So what if Stephenie Meyer "used a thesaurus every second word"?

Question

I don't get why people say "Oh yeah twilight is terribly written. It's like Stephenie uses a thesaurus for every second word!" So what? I mean since i read the twilight saga, my vocabulary has improved by miles! So has my writing i'm using such complex structures and words no one in my class has heard of! So if she used a thesaurus isn't that a good thing ?

Answer 1

Here's the answer to why: because Meyer did not write this book to be the next great American novel. Because it has become such a teen sensation, everyone loves to criticize her. Personally, I don't see why people become so pompous about what books they read; books, like movies or television, are meant to be a form of entertainment. Yes, I read Jane Eyre, and it is one of my favorite books. But I also read Twilight and enjoyed it immensely. Not because of the hype surrounding it-- I actually read it in 2005, before it was broadly known-- but because I loved the story of the impossible love between Bella and Edward. (Oh, and book Nazis: ever heard of Romeo and Juliet? By William Shakespeare, playwrite extraordinare, about two star-crossed lovers who cannot be together? Maybe Meyer's writing is not quite up to Shakespearean level, but the concept is the same. Yet if someone here was talking about Romeo and Juliet as their favorite book, I doubt you would bash them and call the Bard's work trash.)



Stephenie Meyer did not write Twilight to become the next Jane Austen. She wrote it because, like most authors, she had a great idea and wanted to share it with the world. So maybe her vocabulary wasn't perfect, but whose is? The Twilight series is a love story, so of course the prose is going to become a little flowery. Guess what? It doesn't matter. Books are not made to be divine works tweaked to perfection and set up on a pedestal. They are written to feed our imaginations and entertain us, and so they are written on a human level.



(By the way, for an example of Meyer's work that doesn't include the colorful vocabulary used in the Twilight series, I'd pick up The Host. It's a great book, with wonderfully realistic characters that is, despite the love story, intelligent and interesting.)

Answer 2

I agree absolutely. Regular reference to a thesaurus (and a dictionary) improves writing (and speech) skills like nothing else. When I write, I rarely complete a page without referring to both at least twice. Anyone that writes without regular use of a thesaurus and dictionary is a hack. I suppose those that complain, mean it in the sense they feel she overuses, misuses and abuses her thesaurus and that may be a credible complaint but by-and-large, it should always be very difficult to do more harm than good with either a thesaurus or a dictionary.



Check out my vocabulary usage at:

http://www.nokilleye.com/111000.htm

Answer 3

You know what book series really did a number on my vocabulary? Calvin and Hobbes! Talk about unrealistic lexicon for a 6 year old. I didn't even know what a chromosome was until I was in high school and suddenly I understood some more of his jokes!



but seriously. There's nothing wrong with using a thesaurus, but if you use a thesaurus to fill your book with overly huge and rare words, it's just useless, pretentious, and annoying.

Answer 4

Using the thesaurus is a good thing. If you think Twilight improved your vocabulary, wait until you see what other books could do. I loved Twilight for its entertainment value and story, but the truth is, it is poorly written. Well imagined though, a great story. But, if you have not read breaking dawn yet, you will see bad writing. But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the book.

Answer 5

Read On Writing by Stephen King. If your hunting through a thesaurus for a word, it's the wrong one.

Answer 6

It's never a good idea to use the thesaurus as much as Meyer does. It's okay to check it every once in awhile, but to rely on it as much as she does is a very bad idea. She abuses it so much that her prose becomes very flowery (this is called purple prose). But, the main problem with her abuse of the thesaurus, is that she picks these words that a sixteen year old girl (no matter how intelligent) would know. It wouldn't be a big deal if the book was not written in the POV of a sixteen year old girl, but since it is, it's annoying and unrealistic since like I said, no sixteen year old girl (no matter how intelligent) would know most of the descriptive words that Meyer uses.

Answer 7

Oh dear. You "improved" your vocabulary using Twilight? You're aware that Stephenie Meyer used an awful lot of words completely wrongly and that many of the ones she used wrongly were the less common ones that a lot of people haven't heard of, right? I'd also have worries about the "complex structures" you picked up from Twilight, since Meyer's awful sentence structure is one of the biggest technical flaws in the whole series. Honestly, I think you may be heading for embarrassment.

Answer 8

Impressing your English class and writing well are completely different things. Meyer can't tell a compelling story with even pacing. In some cases it is uncertain whether she actually knows the correct usage of the words she found.

Answer 9

i love using a thesaurus when i write. i prefer to use advanced vocabulary, instead of the everyday boring vocab that everyone uses.

Answer 10

Oh please! Get over yourself. Stephenie Meyer is terrible. Her books are purely a fad and nothing more. They are not brilliant pieces of literature, they are trashy teen books that will be forgotten in time. I suggest reading something substantial that will actually improve your writing habits. Jane Eyre, for instance. And lifeisatriproundthesun did, in fact, use "wrongly" in the right context. Sorry hun x

Answer 11

The point is, Stephanie has NO idea how to employ the said vocabulary.



Even though Bella may be a teenager who grew up in a really fairly progressive city--Phoenix--and is now living in the Pacific Northwest, she has the lexicon of an eighteenth century Oxford scholar and has no qualms about utilizing it.



Unrealistic? Yes. In a modern-day, tween vampire novel? Maybe not. Grating? Absolutely.



For example, Bella and her mom didn't put together their money to get Bella some, but not too many new winter clothes... they "pooled [their] resources to supplement [Bella's] wardrobe, [which] was still scanty." Page 6. Yes, Stephenie, and I'd like you to do a tetra-annual report on that in order to better utilize our brand and create a sustainability of buzz words that make us sound more possessed of intelligence than mayhaps we be. Mwa-ha.



Where's my garlic?

Answer 12

i find it boring reading the same words used OVER and OVER and OVER again. i like variety that way you learn even more words not the same ones over and over and over. different words also keep the story interesting and doesn't make me bored when im reading.

Answer 13

I never write without my thesaurus handy

Answer 14

I don't see what's wrong with using hard words or words that aren't mainstream. The people complaining about it just don't want to expend the brain power necessary in order to understand the story. Expand your own vocabulary people!!!!!

Answer 15

If it helped you in any way than that's a positive thing. :)

Answer 16

I don't see a problem. That is what thesauruses are for...