The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide

Book 0: The Twilight Saga

by Stephenie Meyer

Genres: YA Contemporary; YA Paranormal

Synopsis

This must-have hardcover edition--the only official guide--is the definitive encyclopedic reference to the Twilight Saga and provides readers with everything they need to further explore the unforgettable world Stephenie Meyer created in Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn, and The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. This comprehensive handbook—essential for every Twilight Saga fan—is full-color throughout with nearly 100 gorgeous illustrations and photographs and with exclusive new material, character profiles, genealogical charts, maps, extensive cross-references, and much more. Excerpts from The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide (Click on Thumbnails to Enlarge [PDF]) Map of Forks in the Twilight Universe La Push Beach Cullen Coven

Release date: April 12, 2011

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Print pages: 560

Sample

When Megan, my publisher, came to me with the idea of doing an interview for the guide, I started to come 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 then she went on, presenting her inspiration of having the interview conducted by 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 often. 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 do our “interview,” which was without a doubt the easiest and most entertaining
interview I’ve ever done. This interview took place August 29, 2008, which affects some of the directions that our conversation
went, but I was surprised when reading through it again at how relevant it still is.



SH: So, let’s look at the four different books first. Twilight—it started with a dream.

SM: Right. Should I tell the story—and get it on record?

SH: Do you want to?

SM: I’d like to. This story always sounds really fake to me. And when my publicist told me I needed to tell it—because it was
a good story for publicity reasons—I felt like a lot of people were going to say: “You know, that’s ridiculous. She’s making
up this silly thing to try and get attention.” But it’s nothing but the cold hard facts of how I got started as a writer.

Usually, I wake up around four o’clock in the morning. I think it’s a baby thing—left over from knowing that somebody needs
you—and then I go back to sleep. That’s when I would have the most vivid dreams—those morning hours. And those are the ones you remember when you wake up.

So the dream was me looking down on this scene: It was in this meadow, and there 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 effect was just so brilliant.

I was so intrigued when I woke up. I just sat there and thought: So how does that end?

SH: The sunlight on Edward’s skin?

SM: Yeah. There was this beautiful image, this boy, just glittering with light and talking to this normal girl. And the dream
really was about him. She was also listening, as I was, and he was the one telling the story. It was mostly about how much
he wanted to kill her—and, yet, how much he loved her.

In the dream I think I’d gotten most of the way through what’s chapter 13 now. The part where he recounts how he felt in each
specific previous scene was obviously put in later, because I hadn’t written those earlier scenes yet. But everything else
in that scene was mostly what they were actually talking about in the dream. Even the analogy about food was something that
I got in my dream.

I was so intrigued when I woke up. I just sat there and thought: So how does that end? Does he kill her? Because it was really close. You know how, in dreams, it’s not just what you hear, but you also kind of feel what’s going
on, and you see everything that the person in your head sees. So I knew how close it was. I mean, there was just a thin, thin
line between what he was going to choose. And so I just wondered: How would they have made that work? What would be the next step for a couple like 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 one, and the next one was two, and I had an almost-five-year-old. So my brains were
like oatmeal—there was nothing left. And so 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 always told myself stories, but I didn’t write them down. I didn’t have to—my memory was great
then. So I could always go back and revisit the one about 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 only 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 as that day of writing that made me a writer.

It wasn’t the dream so much as that day of writing that made me a writer. Because the dream was great, and it was a good story.
But if I’d had my memory [laughs] it would have stayed just a story in my head. And I would have figured out everything that
happened, and told it to myself, but that would have been it.

But writing it down and making it real, and being able to go back and reread the sentences, was just a revelation to me. It
was this amazing experience: Wow! This is what it’s like to write down stories. I was just hooked—I didn’t want 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, but 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 head, but I could not put it on the canvas the same way it was in
my head. That was always a frustration. When I started writing I immediately had a breakthrough: I can make it real if I write it, and it’s exactly the way I see it in my head. I didn’t know I was able to do that. So that was really the experience that made me a writer, and made me want to continue
being 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 go back to the beginning… because you wanted to know what was going to happen next.

SM: Yeah. I was just like any reader with a story—you want to find out what happened. The backstory was for later. I wasn’t really
that worried about it—I wanted to see where it was going to go.

