A little something from the "Oh Snap!" files: Stephen King On 'Twilight' Author

[Doc Holliday]

Me thinks there's an air of jealousy here...could it be, Stephen, you're a wee bit testy that more people are reading her instead of you?


Stephen King On 'Twilight' Author: 'Stephenie Meyer Can't Write Worth A Darn'
By Access Hollywood
February 3, 2009 4:05 PM PST


LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- Stephen King's opinion may drive a stake through the heart of "Twilight" author, Stephenie Meyer.

In an interview with USA Weekend, the bestselling author compared Meyer with J.K. Rowling , the author of the Harry Potter series.

According to Stephen, "Both Rowling and Meyer, they're speaking directly to young people... The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn. She's not very good."

Meeooww!

While Stephen may not be a fan of Stephenie's writing, he understands the appeal of the series.

"People are attracted by the stories, by the pace and in the case of Stephenie Meyer, it's very clear that she's writing to a whole generation of girls and opening up kind of a safe joining of love and sex in those books. It's exciting and it's thrilling and it's not particularly threatening because it's not overtly sexual."

He further explains, "A lot of the physical side of it is conveyed in things like the vampire will touch her forearm or run a hand over skin, and she just flushes all hot and cold. And for girls, that's a shorthand for all the feelings that they're not ready to deal with yet."

[Spooky]

I enjoyed the books, the story and some of the characters (I found myself calling the main character an idiot more than once). I'll agree with King (and I don't like doing that) that Meyers isn't the best writer out there, but she tells a good story that seems to get people (me included) to turn the page and buy the next book and that's what matters isn't it? That people enjoy your work.

I think we will all agree that Joss isn't perfect and a lot of people don't get him, but we do and enjoy pretty much everything he does. With that I say, GET OVER YOUR SELF KING!

[Spooky]

Some interesting numbers...

Novels Sold (a rough estimate based of several internet sites)

King 350 million (estimate 50 novels) 7 mil/per
Meyers 40 million (3 twilight novels) 13 mil/per

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Money made from movies made from their books. ( from boxofficemojo.com)

King (38 movies) $1,015,278,411 (26mil/per)
Meyers (1 movie) $341,174,267  (340mil/per) Maybe this has him jealous???

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[Doc Holliday]

I used to be a fan of King's -- I still read his non-fiction book "On Writing" -- but as far as his horror works goes, I'm sorry to say, but I think he's just phoning it in.

He used to be good, but as he got more popular, I feel his work became more and more sub-standard. He seems to be thinking that "I'm Stephen King, I'm a writing god, I could rewrite the Poughkeepsie phone book - and just because it has my name on it, it'll sell millions!"

It's a little like being a gunslinger; no matter how good you were at one time, someone's coming up the ranks to try and take you out. Looks to me like there may be a contender...

[TinkTanker]

Some interesting numb3rs...

Novels Sold (a rough estimate based of several internet sites)

King 350 million (estimate 50 novels) 7 mil/per
Meyers 40 million (3 twilight novels) 13 mil/per

------
Money made from movies made from their books. ( from boxofficemojo.com)

King (38 movies) $1,015,278,411 (26mil/per)
Meyers (1 movie) $341,174,267  (340mil/per) Maybe this has him jealous???

---------

King used to be a great writer, but he's burned out. IMHO, the last great novel he wrote was Hearts in Atlantis. On Writing is one of the finest book on the craft of writing you'll ever read. Most of the Dark Tower series is excellent, though the last three books were admittedly rushed. (He did die --- and was brought back in the ambulance --- after being hit by that van and knew he owed it to his fans to finish the story.) The Stand is one of the best 'end of the world' novels ever written as well. He writes wonderful characters and generally speaking, writes an excellent 3/4s of a books. Most of his endings are subpar, but better than anything I've ever written.

King should not have said what he did in regards to Meyer, though Ann would agree with him. She tried and tried to read Twilight but gave up. The cat barfed on her copy and Ann said that the cat probably improved the book.

[Spooky]

Fark thread on the subject.

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=4187632

[AdmiralDigby]

King should not have said what he did in regards to Meyer, though Ann would agree with him. She tried and tried to read Twilight but gave up. The cat barfed on her copy and Ann said that the cat probably improved the book.



And your new avatar ?
That's Louis Del Grande who after "Scanners" created a wonderful and unabashedly Canadian mystery series called "Seeing Things" .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Del_Grande

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Things_(television_show)