Exclusive: Stephen King on J.K. Rowling, Stephenie Meyer
Posted by Brian Truitt
I'm working on my big American Icons cover story on Stephen King today, and it could almost fill up two full issues. King gave me so much good stuff: He's a truly fascinating guy, and he had so many great stories and takes on things. When I flew up to Maine to talk to him in December, we got into a discussion of popular authors vs. the academic elite, a subject he has strong opinions about, and I asked him if his mainstream success over the past 35 years paved the way for the massive careers of Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling and Twilight author Stephenie Meyer. Click read more for King's feelings about those two as well as some other best-selling authors. And remember to check out my cover story on King in the March 6-8 issue of USA WEEKEND.
Photo courtesy of Simon & Schuster
King, whose Stephen King Goes to the Movies collection came out last week, doesn’t know how much of an influence he had on Meyer, but he does know that Rowling read his stuff when she was younger. "I think that has some kind of formative influence the same way reading Richard Matheson had an influence on me," King explains. "People always say to me, 'Well, what about H.P. Lovecraft?' And the thing was, you read Lovecraft when you were a kid but I never felt that he was speaking my language. It was chillier than my heart was, and when Matheson started to write about ordinary people and stuff, that was something that I wanted to do. I said, 'This is the way to do it. He’s showing the way.' I think that I serve that purpose for some writers, and that’s a good thing. Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people. ... The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good."
But then King recalls that when his mom was alive, she read all the Erle Stanley Gardner books, the Perry Mason mysteries, obsessively when he was growing up. "He was a terrible writer, too, but he was very successful," King says. "Somebody who’s a terrific writer who’s been very, very successful is Jodi Picoult. You’ve got Dean Koontz, who can write like hell. And then sometimes he’s just awful. It varies. James Patterson is a terrible writer but he’s very very successful. People are attracted by the stories, by the pace and in the case of Stephenie Meyer, it’s very clear that she’s writing to a whole generation of girls and opening up kind of a safe joining of love and sex in those books. It’s exciting and it’s thrilling and it's not particularly threatening because they’re not overtly sexual. A lot of the physical side of it is conveyed in things like the vampire will touch her forearm or run a hand over skin, and she just flushes all hot and cold. And for girls, that’s a shorthand for all the feelings that they’re not ready to deal with yet."
Comments (2232)
Higbee ;
To be honest if you had done your own research aswell you would see that actually Twilight is a combination of ripp offs left right and center. Starting with Romeo and Juliet, and throwing in a little bit of the Vampire Diaries, a story written before twilight. Personally i believe that Stephenie Meyer has marketed on lonely women and a lack of complex writing skills making it a little bit more relatable for a mass market.
And while your sitting there and buying the bullshit that she had never read a book on vampires before, something i am very sure im not the only one who actually has trouble believing. What she is telling us, is that she never thought to write before, though makes countless comments on " loving getting back into writing " She is lovely writer, though far from great, who has a very talented marketing team working for her.
Harry Potter will be heralded as great writing in years to come, while i am very sorry to say, Twilight will only ever touch on the idea of cult status. Perhaps it created a revolution in reading, but it is very far from revolutionary.
Let a western woman author win.
King's obviously an eastern lingualist and prefers the mother tongue variety of discourse, word order and story-telling.
I'd be interested to find out his thoughts on Orson Scott Card.
Frankenstein:
A teenager wrote it with the help of two accomplished authors. Give Meyer a break, and some credit.
Shakespeare:
He was a ripoff artist who knew how to market.
Stephanie wrote for herself, almost didn't turn in the script and did well. There is genius in her writing. I'm sure King is wondering why he didn't come up with it first.
I thought "Twilight" was amazing. It was a book that revolutionized social standards for men, encouraged a generation of t.v worshipers to turn to books for entertainment, allowed many authors/writers to gain success due to the printing and publishing any work with a reference to a vampire and overall captured the hearts of millions of readers. The other 3 books were really boring and pointless with mindless conflicts/resolutions the movie was awful with extremely poor depiction of characters and events and "The Host" was a complete rip-off of the movie "The Invasion"
I'm glad that twilight is getting kids to read, but both twilight and harry potter are dumbed down. Books like that have a reading level of about 4th grade really. I mean look at the lord of the rings, those books were written for small children (5yr-10 olds). How many ten year olds can read a book like lord of the rings? how many of those kids can read twilight and harry potter...im guessing a lot more. that's fine if you are marketing to small children, but to say thing like stephen king is jealous because of stephanie meyers success is ridiculous. Stephen king has sold over 350 million books, made dozens of movies and is a literary giant. in fact he doesnt get the credit he deserves when it comes to being considered literature because people cant reconsile his success in bookstores with the quality of work. he is not a horror writer although that is what he is famous for. many of his books dont have creepy crawlies, and even when they do, the bigger story is of human nature. twilight is about teenage girls going through puberty, and i can only wish it was written in a sophisticated way, like carrie was.
