‘Twilight’ Author, Stephenie Meyer, Never Visited 1 Town From the Story Prior To Writing About It

The setting of Twilight was important to the story, which makes author Stephenie Meyer not visiting Forks, Washington before writing about it even more surprising. Here’s what we know about her first trip to this real town. 

Stephenie Meyer based ‘Twilight’ in the town of Forks, Washington

No teenager likes to move, but that’s especially true for Bella Swan, who goes to live with her father in the gloomy town of Forks, Washington. This town was also home to the Cullen Family with its rainy weather perfectly concealing their sparkly vampire skin. 

Also in Washington State is the La Push reservation, the home of Bella’s childhood friend and potential love interest, Jacob. (The fact that he’s a werewolf living near forests helps him out a lot, as well.) Although this story takes Bella and Jacob to a few different places, the couple is mostly based in this Washington state town.

The author never actually visited this town prior to writing about it

Sure, the movie wasn’t filmed in the actual town of Forks, but because the novel was set in this town, it became a major landmark almost overnight. While writing the Twilight Saga, Meyer had to do research on the area.

According to Huffpost, Meyers never visited Forks or the La Push reservation. Instead, she researched about both locations and “figured that the town’s annual rainfall, which averages 120 inches of rain annually, made it the perfect place for the Cullen vampire clan to settle,” the article reads.

Stephenie Meyer shared her Forks experience in 1 post

With the success of the novels, it was only fitting that Meyre finally paid a visit to this iconic destination. With one post to her website, the author detailed her first trip to Forks, which she took with her sister, Emily.

“It was eerily similar to my imaginings,” she wrote of the town. “Walking down Main Street, shopping at the Thriftway (I still have that receipt!)  Driving up side streets until we found a house that could have been Charlie’s, and then turning the car around only to find a beat-up, once-red, early-fifties Chevy truck parked across the road….” 

Since writing about the town, Forks has become somewhat of a tourist destination for fans of both the Twilight movies and the original novels. Still, some things in the town and its surrounding nature haven’t changed.

“My Forks had become such a real place in my head that I was sure the reality would have some kind of jarring difference,” she wrote. “It wouldn’t look like the pictures, maybe, or there would be some huge flaw that would make my story impossible in that setting. But as we flew in, low over the densely green hills with the incredible Cascades Mountains touching the clouds to the south, I stopped worrying.”