What started with an innocent question on the recent juggernaut success of fellow mainstream writers Meyer and J.K. Rowling quickly devolved into a full-scale denouncement of the former's skills.
"The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephanie Meyer can't write worth a darn," he said. "She's not very good."
Leave it to an author not to mince his words.
Possibly sensing the worldwide fallout from inflaming millions of Twilight loyalists, King went on to say that while Meyere's writing may bite the big one, her storytelling is compelling...at least to a certain, less experienced segment of the population.
Thank you, Mr. King, for having the backbone to say what I have been lamenting all along. She is a wanna-be that caters to tweens obsessed with sexy vampires.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/eonline/20090204/en_celeb_eo/82354;_ylt=Ascem0QTRD.3VOjn4Cvyg99xFb8C
If she wants to write tween erotica, I don't care. But don't try to pass it off as legitimate "vampire" fiction. In fact, leave my vampires alone! Vampires are not all sexy models with sun allergies that just happen to require liquid diets. They are not suppose to be emo little crybabies that make tween girls hearts flutter.
Vampires are monsters. Go read Salem's Lot. You'll find proper vampires there! Or even Dracula. OK, Dracula is seductive, but he isn't a emo little bitch-boy designed solely to give little girls erotic dreams.
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Comments: 28
"While King seemed to reserve his choicest words for Meyer, she wasn't the only best-selling author eviscerated by him. On the contrary, King declared Perry Mason author Erle Stanley Gardner "terrible," Dean Koontz "sometimes just awful," and James Patterson "a terrible writer" who is nonetheless "very very successful."
Nancy, the fact that King can stand books that your daughter likes, or even loves, should do nothing to diminish her pleasure with the books, or your delight at her focus on reading.
I think that any book capable of inspiring others to read is almost certainly a good thing (with exceptions for books based on hate and similar things).
Tween fiction isn't "adult fiction" and shouldn't try to be. That doens't mean it should be written poorly, but poor writing is often in the eyes of the beholder.
Can King examine the books from the perspective of their main audience? No.
There are quite a few authors who are better at telling a story than they are writing the words to the story, or the sentences that those words form, or the paragraphs that (should) gel from collections of sentences. The opposite is true, also.
Reading is a good thing to do. Reading has the real possibility of teaching us a great deal, but only if we read. Reading books considered to be trash can lead to a taste for great literature, or popular fiction of a more accepted nature. At the same time, it isn't unusual for "trash" to be rediscovered as treasure by later critics.
So, my solution? Don't worry, just read it. Do think about it, do read the words as well as the story, but don't worry what others think (unless you are reading and writing as a student- then you don't have a choice, and that serves a good purpose, too).
That's easy for you to say. You don't have to sort through all of the submissions that try to be "exactly like Twilight, but different." I get the displeasure of having to read this stuff every day!
I think he summed up the perspective of the target audience quite nicely, if you read the whole article. It's pretty much in line with all the cooing I've heard from the young women I know that read those books.
I've also read that King has made disparaging remarks in the past about the writing of Tom Clancy and John Grisham as well.
I would encourage everyone to make their own decisions about what they like to read and not worry about what anyone else thinks- especially when they're insulting about it.
So people hold up these books as great horror fiction. They aren't. They are adequate young adult fiction. A nice introduction to the genre. But they aren't moving the genre forward. They are pulling it backwards. Authors are writing "down" to the level of Twilight because they feel that is what sells, instead of writing to a higher standard.
I run a small press. This embracing of the mediocre merely because it is a financial success encourages writers to stop growing. I see so many Twilight rip-offs it's really quite sad. Adult authors writing adult fiction for adult readers...but writing at a level more suited for teens.
You want to encourage teens to read. Great. You want to ask Stephen King his opinion on a teen book masquerading as adult horror, expect him to say exactly what he said.
I think it is important for people to look at things critically, particularly when it is financially successful and popular. Literature only grows when there is conflict and opposition. In literature, its GOOD when authors speak out like this. The challenge should force authors to go back and look at their work objectively. They may decide the opposition is unfounded, but in the process of honest introspection they hopefully still make their work better.
I will agree with the person who commented that they'd hate to be the assistant or something that has to sift through all the vampire story queries now. But that's the way of it here in the good old U.S.A. If something makes it big, everyone scrambles to get a piece of it. I seriously doubt that will change any time soon.
