couldn't stand to put it down once I started. I read this book in one sitting and didn't finish until 5:00 AM, but it was worth every minute. It's the love story between a vampire and a human, and the love feels so real, it's hard to imagine it's just a book. The main character, Bella Swan, is instantly likeable, and it's impossible not to empathize with the new couple as their relationship starts to bud. The vampire, Edward Cullen, is captivating with his extraordinary beauty, ancient genteelness, and ability to read minds. But just when the tension eases and it seems like things are going to work out for them (and that's a hard thing to come by, considering their separate diets), disaster strikes. The book was so much more than I expected; the love feels so real, and at its heart, it's more a love story between two beings than anything else. Of course, because one of them is a vampire, there's a bit of hunting and quite a lot of action as well. This was a thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable book—I recommend it completely." Chenzi, 16

"Wow! I must admit, that when I heard about //Twilight//, by Stephanie Meyer, I was very intrigued. A book about a regular teenage girl— just like you and me— falling in love with a gorgeous vampire? Who wouldn't want to read it? I was hooked from the first page, and as I read it, it only got better. //Twilight// is great because it seems so ordinary; is it possible for this situation to happen in your life? Imagine seeing a guy, more handsome than any you've ever seen, and not being able to tear you eyes away from him. Imagine that the force of your mutual chemistry feels like electricity. I promise you that every girl will want to be Isabella Swan. Throw in a little danger, a sticky situation, and a love more powerful than either character has ever known, and what do you get? Stephenie Meyer's //Twilight//. It is definitely a book worth reading." Rachel, 16