Sometimes You Just Have to Rewrite (And What Can Happen If You Don’t)

Many a successful author has begun a book series with the intent of that first book being a standalone novel only to find there is more to tell. I recently stumbled across this very revelation in my own book, and it was quite an overwhelming but exciting feeling.

Whether it’s the success of the first novel that drives you to write a sequel, or you wake up one night to find your characters knocking at your door and telling you they’ve more to say, they’ve more to feel, they’ve more to see, is irrelevant. Unless, of course, you already have your full epilogue on paper and your characters have years of development to go through in a matter of months.

One of my many passions is sitting down and analyzing why.

• Why is this work successful?
• What themes are present in this work?
• What works about this book?
• What doesn’t work?

I believe this has improved my own work as well, because it makes it easier to analyze. If I find something in a piece of media that I feel doesn’t work, I like to ask myself why. And this is why today we are going to analyze what happens when you write a singular work and an epilogue, and attempt to bridge the gap between the two without much rewriting.

If you don’t know yet, I’m talking about Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight and Forever Dawn. Twilight was originally meant to be a standalone work, after which the author wrote an epilogue novel purely for her own sake. It took place long after main character Bella graduated, and was never meant to be published as it “wasn’t as YA friendly.”

After the enormous success of Twilight, Meyer wrote New Moon and Eclipse, adjusted Forever Dawn to be more YA adjacent, and published it without much changing according to the author herself.

As someone who, like most YA readers, has read the books, I found one of my big problems with Eclipse and Breaking Dawn; aside from the themes of grooming, poor representation, and glorification of unhealthy relationships, was something much more subtle. Booktubers, reviewers, and bloggers alike have talked about Meyer’s penchant for character assassination. However, I feel that a lot of them have failed to go in depth with this issue. At a mere surface level, it is clear that several characters were assassinated throughout Eclipse. But the question is why?

I think there are a few answers to this question.

1. Meyer’s minute by minute writing style culminated in having to cram in character development in a very short amount of time at the end of Eclipse
2. For whatever reason, Meyer was not willing to rewrite Forever Dawn in response to character changes in her other two books
3. Meyer fell victim to the toxic relationship between character and author where the latter forces their characters to adhere to a certain path or set of goals
4. Meyer’s characters in Forever Dawn were originally much older, which makes their development between the last two books feel jarring and dissociated with the rest of the work when changed to mere months rather than years later

1.) I would say most of you are aware of Meyer’s writing style, whether you’ve read the books or not. Her pacing is quite slow and monotonous, a writing style that can certainly work in an author’s favor, (especially in a romance novel since they depend on intimate, titillating moments between your characters) but in the case of showing change in characters, it can be a minefield.

I would say this is part of the reason that the majority of our current slack-jawed, toxic, “romantic” YA novels we’ve had thrust upon us in recent years have taken place over a very short period of time. I also feel this is part of the reason why most of these books feel disjointed, the characters seem to change overnight, and serves as a setup for this “epiphany to suddenly be better” trope we see in romance novels.

And unfortunately this issue is compounded in the Twilight series because of how many books there are. Towards the end of Eclipse especially, I started to feel this sense of rushed character “development,” (assassination) foreshadowing, and plot threads. While it is normal for a Twilight book to feel like it drags on a bit only to kick it into overdrive in the last few chapters, this felt particularly wild. And I believe that is due to Meyer wanting her characters to get to their final forms in Forever Dawn sooner rather than later, and being unwilling or unable to do this over the course of two books.

2.) This leads me to the main purpose of this post. I cannot as a writer OR a reader understand why Meyer would be unwilling to rewrite Forever Dawn to compensate for any character changes she wanted to make. Rewriting is a huge part of what makes a story great or even good enough to publish. Not only that, but the only parts of the book that were rewritten according to Meyer herself were any bits that were too “seggsy,” and some added stuff about Jacob since Meyer used him as a plot device in New Moon and she hadn’t anticipated his role in the story.

But if that was the case, why try so hard to drive Jacob to his cold, bitter self that exists in Breaking Dawn? We’ve already talked a lot on here about how characters are their own people. They come to life and can be difficult to control when they do. But this is one of the most beautiful and spiritual forms of writing. To have sentient characters who try to walk their own path is a magical experience if you let it happen.