Stephen King has earned the right to speak freely. Without his comments we wouldn't be questioning if 'Twilight' is worth the hype. Instead we'd be like the characters in the 'Emperor's New Clothes.' Sure, everything he's written hasn't been great. He'll tell you that himself in his book 'On Writing', in which he's very candid about his shortcomings. Still, any prolific writer will fall short of the bar once in a while. Let's just hope Meyer's gets better with age and experience, then she'll have devoted readers for life, not just during their 'tween' years.
When and where did Stephanie Meyer make any kind of statement that she "is trying to justify these books as serious adult genre fiction"? Or is this specific complaint now about someone else?
I thought this post was about your support for King's remarks about Meyer's writing abilities and your apparent disdain for her as a "wanna-be" and the "tweens obsessed with sexy vampires".
Now, after reading your last comment, it sounds like your concern is not about her writing abilities as much as it is about the downfall of literature because she wrote some books you don't view as "worthy", and how other writers will "dumb down" their writing in an attempt to get published. And somewhere in there is an implied, unjust comparison between Meyer's books and... what? The horror genre equivalent (whatever that is) of To Kill A Mockingbird? Again, who said that?
How is any of this Meyer's problem? She wrote some young adult books that many people have enjoyed, regardless of their perceived "literary" value. I say, good for her and her readers!
You and Mr. King are certainly entitled to your opinions; as am I, as we all are. I just don't agree with the damning comments about the books, the author, the people who read them, and the forgone conclusions about their "dumbing" effect on other authors. Everyone I know who read them said they were fun. Period. Stephanie Meyer is not responsible for what other authors write, so if they choose to mimic her work in an attempt to sell a book, that's their business; I'm guessing they need the money.
The last time I looked, this was still America, and people should feel free to write and read whatever they choose without having to satisfy anyone else- including literary elitists. It's clear that you hold Mr. King in high regard and that's fine, but his opinion is just one of many; it doesn't mean everyone in the world should sit up and take notice (including Stephanie Meyer) because he has spoken.
I have to say that I am not a big fan of much of what ends up on the bestseller lists. james patterson, Danielle Steel, Nora Roberts, David Baldacci, what do they really have to say. It ends up just being about name recognition, branding. You reach for the Tide or the Crest because you have never had the other one so you do not know if it is good.
Somebody had to be the first one to read Stephen King, and tell her friends, sheez that scared the **** out of me. I want to be that person, not the one who reaches for the safe choice.
One more thing about bestseller writers, You can't write good books when your publisher expects 3 books a year from you.
On Rowling and Meyer, yeah, i think Rowling is the better writer. No offense, Twilight fans, Meyer is good at knowing your fantasies. That is an important skill.
With all of the trash that is on the best seller lists, just cuz they sell, doesn't mean they're good enough to read.
As far as anything being considered "good enough to read", that was my point; it's up to individuals to decide for themselves what is good enough to read, not anyone else. Do you disagree?
But...... literary criticism has always been a respected profession, and rightly so. There is value to discussing the good and bad points of literary work. There are signs that we are becoming more willing to read fiction that has insight and impact than what we so often settle for. it's important work, talking about books. It can't always be done in a value neutral way. Comparisons are inevitable.
What I heard (read) was a general bashing of Stephanie Meyer's writing skills, a couple of pokes at her audience, an unfavorable non-specific comparison of her to J.K.Rowling, a concern that someone (unidentified) has had the nerve to compare the Twilight series to some other (unidentified) horror genre masterpiece, and a concern that the series mere existence will somehow force good writers to demean their superior writing just to make a buck.
And I agree that talking about books is important and can't always be done in a "value neutral" way. But it can and should be done in a respectful way. It should also include more than general negative comments that insult both the author and their readers.
I'm not here to defend Stephanie Meyer; I just wanted to express my opinions which would be the same in any situation like this, regardless of who the author might be.
As far as King goes...He used to be an awesome writer, until the Gunslinger series. After that i havent enjoyed much of what he has written except From a Buick 8. I feel like his writting went down hill.
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There’s quite a few discussions and lots of pictures too.
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Here’s hoping you get enough points today to make at least a buck!
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