Then here you have Jacob, someone who never gives anything a passing thought and just is happy-go-lucky: If something's wrong, well, okay--let's just get over it and move on. Here's someone who's able to take things in stride a little bit more, who doesn't overthink everything. Someone who's a little rash. He does seem foolish sometimes, just because he doesn't pause to think before he leaps, you know?
That was sort of the opposite of Edward's character in a lot of ways. It gave a balance to the story and a choice for Bella, because I think she needed that. There was an option for her to choose a different life, with someone that she could have loved--or someone who she does love. I always felt like that was really necessary to the story. Because when I write, I try to make the characters react to things the way I think real people would.
I think that, in reality, it's never one boy--there's never this moment when you know. There's a choice there, and sometimes it's hard. Romance and relationships are a tangle, and this messy thing--you never know what to expect, and people are so surprising.
I do know what would have happened if Edward hadn't come back. You know, I know that whole story--how it went down, and what their future was.
SH: So for you, was the storyline inevitable? Or were there points when you were writing where you thought the characters might have made one choice or another?
SM: It's a funny thing--because it was inevitable. From the time I started the first sequel, I always knew what was going to happen. With Twilight I had no idea what was going to happen--it just sort of happened. But after I knew where it was going, I knew Edward and Bella were going out together. As you start to write stories you get twist-offs of things--there are three or four or five different ways it could have gone, and none of them were the right way. I knew what the real way was.
But I do know what would have happened if Edward hadn't come back. You know, I know that whole story--how it went down, and what their future was. I know what would have happened if this character had changed--when he did one little thing here, or that. There are always a million different stories--you just know which one it is that you're going to write. But that doesn't make the others not exist.
SH: And I think that comes through in the writing--that you are aware of these alternate realities. I think the reader becomes aware of these other realities, too. And that's nice, because then it's not predictable. You don't know exactly what's going to happen, because you can see there are other ways it can go.
SM: I think that's why the alternate stories develop--because you have to make it suspenseful; there has to be conflict--and there has to be, hopefully, some mystery about where it's going to go. If it's so clear that something specific is obviously going to happen, well, nobody wants to read that. So where's the suspense going to come from? It comes when you start to realize: Well, this other thing could have happened. Even though you know where you're going with it.
SH: I love that.
SM: It's all very circular. Something happens within something else, but the thing that happened is somehow the birthplace of the other one, too. It's very confusing [laughs] in the head of a writer. At least, for me.
SH: But it is like life, in that I think we are all aware of how if we'd made a different decision, we would be living in a different reality. And you can think about the other ones, but you live the one that you're in. The story has to live in the reality it's in.
SM: I think my fascination with that very concept kind of comes through in Alice's visions of the future, where there are fourteen million of them. As characters make choices, they're narrowing down which visions can actually happen. Alice sees flashes of the future possibilities coming from the choices they've made. But if they make different choices, it becomes a whole new future. And that's what happens to us every day. You choose to go to Target today [laughs] and you don't know how that's going to impact everything in your future, because of one decision. I'd always been really fascinated with that concept, and I enjoy science fiction that sort of deals with those strands.
SH: So, if you knew--that morning you woke up after having the dream of Edward and Bella in the meadow--if you knew the reality that would happen after you sat down and wrote it, would you still write it?
SM: You know... I wonder if I could have. The pressure would have been so immense. If I'd been faced with knowing: If you sit down and write today, eventually you're going to have to speak in public, in front of thousands of screaming people; you're going to have to travel around the world and live on Dramamine and Unisom; and you're going to have to be away from your family sometimes; and you'll be more successful than you could ever possibly have dreamed, but there's going to be more stress than you could have ever thought you were able to handle--I don't know what my decision would have been.
Probably, because I'm a coward, I would have jumped back under the covers and said: [high, squeaky voice] "I'm not ready!" [Laughs]
I was never really sure where I wanted to be in ten years, but Bella knows.
SH: I guess that's why it's good that we don't know what's going to happen in advance. I mean, if Bella had known everything that was going to happen...
SM: See, Bella would have gone through it exactly the same way. I know what my characters would do. They're very, very real to me. I know what they would say if I had a conversation with them. I know if I said this, Jacob would respond like this. And even if he knew exactly how it was going to end, and all of his efforts were going to be for naught, he would not change one tiny thing he did. Because he wouldn't be able to say to himself: Well, at least I tried. He needed to know that he did everything that he could--because that's who he is.
And Bella wouldn't change anything, either, because eventually, she was going to get what she wanted, and what she wanted her life to be. And if you're very sure about what you want from your life, if you're absolutely positive--then you can make that decision and say: "I won't make any changes, because this is what I want."
