SM: It is funny.... I mean, it's hard because I am very thin-skinned. I don't take anything lightly. When I read a criticism, I immediately take it to heart and say: "Oh my gosh--maybe I should have done that! Oh, I do do this wrong!" I question myself very easily. I don't question the characters, which is why I'm able to maintain my voice when I write--because that, to me, is the one thing that's rock-solid. It doesn't matter what my doubts are--they are who they are. And that's a good thing.
SH: It is. And despite all of the criticism, there are so many more fans than there are people who are angry about the books, but you hear the negative stuff so much louder.
SM: Oh, always loud. You know, it reminds me of the movie Pretty Woman. Whenever that comes on TV, for some reason I can't change the channel. [SH laughs] And there's the one part where she says: It's easier to believe the bad, you know.
SH: Yeah.
SM: That's one of the things that I think is a constant struggle: to make the negative voices not as loud as--or at least just equal to--the positive voices. I know a lot of people who feel the same way. It's easy to doubt yourself.
Maybe the answer is not to write a sequel. I'm considering that. You know, write one-shots--just one contained story, which I have a hard time doing. I guess I'll just have to end it by killing the characters--because then it'll be over, right? [Laughs] But if you kill off your characters--even minor characters--you still sob for everything that they were and could have been.
But if you kill off your characters--even minor characters--you still sob for everything that they were and could have been.
SH: In the book I'm writing right now, there is a death--a major death. And every time I do a rewrite, as I get near that scene, and I know I have to face it again, my stomach just clenches and I get sick with dread. And as I go through that scene, I'm sobbing the entire time. It is not easy....
SM: No. When you know in advance that you're going to put yourself through that, it gives you some pause. And then you also have to know that it's a different story than what people are expecting. That's also the trouble with sequels.
SH: The most letters I get from fans is for one book called Princess Academy, and the most requests I get from fans is for a sequel to that book. And then they tell me what happens in the sequel, you know? [SM laughs] And that's how I know that I shouldn't write it.
SM: Right.
SH: Because they've already told their own story. And that's what I want, anyway... because I didn't tie everything up completely. I just gave them an idea of where they might go in the future.
On Breaking Dawn
I was aware that it was taking Bella in a new direction that wasn't as relatable for a lot of people.
SH: I loved Breaking Dawn. It's hard to pick a favorite, but it might be my favorite. It was so the book I wanted, and so what it felt like it needed to be for me. And I have to say I loved the pregnancy and birth stuff, because I love the horror. Your books are romance, but there's also this real, wonderful undercurrent of horror that's different from any kind of horror I've read. And I love what horror can do: shine a light on what is real. And you make it bigger and more grotesque--just so you can see more clearly how grotesque what really happens is.
SM: I do think that sometimes I put horror in unusual places for horror to exist, and I take it out of places where it might have been easy to have it. You know, that birth scene really was horror for me. We live in a time where having a baby is not much more dangerous than giving blood. I mean, it's horrible, but it's unlikely that you're going to die.
But that's something new for this century. You know, there was a time when childbirth was possibly the most terrifying thing you could do in your life, and you were literally looking death in the face when you went ahead with it. And so this was kind of a flashback to a time when that's what every woman went through. Not that they got ripped apart, but they had no guarantees about whether they were going to live through it or not.
You know, I recently read--and I don't read nonfiction, generally--Becoming Jane Austen. That's the one subject that would get me to go out and read nonfiction. And the author's conclusion was that one of the reasons Jane Austen might not have married when she did have the opportunity... well, she watched her very dear nieces and friends die in childbirth! And it was like a death sentence: You get married and you will have children. You have children and you will die. [Laughs] I mean, it was a terrifying world.
And Bella's pregnancy and childbirth, to me, were a way to kind of explore that concept of what childbirth used to be. That made it very specific for readers who were interested in that, and it did take it away from some of the fans who were expecting something different. I was aware that it was taking Bella in a new direction that wasn't as relatable for a lot of people. I knew that it was going to be a problem for some readers.
SH: Yeah.
SM: My agent and my editor and my publisher all said: "Um, can we tone down the violence here? It's making me a little sick." [Laughs] But I was kind of proud of myself. I was thinking: I actually wrote something violent enough to bother anybody? I'm such a marshmallow. Wow--you go, Stephenie! [SH laughs] And I toned it down for them, and I made it a little bit less gruesome. Although I kept some of the gruesome stuff in, too.
SH: I know you hate spoilers. You don't want any leaks.
SM: You know, though, I wonder with this last book... I wonder if it would have been an easier road for readers who have difficulties with Breaking Dawn if they'd known more in advance. If people had asked me, "Can vampires have babies with humans?" And, instead of saying, "I can't answer questions about those crazy things that might or might not happen"--which is what I said because I didn't want to make it super-obvious it was going to happen; I mean, that just seems wrong--I could have just said, "Yeah, they can." Maybe it would have been easier for them if they'd been expecting it.
