Stephanie Meyer is the author of “The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” which is being adapted for the screen by Chris Weitz, starring Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart. The film is being released November 20 by Summit Entertainment.
For Meyer, writing New Moon was a completely different experience from writing the earlier book. “It was probably the most difficult book I’ve ever written because for the first time, I knew for sure people were going to be reading what I wrote. When I wrote Twilight, it was just for me. All of a sudden, I felt like people were looking over my shoulders. I had a lot of stage fright.?
?“New Moon was such a different book and it wasn’t what the fans were expecting necessarily,” she goes on. “The first book was about true love. The natural consequence of that, especially when you’re that young, is that you’re going to have your heart broken, and the more you love someone, the harder that’s going to be.
“Edward thinks he’s protecting Bella by ending the relationship,” explains Meyer. “He doesn’t expect the torment and the angst of being broken apart, which is a universal experience common to any male or female member of the audience. By the end, both of them have learned a lot about exactly how important they are to each other. Bella grows up quite a bit, and Edward has to realize that he doesn’t know everything.”
Meyer says she is even more excited about this next step in the saga than she was for the first. “Twilight set up this great place for us, almost like a diving board,” she says. “Now we’re jumping off and going to a whole new level. The cast members know each other, they know their characters and they’re excited to be back. The book was more emotional in some ways, and it’s a lot deeper. And then we have all the new characters. It’s going to be so much fun. I’m really looking forward to watching the wolf pack interact, and of course the Volturi’s going to be really cool.” ?
But ultimately, the fans are still what drives her, says the author. “These are fictional people that I dreamed up,” she marvels. “And the fans really care what happens to them. What will happen next? What do they do on an average Friday night? And where would Bella go to get her nails done? It’s every little detail. To have people so invested in your characters is an enormous compliment.”
