‘Twilight’: Stephenie Meyer Wrote 2 Books in the Saga Completely Out of Order
Thanks to Stephenie Meyer’s release of Midnight Sun in 2020 the Twilight books have once again risen to popularity. Fans have found themselves immersed in the love story of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. But what is it about the books that fans find so mesmerizing? And how did Meyer manage to strike gold with The Twilight Saga?
Meyer certainly had an unusual path to success. Now a multimillionaire, the author had never fancied herself a writer until she wrote the Twilight books. In fact, the idea for the first novel came to her in a dream. But, when she regained consciousness, she couldn’t get the characters out of her head. She wrote obsessively, with no intention of showing the story to anyone else. However, when she realized that she had enough material for a book, she considered publishing.
Stephenie Meyer really got to know the characters in her books
One thing that has likely made Meyer so successful with her Twilight books, is how detailed she is when she’s expressing what her characters are thinking and feeling. In fact, on her personal website, she gives aspiring writers the tip to really get to know their characters on a deep and personal level.
“I feel the best way to write believable characters is to really believe in them yourself,” the author of the Twilight books shared. “When you hear a song on the radio, you should know how your character feels about it–which songs your character would relate to, which songs she hates. Hear the conversations that your characters would have when they’re not doing anything exciting; let them talk in your head, get to know them. Know their favorite colors and their opinions on current events, their birthdays and their flaws. None of this goes in the book, it’s just to help you get a rounded feel to them.”
The author wrote two of the ‘Twilight’ books out of order
Meyer also confessed that she had a pretty unorthodox way of writing two of the Twilight books. According to the author, she decided to forgo writing in chronological order for half of the books and instead used outlines to keep track of the story’s structure until she could piece things all together.
“With New Moon and Eclipse, I wrote out whichever scenes I was interested in, rather than starting at the beginning and working through to the end,” Meyer revealed of the writing process she developed halfway through the Twilight books. “I wrote most of the books in scenes, and then went back later and tied the scenes together. It cut out a lot of writer’s block to write whatever part I was most interested in at the time. And it makes it easy to finish. By the time you get around to writing the less exciting transitions, expositions, and descriptions, you already have so much done!”
It’s certainly interesting to see that Meyer took a less linear approach for some of her Twilight books. Clearly, switching things up worked in her favor as the series is still beloved by millions years later.
