The Twilight Saga the Official Illustrated Guide Read Online

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Copyright Page

INTRODUCTION

Dear Reader,

Working on this guide has given me a chance to reflect on how much this story has changed my life. Ane of the all-time ways things have changed is the opportunity I've had to go to know so many of my readers. I'k always impressed by the funny, caring, interesting people you are. I truly feel that with your enthusiasm and dedication y'all've brought as much to this serial as I take. Little, Brown and I accept been working difficult to make this guide something special for you lot, and I promise that we've succeeded. I would never assume to await that all the questions have been answered, but (fingers crossed) I think we got the large ones, plus many that no one's ever asked me before. Relish!

Much beloved,

Steph

A Note From the Publisher

Since the initial publication of Twilight in 2005, readers have asked thousands of questions about the Twilight Saga universe--everything from "Where exercise Stephenie Meyer's ideas come from?" to "How does vampire venom work?"

This guide expands upon the world of the Twilight Saga, calculation histories for its characters and providing other details that might not have made it into the books themselves but are a key office of the people and stories that make up the Saga. You'll notice outtakes from the books--such as the story of how Emmett was mauled by a bear--equally well as never-before-seen background notes on main plots and subplots. We hope that these added details shed light on such favorite characters every bit the Cullens and Quileutes; on such new characters as Nahuel and Garrett; and even on the human residents of Forks, nearly of whom are unaware of the supernatural creatures all around them.

Also included in this guide are artistic interpretations of the serial: everything from new art created just for this volume to a gallery of art conceived by talented fans to the many covers that take appeared on different editions of the books around the world.

Because music is such an instrumental function of Stephenie's writing process, this guide also includes the official playlist for each book in the Twilight Saga, alongside quotes from the books that reveal what each song represents. Also featured is an extended conversation between Stephenie and Shannon Unhurt, award-winning author of The Books of Bayern and the Newbery Laurels winner Princess Academy, during which they discuss how the Twilight Saga began and some of the challenges and surprises Stephenie encountered along the way.

Thank yous for existence a part of the world of the Twilight Saga--it wouldn't be the same without you.

When Megan, my publisher, came to me with the idea of doing an interview for the guide, I started to come up up with a list of reasons why I couldn't in my head. Interviews always make me uncomfortable, and really, what question haven't I answered at this point? But and so she went on, presenting her inspiration of having the interview conducted past another author, and I was intrigued in spite of myself. I love hanging out with authors, and I don't get a chance to do it very ofttimes. And so I oh-so-casually suggested my "baffy" (Best-Author-Friends-Forever), Shannon Hale. And the upshot was, I got to hang out with Shannon for a whole weekend and it was awesome. We did find time to exercise our "interview," which was without a doubt the easiest and virtually entertaining interview I've ever done. This interview took identify August 29, 2008, which affects some of the directions that our conversation went, just I was surprised when reading through information technology again at how relevant it still is.

ON HOW It ALL BEGAN

SH: So, permit'due south look at the four dissimilar books get-go. Twilight--it started with a dream.

SM: Correct. Should I tell the story--and go information technology on record?

SH: Exercise you want to?

SM: I'd like to. This story always sounds really imitation to me. And when my publicist told me I needed to tell it--because it was a proficient story for publicity reasons--I felt similar a lot of people were going to say: "You know, that's ridiculous. She'south making up this lightheaded matter to try and get attention." But it's nothing only the cold hard facts of how I got started as a writer.

Usually, I wake up around 4 o'clock in the morning time. I call up it's a baby thing--left over from knowing that somebody needs you--and then I get back to sleep. That's when I would have the most bright dreams--those morning hours. And those are the ones y'all remember when yous wake up.

So the dream was me looking down on this scene: It was in this meadow, and at that place was so much light. The dream was very, very colorful. I don't know if that always comes through in the writing--that this prism upshot was just so brilliant.

I was so intrigued when I woke up. I just sat at that place and idea: So how does that end?

SH: The sunlight on Edward's skin?

SM: Yeah. There was this beautiful paradigm, this boy, just glittering with light and talking to this normal girl. And the dream really was virtually him. She was as well listening, as I was, and he was the one telling the story. Information technology was mostly about how much he wanted to impale her--and, notwithstanding, how much he loved her.

In the dream I think I'd gotten most of the style through what'southward chapter thirteen now. The function where he recounts how he felt in each specific previous scene was obviously put in afterward, considering I hadn't written those earlier scenes yet. Merely everything else in that scene was mostly what they were really talking well-nigh in the dream. Even the analogy almost food was something that I got in my dream.

I was so intrigued when I woke up. I just sat there and thought: And then how does that end? Does he kill her? Because it was really close. Y'all know how, in dreams, it'southward not only what you hear, but you also kind of feel what'south going on, and yous see everything that the person in your head sees. Then I knew how close it was. I hateful, in that location was just a thin, sparse line between what he was going to choose. And so I merely wondered: How would they take fabricated that work? What would be the adjacent step for a couple similar this?

