essay

Taaj Robinson Creative Writing 2b

My reading the book ‘’twilight’’ by Stephanie Meyer helped me in many ways become a better writer as well as a poet.

Since my selection this quarter was to write poetry, at first I found it difficult to pull out information from a fiction book that

would apply to poetry. But as I read some things were glaringly obvious as don’ts and translate to any type of writing. The

first thing I noticed that Stephanie Meyer had a habit of was repetition. She constantly played on the reader’s emotion of

feeling which became irritating. The next thing that I noticed from my reading was a lot of telling when it came to

description. Naturally the author has to give some details; but there was such an abundance of telling that most of the time

there was nothing left to leave to the imagination. The third major thing that I picked up on was exaggeration. It was

blatantly noticeable that the novel was fiction which the involvement of vampires and werewolves, so extra punctuation on

points is unnecessary.

Stephanie Meyer has the disposition that repetition progresses the reader’s understanding of the topic. Even though the

only thing it actually does is encourage a dis-connect between them and the character. There came a certain time as I read

that I wondered whether Stephanie Meyer questioned the intelligence of her audience. Lines such as ‘’ you are the most

important thing to me now. The most important thing to me ever(Stephanie Meyer.273)’’are sweet and touching at first,

but hearing different variations of it through the next three hundred pages got to be a bit much. By reading comments that

implicate love throughout the book it takes away from the impact it could’ve made if used fewer. Translating this to my

poetry writing I made a point to not rephrase thinks that literally mean the same thing, for the sake of being a better poet

as well as for the reader of my poetry.

As I read more of the book I found that I had little for myself to figure out in terms of setting. When I say that I mean that

every time there was a description given it was portrayed with great detail. It was done as a good job on the part of the

author in many senses. But to a reader who likes to be imaginative on their own it was really bad. There wasn’t anything

for me to do as I besides read, which seems almost ironic. The lines ‘’I sat at the table, watching him as I took a bite. He

was gazing at me, studying my every movement. It made me self-conscious. I cleared my mouth to speak, to distract him

(Meyer.315)’’are an example of over description. In those particular lines if someone is staring at you naturally you’re

going to feel self- conscious after a while, so that part can easily have been taken out. I vowed after reading quotes such

as this to leave the particulars of my poetry up to interpretation, as opposed to force feeding information.

The part that the book was a fiction played no bearing in Stephanie Meyers mind as she wrote. Meaning to say that

although the plot includes vampires and werewolves there was still an ample amount of exaggeration. Edward was talking

to Bella when’’ he chuckled darkly, and finished his sentence. Because, technically we don’t need to breath

(Meyer.338).’’Now I realize that she has to implement some of her own originality when it comes to writing about a

mythical creature that has been created for centuries already, but really? Is it not enough that they can live for thousands

of years and have inhuman strength but now they don’t have to breath either? In my poetry I made sure that I was not

overly ridiculous in any type of topic even though in poetry unique types of writing are given the title of surreal. But I still

wouldn’t want to chose that path after reading ‘’twilight.’’

Even though I read a fiction book and I’m writing poetry I still learned a lot from it. After reading ‘’twilight’’ and focusing on

the writing instead of just the plot I believe I am a better writer and in extension a better poet. I learned from my own

opinion about Stephanie Meyer that it is best not to include too many details. I know first -hand that the reader can get

bored of being told everything. I also learned that I shouldn’t over-exaggerate. There are times to do, marginally and in

certain points. Overall it was a very helpful experience reading ‘’twilight.’’ And it has helped in my poems that I have been

working on.

‘’twilight’’ is spelled correctly, the t is not capitalized. Just so you don’t take points off as a grammar mistake.