So I kept writing. The last chapter just kept getting longer and longer—and then I made epilogue after epilogue. There were
so many things I wanted to explore—like why this was this way, and why this was that way, and how Bella first met Alice, and
what their first impressions were. So I went back and did the beginning, and found it really exciting to be able to flesh
it out and give 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 think that I had chapter 13 being
E. Because I thought, maybe, five or six chapters of material would cover the beginning… and then it was twelve, so I was
surprised about that. [Laughs]

SH: You were surprised about how much had really happened beforehand?

SM: Yeah, it just kept going on. I was thinking: Wow, this is taking a long time. 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. It was all linked together. And that was that moment of
shock, when I thought: It’s actually long enough to be considered a book-length thing 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 have thought of it as a book, I never would have finished it. I think if I would have
thought, halfway in, You know, maybe I can make this into a book… maybe I could do something with this, the pressure would have crushed me, and I would have given up. I’m really glad I didn’t think of it that way. I’m glad I
protected myself by just keeping it about this personal story for me alone.

SH: And you were thinking of yourself as 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
still in here, has a really hard time with letting people read things that she writes. [Laughs] And there’s a lot of enjoyment,
which I’m sure you’ve experienced, in letting somebody read what you write. But there’s also the fear of it—it’s a really
vulnerable position to put yourself in.

SH: I was in a creative-writing class once and the teacher asked us: If we were stranded on a desert island, what two books would
we take? And one of the books I chose was a notebook—an empty notebook—so I could write stories. And there was a classmate
who said: “If you were on a desert island by yourself, why would you write stories?” And I thought: Why are you in this class? [SM laughs] Because if the only purpose you have for writing is for someone else to read them, then why would you do this?
It didn’t make sense to me. But there is something extraordinary about writing for yourself and then sharing that.

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

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

SM: Yeah.

It’s kind of funny to know exactly what day you started being a writer!

SH: Now, how long was it from when you wrote down the dream until you finished the first draft?

SM: I wrote down the dream on June second. I had it all marked on my calendar: the first day of my summer diet; the first day
of the swim lessons. It’s kind of funny to know exactly what day you started being a writer! And I finished it around my brother’s
wedding, which was—he just had his anniversary—I think it was the twenty-ninth of August?

SH: So this was done in less than three months—just 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 asleep—even when I was awake. I couldn’t hold conversations with people. All my friends just thought that
I had dropped them, because I lived in my own world for a whole summer.

But here was this really hot, muggy, nasty summer. And when I looked back on it later, it seemed like I’d spent the whole
summer in a cool, green place, because that’s how distant my brain was from what was really going on. I wasn’t there—which
is sad. [Laughs]

I was physically there for my kids, and I took care of them. And I had my little ones, one on my leg and one on my lap, most
of the time I was writing. Luckily, the TV was behind me [laughs] so they could lean on my shoulder, you know, watch Blue’s Clues while I was typing. But I don’t think you can keep up that kind of concentrated effort for more than a summer. You have to
find some balance eventually.

SH: You have to come up for air.

SM: Yeah.

SH: How did you? You’re so busy as a mom. Every moment of the day, with three little kids, is occupied. Suddenly, you’re inserting
this huge other effort into it. How did you allow yourself to do that?

SM: A lot of the time it didn’t feel like it was a choice. Once I got started writing, it felt like there was so much that I had
been keeping inside for so long.

It was a creative outlet that was the best one I’ve ever found.

SH: Not just this story. But very active storytelling and creating, I’m sure, had been percolating in you for years.

SM: It was a creative outlet that was the best one I’ve ever found. I’ve done other creative things: birthday cakes and really
great Halloween costumes, if I do say so myself. I was always looking for ways to creatively express myself. And it was always
kind of a frustrating thing—it was never enough. Being a mom, especially when kids are younger—when they get older, it’s a
lot easier—you have to be about them every minute. And a lot of who Stephenie is was slipping away.

SH: Yeah.

SM: The writing brought that back in with such force that it 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. And then I learned to manage it.

SH: You would have to. But what a tremendous way to start!

SM: It was. It felt really good—it felt really, really good. And I think when you find something that you can do that makes you
feel that way, you just grasp on to it.

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

SM: I had not ever considered writing seriously. When I was in high school, I thought of some stories that might be a good book,
but I didn’t take it seriously, and I never said: “Gosh, I’m going to do that.” I considered it momentarily—the same way I
considered being a professional ballerina.

SH: Right.

