USA Weekend: Stephen King on J.K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer
I’m working on my big American Icons cover story on Stephen King today, and it could almost fill up two full issues. When I flew up to Maine to talk to him in December, we got into a discussion of popular authors vs. the academic elite, a subject he has strong opinions about, and I asked him if his mainstream success over the past 35 years paved the way for the massive careers of Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling and Twilight author Stephenie Meyer.
King, whose Stephen King Goes to the Movies collection came out last week, doesn’t know how much of an influence he had on Meyer, but he does know that Rowling read his stuff when she was younger.
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.
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 they’re not overtly sexual. 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.”
While I think Stephen King is pretty harsh, he’s right. Stephenie Meyer is not a great writer, in my opinion. What she is, is a great storyteller. I wish he had elaborated more because Twilight has way too many fans to write it off this way. I believe it’s the storytelling, oh and the sexual tension too. When it’s all said and done, I have never been able to put my finger on exactly what draws me to the Twilight series. What do you think of what Stephen King had to say? Do you agree, disagree? Why?
Entertainment Weekly spoke with Stephenie Meyer about her Twilight inspirations. Cool question for Stephenie. Her responses below:
JANE EYRE
‘’I read it when I was nine,'’ says Meyer, ‘’and I’ve reread it literally hundreds of times. I do think that there are elements of Edward in Edward Rochester and elements of Bella in Jane. Jane was someone I was close to as a child — we were good friends! I think in some ways she was more real to me than any other fictional heroine.'’
ANNE OF GREEN GABLES
‘’The series influenced how my series turned out. Because I was never a fan of the stories where everything ends and they kiss at the wedding. Anne of Green Gables started out with her as a child, she had a very fully described adolescence, she had a book-long engagement, we got to see her wedding, we got to see her have her first child and lose her first child, we got to see her children grow up. We got the whole life, and I loved that.'’
X-MEN CARTOONS
‘’This is crazy, but those Saturday-morning cartoons…I was always fascinated with the X-Men. I love the idea of a group of people and all of them can do something really well. They’re special, but they’re strongest when they work together. Maybe that comes from having a big family, but I always clicked into that kind of story. And I think that really came into play when I was subconsciously forming the Cullen family. Though I certainly wasn’t thinking about Cyclops when I was writing about them, I think it was there in the layers underneath.'’
MUSE
‘’They universally work for my writing style. If I have to write a scene of despair, ‘Apocalypse Please’ will work. And if I have to write an action scene, I can put on ‘Assassin.’ If I have to write a scene about love, ‘Starlight’ will work. They have so many emotions!'’
LINKIN PARK
‘’Essential to me in the beginning! Something about the tempo of their songs really kept the action in the novel. Otherwise it might have been a lot more sedate! ‘By Myself’ was a song I listened to in loops because just the sound of it, and the words of aloneness, the attackers behind you. That was really a great one for me.'’
MARJORIE FAIR
‘’For New Moon they were absolutely essential. They can put you into a suicidal state faster than anything I know. It’s just this heartbreaking music where the pain is done so beautifully. It really got me in the zone for writing about a person who is horribly depressed and yet not at all showing it. She’s not wearing black and refusing to come out of her room and yelling at the people she loves. She is completely containing it inside herself. Their songs really made it beautiful for me.'’
MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE
‘’This band is so in touch for me with Jacob’s character. This really raw, uncontrolled emotion — where it’s not about some person who’s grown up and callused over and learned how to control things. It’s someone who’s feeling it for the first time and just wants to go out and blow things up. The song ‘Famous Last Words’ is a really romantic version of Jacob saying, ‘Okay, I’m putting myself out there, and you’re probably going to break me, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m still going to make the offer.’ ‘’
SOMEWHERE IN TIME
‘’The one movie that I watched a lot as a kid. It combined music into the story. Oh my gosh, with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. The music is Rachmaninoff, and every time you hear that song, you’re poised to fall in love. The relationship there is just this impossible thing that he makes possible. That had to be an influence on me.'’