I never had that kind of absolute certainty and focus in regular everyday things when I was a teenager--I was never really sure where I wanted to be in ten years, but Bella knows. And so she walks through it the way a person walks across hot coals--because they know what they want on the other side. [Laughs]
On The Rewards Of Writing
SH: What's the most important thing for you to get out of the writing? Why do you do it?
SM: Originally, I wrote because I was compelled. I mean, it wasn't even like a choice. Once I started, it was just... I had to do it. It was similar to the way, when you start a book that's really good or extremely suspenseful, you can't put it down. At the dinner table, you have it under your leg--and you're peeking down there, so your husband won't catch you reading while you're eating dinner. It's like until you know what happens, you'll have no peace.
And there was a great deal of joy in that--although it wasn't a calm kind of joy. [Laughs] There was also some frenzy.
I wrote the rest of the books because I was so in love with the characters in the story that it was a happy place to be. But by then, I had to become a little bit more calculated about the writing process. I spent more time figuring out the best ways to proceed... like how outlines work for me, or is it better to write out of order, or in order? I'm still working on my ways. But it's still for the joy, when I actually sit down and write.
You know, there's a lot of other stuff you have to do as a writer--with editing and touring and answering a million e-mails a day... all of that stuff that's a grind and feels like work. But when I get away from that, and when I'm just writing again--and I have to forget everything else in the world--then it's for the joy of it again.
SH: And, you know, it's funny, because I totally agree. But you meet some writers who are not yet published--and they're so anxious and earnest and need to have that first publication come. What I want to say to them is: Don't hurry it.
SM: Yeah.
You miss being able to write in a vacuum--where it's just you and the
story, and there's no one that's ever going to say anything about it.
SH: The reason you're a writer is because you're telling stories. And everything that comes after publication has nothing to do with why you're a writer. The business stuff, like you said, and the anxiety of how the book is doing and the publicity--and, you know, dealing with negative reviews or negative fan reactions--all that stuff is not really what you're yearning for. What you're yearning for is the story. And the best thing to do is just enjoy that process and that journey.
SM: And you miss it when it's gone. You miss being able to write in a vacuum--where it's just you and the story, and there's no one that's ever going to say anything about it. I find that I can't write unless I put myself in that vacuum.
SH: But the characters have to almost come in on their own....
SM: I know. You have that experience of a character talking in your head, where you don't feel like you're giving them the words. You're hearing what they're saying, and it sounds like it's the first time you're hearing it, and you're just writing it down. Unless you have that experience, you can't understand that this is actually a rational way to be. [Laughs]
SH: I know, I know. Not that anybody who chooses to write books for a living is actually rational...
On Endings and Inevitability
And so the endings, to me, are always inevitable. You get to a point where there's no other way it can go.
SH: I think that, with certain kinds of stories, if you preplan a happy ending, it feels so false. I have had a couple stories like that, where I decided: This is not going to be the happy ending people are going to want, but we're just going to have to live with it. And then a character swoops in or something happens to change the problem and take it out of my hands. I think that kind of ending can feel more real and satisfying. You can't force it, though.
SM: No. Usually, the endings become impossible to avoid, because of whatever is growing in the story. There's nothing you can do after it's set in motion--it just keeps going.
Sometimes I don't see something changing at first. It's like... say, when you change direction by one degree, and you end up on a completely different continent, even though you turned just the slightest bit. Things like that'll happen that change the course. But by the time you get to the end, there's no... there's no more leeway for changes.
And so the endings, to me, are always inevitable. You get to a point where there's no other way it can go. If I tried to do something different, I think it would feel really unnatural. But I rarely try. [Laughs] It's like: Let's just let this be what it is. This is the way the story goes.
It gets complicated because, as the author, I see the first-person perspective from more than one person's perspective.
SH: Now, with New Moon, there was a way that it could have ended that was very different. And what changed the course of those events was happenstance.
SM: It wasn't altogether happenstance--whether you're referring to the paper cut or the cliff-jump or what have you. With the characters being who they are, it's only a matter of time before Bella bleeds near Jasper, and then the outcome is inevitable. It's only a matter of time before Bella finds a way to express her need for adrenaline in a way that nearly kills her, and it's pretty good odds that Jacob will be somewhere close to Bella at that time, clouding up Alice's visions.
It gets complicated because, as the author, I see the first-person perspective from more than one person's perspective. I started writing Bella in the beginning, but there are several voices that are first-person perspective for me while I'm writing. So I know everything that's going on with those people. Sometimes it's hard for me to write from Bella's perspective only, because Bella can only know certain things. And so much of that story was first-person-perspective Edward for me.