But what happened to Jacob was abrupt, unexpected, unjustified, and painful to read.

3.) This leads me to my next point. I can practically feel Jacob fighting against Meyer as she drags his limp beaten corpse to the finish line she prepared especially for him.

I cannot adequately explain to you, my dear reader, how many times I have written out bullet points for the rest of my story only to have a character go rogue and completely throw me for a loop.

I’m going to repeat this a LOT (for anyone who is new). Characters will talk to you and tell you about themselves. They’ll tell you how your story can be better. And most importantly, they’ll tell you how they’ll shine best in your work. Sometimes this is giving a character a much bigger role. Sometimes this is them taking a step back and making way for another character. And sometimes they’re even willing to lay down their life to teach someone else a lesson.

And it frustrates me because obviously Meyer knows how to listen to this whisper. According to her, Forever Dawn originally still featured Jacob imprinting on Renesmee, except he wasn’t nearly as close to Bella, and instead imprints on her at Charlie’s house weeks later. However, in New Moon he is a significant plot device and plays a much larger role. So he must have made himself known to her, right?

Well, not necessarily. This is pure speculation at this point, but Jacob (although he seems to certainly have his own personality) feels much more like a plot device than a person. And at the end of the day, I believe this is one of the huge problems with the series as a whole. A character is only as good as what Meyer needs in that moment to fulfill a certain role in her story.

Critics for the most part agree that the majority of the characters in these books feel rather hollow and lifeless. To me it seems that these characters are used more as tools, tropes, and plot devices rather than living breathing members of this world.

Using characters to get your way and tell your version of the story can often come off this way. Stories are about changes within characters at their core. And to do this successfully, your characters need to take on a life of their own rather than be forced, and sometimes you have to rewrite because of them.

4.) I had a big epiphany before I decided this was a decent post idea; one big change that tipped me off to what Meyer had done about Breaking Dawn. And that was Bella’s agency.

Bella is little more than a pet in the first three books. There has been plenty of discussion around her being a passive protagonist, but there isn’t as much discussion surrounding the abrupt change in this agency in Breaking Dawn.

She spends three books being pushed around by the other characters, then suddenly has her own agency, brain, and decision-making skills in Breaking Dawn. While one could argue this is due to her finally finding the strength to stand up to her husband about her desire to keep Renesmee, she isn’t able to do this on her own and has to enlist Rosalie to help.

Post vampire change, Bella is suddenly a boss bitch who not only has her own agency, but has respected opinions among the coven once she demonstrates her control and maturity. These themes of incredibly heightened willpower, ability, and dare I say wisdom feel out of left field to say the least. Especially since Meyer has specifically stated that vampires do not mature after being turned.

Using these clues, I realized the reasoning behind this was the fact that Forever Dawn was meant to be several years post-graduation for Bella. The characters were meant to be older, which would make Bella being more mature and having more agency make sense!

But since Meyer chose to slingshot the story backwards into mere months after the happenings of Eclipse, her changes feel so absurd, she may as well have written in an interdimensional travel arc where Bella is replaced by a completely different character.

While it would have been frustrating to have the majority of character development happen in between books, at least there would have been some amount of time for things to actually happen to these characters, rather than them just waking up as different people.

It all stems back to the dissociation between Twilight and Forever Dawn. As a writer, part of your job is to rewrite your future stories (if they already exist) to compensate for any character or story changes that happen. This makes your book that much more rich and alive. It also takes a lot of work and keyboard smashing. But at the end of the day, it will be worth it.

I feel that every work has its place in the world. I believe some of the vitriol towards Twilight is unwarranted simply because of just how popular this series was. I feel a lot of people focus on their blind hate rather than actual analysis of what’s truly happening. The irresponsibility and incompetency of literature is only valid if we can back it up with some level of understanding.

I hope that I have in this post, done just that, or at least given you an idea or enlightenment towards your own work, or maybe another work you’ve noticed these particular patterns in. Thank you for reading my ramblings, and please enjoy your day!

Happy writing!