I had recently started realizing that my memory was going, and that I could no longer remember whom I had said something to yesterday. My youngest was just passing ane, and the next one was 2, and I had an near-five-year-old. So my brains were like oatmeal--at that place was nothing left. And then I knew I was going to forget this story! That realization was something that really hurt me.

You know, when I was a kid, I e'er told myself stories, simply I didn't write them down. I didn't have to--my memory was great then. So I could always go dorsum and revisit the one near this, the one about that, and go over and refine it. But this one was going to get lost if I didn't do something about it. So after I got the kids' breakfast done, I simply had two hours before swim lessons. And, even though I should have been doing other things, I started writing it out.

It wasn't the dream so much equally that day of writing that fabricated me a author.

It wasn't the dream and then much as that 24-hour interval of writing that made me a writer. Considering the dream was great, and information technology was a good story. Just if I'd had my memory [laughs] information technology would have stayed just a story in my head. And I would take figured out everything that happened, and told it to myself, but that would have been it.

But writing it downward and making it real, and being able to get back and reread the sentences, was just a revelation to me. It was this amazing experience: Wow! This is what it'due south like to write down stories. I was just hooked--I didn't desire to quit.

I used to paint--when I was in high school, particularly. I won a few awards--I was okay with the watercolors. My mom still has some hanging up in her house. Slightly embarrassing, simply they're decent. I was not a great painter. It was not something I should have pursued as a career, by any stretch of the imagination. I could see a picture in my caput, only I could not put information technology on the canvas the same style information technology was in my head. That was ever a frustration. When I started writing I immediately had a quantum: I tin get in re

al if I write it, and it's exactly the style I meet it in my head. I didn't know I was able to do that. So that was really the feel that made me a writer, and fabricated me want to continue existence one.

SH: So you started out writing out the meadow scene. Where did you go from there?

SM: I continued to the end, chronologically--which I don't always do anymore.

SH: So you didn't get dorsum to the beginning... considering yous wanted to know what was going to happen side by side.

SM: Yeah. I was simply like any reader with a story--y'all want to notice out what happened. The backstory was for subsequently. I wasn't really that worried most information technology--I wanted to see where information technology was going to get.

And so I kept writing. The terminal affiliate simply kept getting longer and longer--and then I made epilogue subsequently epilogue. There were and so many things I wanted to explore--similar why this was this way, and why this was that way, and how Bella first met Alice, and what their starting time impressions were. So I went dorsum and did the get-go, and found it really heady to exist able to flesh it out and requite reasons for everything that had happened later.

I had lettered all my chapters instead of numbering them. So I went back and did A, and I call back that I had chapter 13 existence E. Because I thought, maybe, v or six chapters of material would embrace the beginning... and so it was twelve, so I was surprised nearly that. [Laughs]

SH: Y'all were surprised well-nigh how much had actually happened beforehand?

SM: Yeah, it just kept going on. I was thinking: Wow, this is taking a long fourth dimension. And that's where I finally ended, which was the last sentence in chapter 12. And I knew I had crossed the continent with the railroad, and this was the golden spike that was being driven. Information technology was all linked together. And that was that moment of shock, when I thought: It's really long enough to be considered a volume-length affair of some kind.

SH: You really didn't even consider it like a book until then?

SM: No. [Laughs] No, I think if I would accept thought of it equally a book, I never would have finished it. I call up if I would have thought, halfway in, You know, peradventure I tin can make this into a volume... maybe I could practise something with this, the pressure level would accept crushed me, and I would take given up. I'k actually glad I didn't call up of it that way. I'm glad I protected myself by just keeping it about this personal story for me solitary.

SH: And you were thinking of yourself equally the reader the whole time.

SM: Yes, yes. Well, I'm kind of shy, and I obviously had to get over that in a lot of ways. But the essential Stephenie, who is even so in here, has a actually hard time with letting people read things that she writes. [Laughs] And there'southward a lot of enjoyment, which I'thou sure you lot've experienced, in letting somebody read what yous write. But in that location'southward besides the fear of it--it's a really vulnerable position to put yourself in.

SH: I was in a creative-writing class one time and the teacher asked us: If we were stranded on a desert island, what ii books would nosotros have? And 1 of the books I chose was a notebook--an empty notebook--so I could write stories. And in that location was a classmate who said: "If you were on a desert island by yourself, why would you lot write stories?" And I thought: Why are you in this class? [SM laughs] Because if the only purpose you take for writing is for someone else to read them, then why would you practice this? It didn't make sense to me. But there is something boggling nigh writing for yourself and so sharing that.

SM: I've never thought of the desert-island story. But that would be the perfect writing weather, as far as I'yard concerned. That would be great. I wouldn't want a spiral notebook, though--I'd want a laptop. Typing is so much improve. I can't read my own handwriting one-half the time.

SH: So you started immediately on the computer, when you started writing this?

SM: Yeah.

Information technology'due south kind of funny to know exactly what day y'all started beingness a writer!

SH: At present, how long was it from when you wrote downward the dream until you finished the get-go typhoon?

SM: I wrote down the dream on June 2d. I had it all marked on my calendar: the offset day of my summer diet; the kickoff twenty-four hours of the swim lessons. It'southward kind of funny to know exactly what solar day you started being a writer! And I finished it around my brother's wedding ceremony, which was--he just had his anniversary--I think it was the twenty-ninth of August?