I knew it was going to be a problem if Edward took off. [Laughs] I mean, even though Twilight had not come out yet, I was aware enough at this point that this is not the way you write a romance. You don't take the main character away--you don't take the guy away. [SH laughs] But because of who he is, he had to leave--and because of the weakness that he has, he was going to come back. It was his strength that got him away, and it was the weakness that brought him back. It was a defeat, in a way, for him--but, at the same time, it was this triumph he wasn't expecting. Because he didn't see it going the way it does in the end.
He's such a pessimist--oh my gosh, Edward's a pessimist. And one of the fun things about Breaking Dawn for me was working through that with him, till he finally becomes an optimist. That's one of the biggest changes in Breaking Dawn, that Edward becomes an optimist. So many things have lined up in his favor that he can no longer deny the fact that some good will happen to him in his life. [Laughs]
And so for me, New Moon was all about what Edward had to do to be able to call himself a man. If he hadn't tried to save Bella by leaving, then he would not have been a good person, in his own estimation. He had to at least try.
And it was really hard to write, because I had to live all that. Oh gosh--it was depressing! I was into listening to a lot of Marjorie Fair. [Laughs] But I was able to do some things as a writer that I was really proud of, that I felt were a lot better than what I'd done in Twilight. I was able to explore some things that felt really real to me--even though I'd never been in Bella's position. It didn't feel like sympathy; it was empathy. Like I was really there, like I really was her. And so that was an interesting experience... but it was hard. It does take up the majority of the book, and that was tricky. It's gratifying to me that, for some people--a minority--New Moon is their very favorite book.
SH: I have a book like that--Enna Burning--which has been my least popular book all around. But there is a core of people for whom that is their favorite. And it is tremendously gratifying, because that was a difficult book to write for me, too. It's a dark book, and I poured so much into it. I'm really proud of that book. But to find that it spoke to someone else besides me makes me feel not quite so lonely as a writer.
SM: As a writer I don't think you always realize how lonely it is to feel like you're in this world all by yourself. That's why you end up sharing it, because there are some people who will get it.
On Criticism
Every book has its audience.
SM: What surprises me is not that there are people who don't get my book--because that seems really obvious and natural--but that there are people who do. And I do think that, as the series went on, the story started to get more specific, and possibilities were getting cut out. As you define something, all the "might have beens" die as you decide things. And so I'm not surprised that people had problems with wrapping it up, because it became more specific to me as time went on.
Every book has its audience. Sometimes it's an audience of one person--sometimes it's an audience of twenty. And every book has someone who loves it, and some people who don't. Every one of those books in a bookstore has a reason to be there--some person that it's going to touch. But you can't expect it to get everybody.
SH: No.
SM: And you can't say: "Well, there's something wrong if this book didn't mean the same thing to everyone who read it." The book shouldn't make sense to some people, because we're all different. And thank goodness. How boring would it be if we all felt the same way about every book?
People bring so many of their own expectations to the table that a story can't really please everyone.
SH: I really believe that, as writers, we do fifty percent of the work--and then the reader does the other fifty percent of the work--of storytelling. We're all bringing experiences and understanding to a book.
When you start with Twilight, you've got one book and one story. There's still an infinite number of possibilities of where that story can go. So if you've got, maybe, ten million fans of Twilight, by the time you get to New Moon, you're narrowing what can happen, because these characters are making choices, and so maybe you've got seven million possibilities. By the time you get to Eclipse, you're dow
n to, say, three million people who are going to be happy with the story. After Breaking Dawn...
SM: There are only twenty people who are going to get it. [Laughs] I think it's a weird expectation that if a story is told really well, everybody, therefore, will have to appreciate it. People bring so many of their own expectations to the table that a story can't really please everyone.
SH: But is it still hard for you? Do you still have a desire to please everyone?
SM: Of course. I would love to make people happy. It's a great thing to hear that your book made someone's day brighter. It's amazing to think that you're doing some good, with a thing that just brings you joy in the first place. It's not why I do it, but it's a great benefit. It's the frosting.
It's hard when people who really wanted to like it don't. That makes me sad, because I know that there was a story for them, but it's just not the one that I could write. I think that sometimes for people who are that invested, it's because they're storytellers themselves. And maybe they need to cross that line--cross over to the dark side... join us!--and start creating their own stories.
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.
SH: That is an impossible situation, though. Because here you've created these characters in Twilight, and then readers are creating their own versions of those characters. So then you go on and write another book, and what your characters did... isn't necessarily what their characters would do. Maybe from their point of view, you're manipulating their characters into doing things they wouldn't do, even though of course you're not.