My scientific reasoning works for me, but for people who don't buy into it, I can only agree.
SH: So you knew, even before Twilight was published, that in your world a vampire and a human would have a baby?
SM: Oh yeah. I've got it all worked out in my head. My scientific reasoning works for me, but for people who don't buy into it, I can only agree. It's true. Vampires cannot have babies... because vampires aren't real. [Laughs] And vampires can't have babies with humans, because humans can't actually copulate with vampires--because vampires are not real. [SH laughs] It's a fantasy.
SH: Right. And yet people believe those characters, and the possibility of those vampires is real enough that they have to say: Wait--those aren't the rules.
SM: It's flattering in a way, that this is so real to them that they feel like there are things that can't happen in this fantasy.
SH: Now I have a nerd-girl question. Does Nessie's bite do anything? Did it do anything to Bella, when Nessie bit her?
SM: Nessie is not venomous.
SH: You did say in the book that Nessie wasn't venomous. I mean, it's just about food. [Laughs] Extreme nursing. [Laughs] But I guess when Bella did so well with the transition, as the new vampire, I was thinking: I wonder if Nessie's bite did that for her.
SM: [Laughs] I hadn't even thought of that. No, Bella's transition was unique among new vampires, in that she knew what was coming. None of the other Cullens had any warning. It was just, all of a sudden, this overwhelming need to drink blood--just without any kind of readying. You know how sometimes you have to brace yourself for something? Bella was braced--she was ready. And it wasn't like it was easier for her than it was for them. She'd just already made up her mind that that's the whole key to everything. She's the only person in the entire history of the Twilight universe who chose beforehand to be a "vegetarian" vampire.
SH: I liked that Jasper had a hard time with that. His personal struggle was that it wasn't inevitable.
SM: You know, when you're really used to giving in to instant gratification, that makes it harder not to. If you've never given in, it's easier to keep i
t that way.
Just to have Bella and Edward really be able to understand each other--that made it worth writing four books.
SH: I remember when you were writing Breaking Dawn, you told me that this story made you happy. What is it about this story that made you happy?
SM: Well, it goes back to what we were talking about before, about Edward. And it's an interesting thing to me, how I worry about my characters like they're real people. Like how after I wrote Eclipse--even though I knew exactly what was going to happen in Breaking Dawn--until I actually got to the part where Jacob sees Renesmee for the first time, and his life comes together for him, I worried about him all the time.
And Edward, this whole time, has had a lot of happiness--and, yet, he's not trusting any of it to last. He's feeling like he's doomed, and there's no abating it--that something bad is going to happen to him because of who he is. And now I could finally watch that change and watch him come to accept happiness--even more than Bella does. Because Bella sees the end coming and sort of loses hope, but he never does.
After he accepts that he can have happiness, he just clings to it. And I really enjoyed that, and I enjoyed writing the end. I had to write all four books to get to those last two pages. Just to have Bella and Edward really be able to understand each other--that made it worth writing four books.
SH: And he really makes the journey--even though vampires, as you've said, are frozen sort of in that moment when they first become vampires. But he changes so much in Breaking Dawn, and so quickly in becoming a father. What was it like to take him through that journey, as well?
SM: You know, all that really changes is his outlook--which, of course, changed everything. But who he is, what he loves, how he does things--it all stays the same. He did get a lot of things that he hadn't even let himself think about wanting, though. I mean, getting to have this daughter that he had never envisioned--that he never could have conceived of--was this unbelievable thing for him, you know. And he accepts it pretty quickly. But the bigger wonder for him is Bella being happy. He thought he was going to ruin her life, and he made her happy. And that really was everything for him.
On Literary Inspirations
SH: So when you were writing, you'd have a literary classic that helps inspire your books. With Breaking Dawn you said it was A Midsummer Night's Dream, and you couldn't say the second one.
SM: Merchant of Venice--which I do say in the story. You know... [SH gasps] It's the book Alice pulls a page from to leave her message for Bella.
SH: I wondered about that.
SM: And, you know, originally it was Jane Eyre that Alice tore a page from. But Jane Eyre had nothing to do with the story. It just got in there because Jane Eyre was one of my best friends growing up. She was a really big part of my life. [Laughs] That's why it was in there, because that book was such a big part of my growing-up experience and the way I view the world.
Because, actually, I do think there's a Bella-Jane Eyre relationship. Jane Eyre's a stoic. She does what she thinks is right, and she takes it--and she doesn't mouth off about it. You know, in her head, maybe, she suffers, but she never lets that cross her lips. And I do think that there's some of that stoicism--not in the same way, but there's a little bit of that--in Bella.
The real story that I felt tied to was A Midsummer Night's Dream, where, in this lovely fantasy, the heartbreak of people not loving the right people--which happens all the time--is made right in this glittery instant of fairy dust. I love that book--and that's the part I love about it. I enjoyed the character of Bottom in the play, but that's not what I read it for. I read it for the magic.
That really is sort of where the imprinting idea came from, which existed in Forever Dawn (the original sequel to Twilight). And I introduced it earlier, so that it would be something already explained, and I wouldn't have to go into it later. It was about the magic of setting things right--which doesn't happen in the real world, which is absolutely fantasy. But if we can't have things made right in fantasy, then where do we get them made right?
So here's where The Merchant of Venice comes in. The third book of Breaking Dawn--which is a full half of the novel--was a lot longer than I thought it would end up being. And the whole time I had to have tension building to the final confrontation... but I wanted to give the clue that this was not going to be a physical confrontation. This was a mental confrontation--and if one person loses, everybody dies.
SH: Yeah.
SM: There's no way to win this one with a physical fight. Everyone's going to lose if that happens. So it's a mental battle to survive, and it's all about figuring out the right way to word something. Figuring out the right proof to introduce at exactly the right time, so that you can force someone into conceding--just trapping them in their own words.
SH: Because in The Merchant of Venice, Portia stayed with her beloved by being clever.
SM: Exactly. And just with her cleverness and by using the right words, she's averting bloodshed and murder from legally happening right in front of her and ruining her life.
SH: When The Merchant of Venice came up in the story, I immediately started going through my mind: What's the story of The Merchant of Venice? What does it mean to this book?
SM: And in the end of The Merchant of Venice, all the lovers get their happy ending. That's one of the reasons I like it. [Laughs]
Can you tell I like the lighter side of Shakespeare?
SH: The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night's Dream--I like that.
SM: Can you tell I like the lighter side of Shakespeare? I mean, I like the tragedies, too, and Romeo and Juliet is probably my favorite. Which is probably very immature of me, but that's the one that always gets me, and I think that's part of who I am. [Laughs] That's why my books are the way they are--because those are the stories that come alive for me.
SH: It works so well in New Moon. I did also identify with New Moon, though, because there's something a little Rochestery about Edward for me.
SM: Yeah.
SH: And then Edward leaves--and in Jane Eyre, Jane is the one who leaves.
SM: Yeah.
SH: And she's with St. John, but you know Jane and Mr. Rochester need to be together. And you don't know: Are they going to be together? And then there's that little bit of the mystical--when she hears him call her name. And she returns to him, and she saves him. And I love that in New Moon, too. I never get tired of it.
SM: I have never thought of it in that context, and there is so much that works with that comparison. I mean, I'm going to have to think about this some more later. Because, wow--there is a lot. I have never written a book where I said: "This one has a Jane Eyre emphasis." But I think you're absolutely right.
You know, isn't it funny how books influence us? They become a part of who you are. I mean, how much of my childhood that I remember has actually happened to me, and how much of it is the events that were in Anne of Green Gables? You know, I'm not really sure, because reading was so much of who I was. And those stories were every bit as real--and much more exciting--than the day-to-day boringness that was my life.
But Jane Eyre was this person that I felt like I knew. I think that there's a lot of Mr. Rochester in Edward, and I think there's a lot of Jane in Edward. Because he would take himself away from a situation that's not right, just like she does! And then she's like Bella, coming home at the end. But, my goodness, how close that is. I thank you, Shannon Hale. You have enlightened me.
But, actually, the more you get into writing, I think you realize that there is no new story.
SH: [Laughs] Well, you're welcome.
SM: You know, I think... maybe readers who aren't writers might look at something like that--using inspiration from other books--as kind of a form of plagiarism. But, actually, the more you get into writing, I think you realize that there is no new story.
SH: Every story has been told, so you're just telling it in a new way. One big reason why it's so important to be well read when you're writing i
s because when you write, you can dialogue with everything else that's ever been written. The more you read, the more you get to converse with all these other great works. And that makes them more exciting.
SM: Right. I really do believe that, you know, there are no new stories--except maybe Scott Westerfeld. [Laughs] He's, like, the one person who always makes me think: No one has ever done exactly that before! [Laughs] But, you know, every story has a basis in all the stories of your life.
SH: I think the most common question any writer gets is: Where do you get your ideas from? And that's the impossible question to answer, because, like you said, they come from...
SM: A million places.
SH: Everything: everything you experienced or imagined or thought or smelled or read or...
SM: A person you walked by in the airport once that just--you know, you saw a look in their eye, and you started spinning a story about what was going on in that person's head.
SH: And, of course, a story isn't just one idea. The more you write, the more you're drawing on a million different pieces of things. That's why it takes so long to write a story, because I start out with an idea... but the more I write, I realize it's just the kernel--because I'm adding more and more depth and intrigue. And along with the characters, it builds to a whole universe.
SM: It really does. I was trying to describe this recently, about how you have this universe of possibilities. And every time you pick one thing for your story--like Bella is brunette--all her blond and redheaded possibilities disappear. And then, when you pick the kind of car somebody drives, there are a million other vehicles, makes, and models that suddenly die. And as you narrow it down, you're just taking pieces of it and destroying whole worlds that could have been. It's a very interesting process.
The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide Page 4
