Twilight and the "Reading Decline"

[Ed note: I have not nor do I plan to read the twilight series. It's not because I'm counter-culture or anything, I just don't care for romance novels. I have read one of Stephanie Meyer's other works and think that she has great potential as a writer of science fiction and I wish her the best of luck in the future]

I was putzing around reddit.com's r/writing subreddit (Instead of actually writing) and came across a very interesting series of comments about the Twilight story and its success. People are surprised and appalled by the success of the series because of a laundry list of complaints; the characters are one-dimensional, the conflict can be resolved simply within the setting, it sets a bad example for tweens, whatever.

No one pisses and moans when a war strategy book appeals to a wide audience (Ender's Game), or when wizard stories grab children's imaginations (Harry Potter), or when a group of children murders one-another in cold blood for 3 books (The Hunger Games). But god forbid if you grab some tween attention from a book with some plot holes.

Look, girls and woman are going to dream about their perfect romance. If they're channeling it through a sparkly vampire, whatever. Stephanie Meyer created a work in the public space that became popular, and pioneered it into a series of movies that did well at the box-office because the books were popular. That is a huge achievement. It may not be the best writing, the characters might not be incredibly deep or interesting, but she got people reading. How can anyone, as a reader, be mad about that?

According to the National Endowment of the Arts research paper Reading on the Rise (2009), American adult readers have grown almost 7% since 2002 with the 18-24 age bracket growing by 3.4 million readers. Mind you that the first Harry Potter came out in 1997, the next two books in 1999, next in 2000, then 2003, 2005, and the last in 2007.

This is the first time the NEA has seen growth in readership in 20 years. Previously we were looking at a loss of 20% of readers since 1982. Now it's only 10%, and hopefully it will improve from there with more 'blockbuster' young adult lit (whether or not people deign it to be acceptable). On a personal note, I'm excited to see the reading of fiction is responsible for nearly half of the increase.

Readers and non-readers in the US are now to polarized groups each at near 50% of the population. It's an interesting demographic change!

Also note that poetry is in steep decline. Sorry guys! :(

Literature (yes literature) like Twilight, Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games are going to feed adult readers. It may not be in earth-shattering numbers but it will be. And as a writer and an advocate of literature, I just want people to be reading and consuming content.

If it starts at Twilight, maybe it will evolve to be Nietzsche some day. Maybe someone will find, from reading about sparkly vampires, something people identify with having more 'meat' like the book I am Legend. I think we need to stop attacking people for their taste and just be glad they're licking.

A writer can dream, can't he?