BABY MAMA
‘’When I’m on the road, I need a comedy that is as mindless as I can find. I watched Baby Mama on tour. I love Tina Fey. I think she may be the most adorable person on the face of the planet. And Amy Poehler is a close second.'’
HGTV
‘’When I’m not on tour, when I’m home — here comes the geek girl — what I have on almost all the time is the Home and Garden TV channel. I adore House Hunters International, I adore Designed to Sell; I just love looking at all the houses and watching people get their houses all prettied up. HGTV is a safe place, and everyone is always happy.'’
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
‘’Isn’t Iron Man the best superhero movie that’s ever been done? That’s how you should feel coming out of a movie. You go in, you’re excited, you come out all jazzed and pumped. The best parts of that movie are when it was only him. I’m so glad he’s back.'’
STRANGER THAN FICTION
‘’There’s a scene where [the fictional character] Emma Thompson’s character created…tracks her down and walks into her living room and he goes, ‘Hey, I’m Harold Crick.’ And she collapses to the floor and says, ‘I know.’ That moment makes me cry. Imagine what that would be like! I actually did have a dream after Twilight was finished of Edward coming to visit me — only I had gotten it wrong and he did drink blood like every other vampire and you couldn’t live on animals the way I’d written it. We had this conversation and he was terrifying.'’
Andrew McMahon of Jack’s Mannequin shares more information about how the video for The Glass Passenger came about.
Band’s new video
Author Stephenie Meyer, whose hugely successful vampire novels make their feature-film debut with “Twilight” in November, came up with the concept for the band’s new video, “The Resolution.” McMahon was told by a friend’s wife that Meyer was a fan. She includes a few Jack’s tracks on the online play lists that accompany each of her novels.
“We weren’t finding a story we really connected to, and that made sense for the song,” recalls McMahon. “In a brainstorm, I realized here is this woman who has written these books whose aesthetic has appealed to so many people.”
Meyer submitted a video treatment and the band loved it. And no, “The Resolution” isn’t the dark vampire tale one might expect from the author.
“The mermaid was as (fantastical) as we got. … She was even laughing about it – that everybody thinks we’re going to shoot a vampire video,” says McMahon, who is finishing up “Twilight” now. “I couldn’t get into a room and let the woman direct the video unless I’d taken in her art as well.”
Slightly old news, but I like how it came about that Stephenie and Andrew hooked up. Stephenie Meyer fans are everywhere….watch out we’re taking over the world. I like the video so much that I think Stephenie should consider directing other things. What do you think?
Stephenie Meyer has an article on her in WHO magazine, Australian Issue, called “Written in Blood”. She talks about how she originally wrote the book for her sister, knocking off Harry Potter, her family and of course the upcoming movie.
I know we’re a little late in posting it but we here @ TA still it’s well worth the post! Since many of us weren’t fortunate enough to be be in NYC during the Breaking Dawn release concert that featured Stephenie Meyer, we feel this is the next best thing.
Here’s the video coverage from the show. When you get to the video page, you can click on different links on the right side to stream different sections from the concert.
TA’ers: Were any of you able to attend this event? Feedback?
BUZZNET has just released a sneak peek video of Jack Mannequin’s new video “The Resolution”. This will be Stephenie Meyer’s latest project and her first directorial debut. We’re all excited to see what she can bring to the music video world.
CHECK OUT THE SNEAK PEEK! CLICK ON IMAGE ABOVE
Actual airing of video of Meyer’s directorial debut is set to premiere on MTV2, MTVU and MTV.com on September 29th, 2008.
Stephenie Meyer’s official site has been updated with a reading suggestion:
People often ask me for reading suggestions, and I’m always happy to share because books are exciting things to me. My latest excitement is this: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I was so obsessed with this book I had to take it with me out to dinner and hide it under the edge of the table so I wouldn’t have to stop reading. The story kept me up for several nights in a row, because even after I was finished, I just lay in bed wide awake thinking about it. I’ve been recommending it to total strangers in Target. And now to everyone who reads my website. The Hunger Games is amazing.
USA Weekend: Stephen King on J.K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer
Entertainment Weekly spoke with Stephenie Meyer about her Twilight inspirations. Cool question for Stephenie. Her responses below:
