A story a day keeps the doubts away. That’s not really a saying, but it’s a nice thought. If it was as simple as writing a drabble or one-shot everyday, I’d have the confidence of Ari Gold and the courage of Sampson. But it’s not simple. There’s a recipe somewhere in the universe that adds just the right touch of this and that to equal success. The problem is, none of us know what it takes to create that magic. Sure, there are books and advice from our counterparts, there are television biographies and celebrity interviews that overload us with information on what it takes to be successful, but they are all different. Some come about by sheer luck, others years of grueling hard work. Some we’re born into (refer to luck again). Mulling over this universal recipe thing, I thought about the recent mega success of authors like Stephanie Meyers and E.L. James. I tried to understand what it was that they did right…of course the answer was clear: One created the Twilight franchise and the other built something new upon that audience.
Accepting that as a “truth” although I may not like it, was a necessary. But the question still remained, how does something like Twilight become a success? A movie night viewing of the last two movies answered that question for me. I was able to stand up and recognize what all the fuss was about. Finally I had an idea and all it took to get there was to to go back in time to the tween girl I was and imagine. What would I have liked to read back then? What was I reading back then? Would I have read and enjoyed Twilight…would I have been equally as fanatic about the film franchise?
The answers I came away with in the end, was yes and yes. I was reading Little Women, and Lace, but I was also reading a lot of teen romance books and despite what anyone says or my personal opinion as an adult, Twilight is an evolution from the tween romance stories of yesteryear.
