The Twilight Trend

I often venture online to yahoo answers (the books and authors section of course) just to see what people are talking about in the book world. And of course, Twilight is still a very popular subject. But one person has finally asked the question that I've been dying to answer, "Why does everyone suddenly hate the twilight series?" So, I enthusiastically clicked "answer" and typed away. Here's my view on it.

I remember sitting down with Twilight way before it was popular and I remember loving the book. I have always loved fantasy, vampires and all. So it was great when the Twilight series came out...

But, unfortunately all the screaming fan girls have completely ruined the books for many people, including me. Books are usually kept to ones self, something that you cherish and keep close to you. But once Twilight was made into a movie people seemed to forget about the books and focus on the actors/actresses and suddenly people claimed they loved Twilight when in reality they haven't even read the books. People don't get the same experience from the very poorly made movies. The Twilight Saga has turned into one huge marketing scam. Now there's Twilight clothes, bags, lunch boxes, water bottles, stickers, buttons, make up, perfume, etc. It's ridiculous. Enough is enough.

Bottom line is, the books were good. But then the fans got completely out of control and the whole series was made out to be something huge and amazing when really, Twilight was just another average fantasy book. The fans even managed to ruin the YA Fantasy genre for books, now authors are forgetting where fantasy originated from. It's no longer about the monsters and creepy crawlies, it's suddenly about the same "tragic love story" that countless people have written.

The fans killed twilight.


And I really believe it too. I don't like the idea of books being made into movies in general but creating a perfume/make up line based on books it's just absolutely mind boggling. The only visual adaptation that I've seen and thoroughly enjoyed is True Blood, based on the Sookie Stackhouse books, but even True Blood is NOTHING like the books!

Not to mention, Stephenie Meyer's other novel, The Host is also getting turned into movie. I haven't read The Host (I plan on it) so I won't judge, I'm just saying that The Host may not be that great but it's getting turned into a movie anyway and my guess is that it's only being made into a movie because of Meyer's huge success with Twilight. But like I said, I haven't read The Host so I can't judge (even though I just did.)
I think that people are truly forgetting the craft of writing and what it means to be a story teller. If it was up to me the whole world would be reading the old Grimm fairy-tales. I haven't read many classics at all but I'm not afraid to admit that I should. The classics are great examples of pure storytelling. All modern day novels are developed from plot lines that can be found in classics. Twilight, for example, is often compared to Wuthering Heights.
When NaNoWriMo rolls around this year I can only hope that I can produce a novel that makes people want to read and I can only hope it's a book I can look at and be proud of. I just want to write a well written and well crafted piece of fiction.

Movies seem to trample on the literary world. It's great that authors get wonderful publicity, it's true that movies do make people want to buy the books but still. I wish people would expand their horizons. I wish that the writers in Hollywood would stop seeing dollar signs and start coming up with original ideas. The same goes for writers too, it seems to me that everyone in writing field are just hoping on the wagon and following whatever craze is popular at the moment.
As a writer I would never want to write a story just because I think it would sell well or it's because that's what people are reading at the moment. I will always want to stay true to the story I feel I have to tell and I hope to do that in the most original way possible.