SH: So this was washed in less than iii months--only an outpouring of words.

SM: Yeah.

SH: Was the story going through your head all day long, even when you weren't writing?

SM: Even when I was comatose--even when I was awake. I couldn't agree conversations with people. All my friends just thought that I had dropped them, considering I lived in my own earth for a whole summertime.

Merely hither was this really hot, muggy, nasty summertime. And when I looked dorsum on it later on, information technology seemed like I'd spent the whole summer in a cool, greenish place, because that's how distant my brain was from what was actually going on. I wasn't there--which is sad. [Laughs]

I was physically there for my kids, and I took intendance of them. And I had my little ones, i on my leg and one on my lap, near of the fourth dimension I was writing. Luckily, the Tv set was behind me [laughs] so they could lean on my shoulder, you know, spotter Blueish'south Clues while I was typing. Simply I don't retrieve yous can keep up that kind of full-bodied effort for more than than a summer. You accept to find some balance eventually.

SH: You have to come up for air.

SM: Aye.

SH: How did you? You're and so decorated every bit a mom. Every moment of the day, with iii little kids, is occupied. All of a sudden, you're inserting this huge other attempt into it. How did you permit yourself to do that?

SM: A lot of the time information technology didn't experience like it was a choice. Once I got started writing, it felt similar at that place was so much that I had been keeping inside for so long.

It was a artistic outlet that was the all-time i I've e'er found.

SH: Not simply this story. But very active storytelling and creating, I'm certain, had been percolating in you for years.

SM: It was a creative outlet that was the best i I've ever found. I've done other creative things: birthday cakes and actually great Halloween costumes, if I practice say so myself. I was always looking for ways to creatively limited myself. And it was always kind of a frustrating thing--information technology was never enough. Beingness a mom, particularly when kids are younger--when they get older, it's a lot easier--you have to be virtually them every minute. And a lot of who Stephenie is was slipping abroad.

SH: Aye.

SM: The writing brought that dorsum in with such forcefulness that information technology was just an obsession I couldn't... I couldn't be away from it. And that was, I think, kind of the dam bursting, and that huge surge at first. So I learned to manage information technology.

SH: You would have to. Simply what a tremendous way to beginning!

SM: It was. It felt actually skilful--it felt really, really good. And I call up when you find something that you lot can practice that makes you feel that way, you just grasp on to information technology.

SH: So yous had never written a short story before.

SM: I had not ever considered writing seriously. When I was in loftier school, I thought of some stories that might be a proficient volume, simply I didn't take information technology seriously, and I never said: "Gosh, I'm going to practise that." I considered it momentarily--the same mode I considered existence a professional ballerina.

SH: Right.

SM: Oh, and I was going to exist then adept [SH laughs] in my Nutcracker. I would take been fantastic--except that, evidently, I take no rhythmic skill, or the build for a ballerina, at all. [SH laughs] So it was like one of those nonsensical things--like wanting to be a dryad.

And so, when I was in college, I actually wrote a couple chapters of something... because I recall it'southward the law: When y'all're an English major, you have to consider beingness an author as a career. But it was a ridiculous thing. I mean, there's no way you can brand a living as a writer--everybody knows that. And, really, it's too hard to become an editor--that'due south only not a practical solution. If you're going to support yourself, yous have to think realistically. You lot know, I was going to go to police force schoolhouse. I knew I could exercise that. I knew that if I worked hard, I'd exist kind of guaranteed that I could at least get a decent chore somewhere that would p

ay the bills.

At that place's no guarantee similar that with writing, or annihilation in the publishing manufacture. You're not guaranteed that you lot will exist able to feed yourself if you lot get down that path, and so I would take never considered information technology. I was--I still am--a very practical person.

SH: So y'all really had to become into it from the side... past fooling yourself that y'all're not really writing a book.

SM: I recollect there was this subconscious thing going on that was protecting me from thinking of the story in a style that would keep me from existence able to finish information technology.

I e'er needed that actress fantasy globe. I had to take another world I could be in at the same fourth dimension.

SH: Right. But, of course, you were a reader. You've been an avid reader for your whole life.

SM: That was ever my favorite thing, until I found writing. My kids and my husband used to tease me, because my hand would kind of naturally form this sort of bookholder [SH laughs], this hook for holding books. Because I had the babe in ane arm and the book in the other--with the bottle tucked nether my mentum and the telephone on my shoulder. [Laughs] You lot know, the Octopus Mom. But I always had a volume.

I ever needed that extra fantasy world. I had to have another globe I could be in at the same fourth dimension. And so, with writing, I just found a fashion to accept another world, then to exist able to be a lot more a part of information technology than as a reader.

SH: I think it'southward part of multitasking. I wonder if most writers--I know moms have to exist this way, but most writers, too--have to have two things going on at in one case just to stay entertained.

SM: Exactly. [Laughs]

SH: It's non that I'thousand unsatisfied, because I honey my life. I'm a mom, too, of minor kids--and I dear my husband--but I also demand something else beyond that. I need some other story to take me away.

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