The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide by Stephenie Meyer Page A

in the world. So that person’s decisions and choices are not a model for anyone else. And it bothers me when people say: Well, this story is preaching this, or the moral is this. Because it’s just a story. It’s about an interesting circumstance and how it resolves. It’s not intended to mean anything for anybody else’s life.
    SH: I do think there are some writers out there who are trying to teach something through their stories. And I’ve read moralizing books that just don’t work.
    SM: Well, you have to be really talented to make it work. You know, C. S. Lewis does it well. I love his books, and he is very much out to put a message into his stories. But he’s so good that he gets away with it.
    SH: I think it’s really important asreaders to expand our understanding of the world, to get really close to characters that are different from us—and watch them make mistakes, or make good choices, and then think:
Would I do it that way?
    SM: Sometimes people tell me: “So girls are coming away from your books with this fill-in-the-blank impression.” Maybe something like: “You should hold out for the perfect gentleman.” In which case I could say, “Well, that’s a positive message: You should not let people treat you badly. If you’re dating somebody who doesn’t put your well-being first, if they’re being mean or cruel to you—get away from that.” And that’s a great message: If you’re with a mean, nasty boyfriend, run away right now. [Laughs]
    SH: Right.
    SM: But that’s not the message of the book. Just because Edward’s a gentleman, and he cares about Bella more than himself—and maybe that’s something that you would wish for in a romance—it doesn’t mean that that’s a message I was trying to write.
    SH: On the flip side, if someone comes away thinking that the moral of the story of
New Moon
is that there’s only one person who’s right for you in the whole world, and if they leave you, then life is not worth living…
    SM: Exactly! Some things you could take away from books could be turned into a positive thing in your life, but you could also make them into something negative, and that would be horrible. So I think it’s easier just to look at the books as: This is a fictional account—I wasn’t trying to teach anyone anything—I just wanted to entertain myself. And I did. I was really entertained. [Laughs]
When I read about someone like Jane Eyre, I say: “I want to be stronger. I want to know myself so well, and to know right and wrong so well, that I can walk away with nothing.”
     
    SH: I’m always trying to figure out where the line is with author responsibility. What we write and then send out thereis going to affect people’s lives. But I have absolutely no control about how people will
interpret
what I write. If readers need to find a moral, or a lesson, in it, they teach it to themselves. And I don’t think I can control what it is that the readers teach themselves. Do you think that reading does more for you than just provide entertainment?
    SM: It does a lot for me—but I don’t hold the writer responsible for what I get out of it. When I read about someone like Jane Eyre, I say: “I want to be stronger. I want to know myself so well, and to know right and wrong so well, that I can walk away with nothing.” I just loved her moral sense. But I don’t think that Charlotte Brontë meant for me to use that as a guide to life. If you can find something inspiring in characters, that’s awesome, but that’s not their primary purpose.
    SH: And it can’t be, or it kills the story. The primary purpose has to be telling the story.
    SM: It has to be entertainment.

On Finding Story Ideas

     
When you spend time around people, you know, there are so many stories that it just can make you crazy when you want to write them all down.
     
    SH: People often ask me—and I’m sure you get this, too: How do you come up with so many ideas? Once you start writing, the