The History of The Twilight Saga

So you’ve read The Twilight Saga books, you’ve seenTwilight and New Moon… probably multiple times, you’ve watched interview after interview with everyone involved, but did you ever wonder where the whole thing started? Stephenie Meyer, bless her heart, seems to be very happy to share just about everything with her fans, regardless of the certainly hectic schedule she has faced ever since the phenomenon started.

She is a Brigham Young University graduate where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in English. Stephenie dabbled a little into writing, but admits that she never got very far with any of her stories, anything she had written had ended up being only a few chapters. Once Meyer gave birth to her first child, writing went out the window completely for six years, until the day she woke up from a very lucid dream that she couldn’t shake and Twilight was born.

The Dream

It was June 2, 2003 and Stephenie Meyer had just awoken from the image of a couple, one an average female human being, the other an absolutely gorgeous male with sparkling skin, a vampire. The twosome was lying in a meadow in a wooded area, discussing the extreme difficulty of their undeniable love for each other due to the vampire’s lust for the scent of her blood and the instinct within him to kill her.

Chapter 13 of Twilight is the closest transcript of that dream, according to Meyer. Stephenie was so moved by the dream that she didn’t want to forget it, so she sat down at her computer and started writing the story of the couple from her dream simply calling them “he” and “she”, pouring in as many of the details as she could remember. She quickly grew close to her characters and eventually they started becoming voices in her head, ideas flowing through her that even took a toll on her sleeping at night.

The Beginning of The Twilight Saga

Stephenie started from the scene in her dream, wrote out the end of the story from there, then went back and wrote the beginning until everything flowed together. Meanwhile, Meyer started searching for names for the characters and settings of her story. She found the name “Cullen” off of 17th Century tombstones in England, named Edward after romantic characters from Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen novels, came up with names for the other characters, and then she struggled to find a perfect fit for her leading lady.

She tried on various names but nothing seemed to fit this girl’s personality, so she gave her the name that she had been saving for the daughter she never had, Isabella. For some of the other characters she found inspiration closer to home with each of her sibling’s names, Emily, Heidi, Paul, Seth, and Jacob, finding their way into the writing.

Stephenie needed a location that was known for being frequently rainy and she found it in the Olympic Peninsula. She Googled maps of the area and then focused on finding a rural, dense area when she stumbled across the tiny town of Forks, Washington. The images she saw from the Forks area only made her more giddy on how lucky of a finding she’d come across. In this same search, Meyer stumbled upon La Push and the Quileute tribe. Finding the tribe fascinating, she felt like she had to find a way to intertwine a few fictitious characters from this tribe into her story as well.

Getting Published

When Stephenie had finished writing Twilight, her big sister, Emily, encouraged her to send it off to some publishers. Meyer’s younger sister, Heidi, also helped her out by suggesting a website for writers where she eventually stumbled across Writers House, the literary agency that referred her to Megan Tingley Books of Little, Brown, and Company. MT Books signed a deal with Stephenie Meyer and on October 5, 2005, Twilight was unleashed.

Up to the point that MT signed Meyer, she had written 300 pages into a sequel, Forever Dawn, which ended up serving as a rough draft for Breaking Dawn in later years. The only problem was that her novel had unintentionally picked up a young adult audience and she realized that the themes in Forever Dawn, staged post Bella’s high school years in a more mature point of the couple’s relationship, were in fact going to be too grown up for the audience she’d drawn.

Meyer had written a number of epilogues once she finished the ending to Twilight, realizing she just wasn’t ready to let go of Bella and Edward’s story. With the deal signed, she began to mold a sequel more appropriate for the young adult audience, and that’s when it hit her that Edward’s character was going to leave, which is why she chose the title New Moon, referencing the darkest point in Bella’s life, a night with no moon. Meyer actually had to put herself in Bella Swan’s shoes and live through the pain that Bella would feel with Edward’s absence, at times even writing through tears as real as any that Bella herself would have cried.

With Edward gone, Jacob Black’s character began to take on a frontal role that Meyer had not planned on when writing Twilight and she liked where it was going, so she went back during the editing of her first book and weaved Jacob and Billy more centrally into the story. The thing about Jacob that stuck with Stephenie was the life of his character and her favorite image from writing Twilight was the dream Bella had of him transforming into a wolf to protect her, although Meyer is adamant that she didn’t plan on Jacob Black being a werewolf, it was just a subconscious way that Bella’s mind articulated the situation of him protecting her.

The Big Screen

So with that visual image in mind from Twilight, Stephenie Meyer started seeing pieces falling in place like a puzzle. Jacob’s “legends”, the real-life Quileute legends, would be true and he would unfortunately suffer the downfall of that trait. Meanwhile, Twilight was receiving rave reviews, debuting at #5 on the New York Times Bestseller List, being voted “Best Book of the Year” by Publishers Weekly, and being chosen as one of the top ten young adult books of the year by the American Literary Association. New Moon made its launch on August 21, 2006 rocketing to #1 Bestseller and holding that position for 31 weeks straight. With Twilight‘s explosion into the scene, Hollywood had taken notice with Summit Entertainment picking the rights up to transform the books, while Meyer hunkered down for book three.

Stephenie released Eclipse on August 7, 2007 with 150,000 copies flying off the shelves the first day alone. The book hit #1 on both Wall Street Journal and USA Today‘s lists. Catherine Hardwicke, director of Thirteen and Lords of Dogtown, was chosen to direct the first movie in The Twilight Saga, and the casting calls began. On November 16, 2007, the first character for the film version of Twilight was chosen with Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan, and on December 11, they finally found the chemistry they were looking for in the Edward/Bella relationship, with Robert Pattinson earning the role of Edward Cullen. By February 19, 2008, all of the Cullen coven had been chosen and shooting was ready to begin.

Stephenie Meyer was astonished by the young pair they had chosen to fill the shoes of the lovers from her dream, saying, “Suffice it to say, [Robert Pattinson] really nailed it. He’s not playing a version of Edward, he’s playing Edward. There is still quite a difference between Rob’s Edward and the Edward in my head, but there are moments when they look eerily similar. I’m still not sure how he does it, but I’m glad he can. As for emotions, I think he does a great job. Of course, a lot of the credit for this goes to Kristen as well. She contributes the other half of that Bella-Edward vibe so amazingly well. I’ve been on set through three movies now, and I still thank my lucky stars every day that she signed on to this franchise.”

The Movie Saga

Excited fans were buzzing with anticipation to see Meyer’s words from Twilight turned into a live action, more so after Breaking Dawn‘s release on August 2, 2008, and the release date for the movie was moved up, originally set for December 12, 2008 and moved up to November 21, 2008. While all of this was going on, Midnight Sun, a book that Stephenie had been working on in the Saga but had not completed, was leaked and on August 28, 2008, she was forced to acknowledge that leak.

The day after Twilight was released it was announced that a New Moon movie was on the way, fans were ecstatic. December 13, Chris Weitz was announced as director for New Moon while fans were growing concerned that Taylor Lautner would not be allowed to return as Jacob Black for said movie. Luckily on January 7, 2009, fans’ fears were relinquished when Lautner’s position was confirmed by all the hard work he had done to pursue this more mature and buff Jacob, and March 16, 2009, shooting for the movie began.

Fans couldn’t get enough with Stephenie Meyer’s books flying off the shelves and the anticipation was building for another movie. Summit Entertainment obviously realized what they had stumbled upon and, after Twilight, had signed on for movies two and three.

They released the Twilight DVD on March 21, 2009 and one month later they had found their director for Eclipse, David Slade. Eclipse began shooting August 18, 2009, shortly followed by the release of New Moon on November 20, 2009. Eclipse will be released June 30, 2010 with only one change in cast mates, Rachelle Lefevre was replace by Bryce Dallas Howard as Victoria due to conflicts in Lefevre’s schedule.

Midnight Sun and What’s Ahead

Fans really just can’t get enough with plenty of petitions going around for Meyer complete Midnight Sun, which Meyer says is Edward’s version of Twilight but she’s made it clear that, at this point in time, that’s not a project she’s looking to take on. She had this to say about it, “I am not working on Midnight Sun now, I don’t have a plan for when I’ll get to it; I don’t know now what the right time for it will be. First, Midnight Sun is not finished and locked in a safe, waiting for me to be done angsting over the leak. If it were done, I would be throwing it on the bookstore shelves myself… Second, I am not upset about the leak, I haven’t been for a long time… Third and most important, I am not trying to punish anyone, not the persons who leaked it, not the people who read the leak, nobody… I’ll get back to Midnight Sun when the story is compelling to me again… I need to be alone with a story to write, and Midnight Sun feels really crowded, if you know what I mean.”

One comment Meyer made that may give fans hope to hold on for a continuation in The Twilight Saga, when asked what profession she could see for Bella, had she ended up going to college. Meyer responded, “I always imagined that Bella would someday teach. She really admired that one part of Renee’s personality—Renee may be dippy, but she’s a great teacher and the kids love her—and I saw her taking her love of books in that direction. She would have taught older students, though. High school or college. Maybe she still will—in night school.” Not a promise, by any means, but at least you know that she is still very interested in these characters.

Breaking Dawn

The next thing everyone is wondering about is Breaking Dawn and whether or not it will be turned into a movie like its three predecessors. When asked the question Stephenie Meyer responded, “At this point in time, we’re in talks. I would love to see [Breaking Dawn] made if it could be made well. It’s a little bit trickier than the others.” With the way the book is written, being divided into Book One: Bella and Book Two: Jacob, it’s understandable why Meyer would recommend that Breaking Dawn be broken down into two movies. There is so much that happens in the last book of The Twilight Saga, it seems it would be impossible to compact that into one movie without seriously taking away from the finale to a series that fans don’t want to end.

I only see two ways for Breaking Dawn to go, two movies, or no movie at all. Obviously, it seems it would be a ludicrous idea for Summit Entertainment not to pick up the fourth movie in the series, but with each film, it’s getting more complicated to work around everyone’s schedules. Without this last film, fans would surely feel neglected due to a serious lack of closure for the on-screen run of The Twilight Saga. I feel like Summit Entertainment will follow through with the series to its completion and give fans what they’re asking for, they’re just building the suspense until everything is finalized.