You cant say SM is a successful writer, but she is a successful business woman. if you equate sales with success, than what about jerry springer, or paris hilton? would you say the backstreet boys are successful artists? i didnt think so.
JK Rowling: Excellent Writer
Stephenie Meyer: ...Not Quite Sure; her writing was tested and found to be at a second grade reading level...says something when you consider how she thinks her books are too mature for young audiences...
Where are the virtues in Twilight? Abstinence? Yeah...and that's why you have so many horny women and young girls running rampant. I swear, teen pregnancy is going to skyrocket. Or perhaps the population will experience a decline because women will refuse to procreate with human men.
Stephen King, your books scare the crap out of me, but you're one hell of a writer. Kudos to you!
K.E.S.,
"You don't hear Stephenie Meyer doing that."
Actually, Stephenie Meyer has criticised several authors since coming to fame. She once said on her website that the only good thing about Melissa Marr's book Wicked Lovely was the cover.
Try doing your research from now on. It helps.
First off, for all of those stating their opinion on Stephenie Meyer's writing abilities probably couldn't write their own Biography! You can say what you like but shes the one raking in the money on the Twilight series. If they weren't good why is half of the world reading them? AS for Harry Potter, I never cared for any of it. To each his own I guess. But personally, I can't stand one writer talking bad about another. You don't hear Stephenie Meyer doing that. Where is the humility ? If I were her I would laugh myself all the way to the bank!!!!
Harry Potter is a book for all ages- there is everything in there from a lovely adventure to great friendship to a great morality tale.
I grew disenchanted with Stephanie Meyer over the series - the biggest scene that did it for me was in the 3rd book, I believe - Bella is in a tent with Edward and Jacob, and the vampires and werewolves are fighting outside - the focus was on the tent, not the battle outside - because she can't write a battle scene that makes sense...Time could have been split between inside/outside the tent....
Finally, for those who claim that the series is wholesome and promotes waiting until marriage for sex - the gist of the books are- You're not complete until you find the ONE, the romantic that sweeps you off your feet and is your only reason for living, the marriage comes really quickly (no one argued VERY much about them only being 18), sex is scary and brutal, and pregnancy might just kill you...Nice things to teach our children. A friend of mine said "What about Snow White and Cinderella?" I don't think they affect youth like Twlight has...
And Uncle Stevie just kicks butt!
Hes a good writer like them, but his books don't appeal to pop culture like twilight and harry potter. But out of them 3 I think they are all talented in different ways with ideas and you cant Two Voices Blog Crazy
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I completely & whole-heartedly agree with Stephen King, he too is a wonderful & immensely succesful writer. In my honest opinion, & the Twitards will disagree, I think Twilight is a fad. In ten years, I very much doubt it will have the huge fan base it does now. Harry Potter is a classic, & one I will make sure my hypothetical children read.
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i dare you to kill me becuase i love twilite
i love twilight... as a matter of fact i think it is the best book yet
What crappy vampire book can amount to such great book that is treasured by all. Let me lay down some things for you. J.K Rowling had to spend a lot of time writing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone since it kept getting rejected. Even though being rejected she has put a lot of hard work into it and she wrote it with passion unlike Meyer who didn't have to write much. Twilight isn't for everyone. Harry Potter is. Twilight are for girls who want someone to love them even though love is not in their vocabuarly. Harry Potter teaches one's self about bravery, trust, finding the inner goodness of one, family, friendship, and peace.
Now I cannot stand people who say they are Twilight fans because they say the movie. Same with Harry Potter (but people actually read the books. :P) Now all these people who are saying HP sucks like crap are the people who are dim-witted and cannot get into the true meaning of a story. Twilight isn't that hard to get and until people acutally start reading some worthy books and stop being obessive with this Twlight, I will call it a piece of crap.