SM: Oh, and I was going to be so good [SH laughs] in my Nutcracker. I would have been fantastic—except that, obviously, I have 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 then, when I was in college, I actually wrote a couple chapters of something… because I think it’s the law: When you’re
an English major, you have to consider being an author as a career. But it was a ridiculous thing. I mean, there’s no way
you can make a living as a writer—everybody knows that. And, really, it’s too hard to become an editor—that’s just not a practical
solution. If you’re going to support yourself, you have to think realistically. You know, I was going to go to law school.
I knew I could do that. I knew that if I worked hard, I’d be kind of guaranteed that I could at least get a decent job somewhere
that would pay the bills.

There’s no guarantee like that with writing, or anything in the publishing industry. You’re not guaranteed that you will be
able to feed yourself if you go down that path, and so I would have never considered it. I was—I still am—a very practical
person.

SH: So you really had to go into it from the side… by fooling yourself that you’re not actually writing a book.

SM: I think there was this subconscious thing going on that was protecting me from thinking of the story in a way that would keep
me from being able to finish it.

I always needed that extra fantasy world. I had to have another world I could be in at the same time.

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

SM: That was always 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 claw for holding books. Because I had the baby in one arm and
the book in the other—with the bottle tucked under my chin and the phone on my shoulder. [Laughs] You know, the Octopus Mom.
But I always had a book.

I always needed that extra fantasy world. I had to have another world I could be in at the same time. And so, with writing, I just found a way to have another world, and then to be able to be a lot more a part of it than as a reader.

SH: I think it’s part of multitasking. I wonder if most writers—I know moms have to be this way, but most writers, too—have to
have two things going on at once just to stay entertained.

SM: Exactly. [Laughs]

SH: It’s not that I’m unsatisfied, because I love my life. I’m a mom, too, of small kids—and I love my husband—but I also need
something else beyond that. I need another story to take me away.

SM: You know, it’s funny. As I’ve become a writer, I started looking at other writers and how they do things, and everybody’s
very different. I read Atonement recently, and I was interested in the way Ian McEwan writes about being a writer through the character’s standpoint…. She’s
always seeing another story. She’s doing one thing—but, then, in her head, it becomes something else, and it turns into another
story.

It’s kind of like what you were saying about writers needing that extra reality to escape to. I think that writers maybe do
have just that need for more than one reality. [Laughs]

SH: You know, we’re not really sure if it’s insanity or it’s a superpower.

SM: But it’s an insanity that doesn’t hurt anybody.

SH: Right. It’s kind of friendly, cozy, fuzzy insanity.



SH: I think you must write much better first drafts than I do.

SM: I doubt that.

SH: Really? Are they pretty bad?

SM: I think so. I have to go over them again and again, because I don’t always flesh it out enough. I write it through so quickly
that I have to go back and add things. I tend to use the same words a lot, and I have to consciously go back and take out
things like that. And I don’t always get them. My first drafts are scary.

And I cannot read a page of anything I’ve written without making five changes—that’s my average.

SH: How do you go about rewriting? With Twilight, did you send it off immediately, or did you go back and start revising it?

SM: I probably read it, I don’t know, fifty to a hundred times before I sent it anywhere. And I cannot read a page of anything
I’ve written without making five changes—that’s my average. So even now that Twilight is “finished”—quote-unquote—oh, I’d love to revise it. I could do such a better job now. And I have a hard time rereading
it. Because if I read it on the computer, I want to go in and change things—and it drives me crazy that I can’t.

SH: Yeah. I try not to read anything that I’ve already published.

SM: If I read it in the book form, I can usually relax and kind of enjoy it. I like to experience the stories again, because I
see it like I did the first time I saw it. But sometimes it’s hard not to be like, “Oh, I hate that now. Why did I do it that
way?” [Laughs]

SH: That would be writers’ hell: You’re continually faced with a manuscript that you wrote years ago and not allowed to change
it.

SM: [Laughs] Well, then, that’s every writer’s reality, right? [Laughs]

SH: I don’t know if you feel this way, but once a book is written and out of my hands and out there, I no longer feel like I wrote
it. I don’t feel like I can even claim the story anymore. I feel like now it belongs out there, with the readers.

SM: I feel that way about the hardbound copy on the shelf. There is a disassociation there. If I look at it on a shelf, and it
seems very distant and cold and important, I don’t feel like it’s something that belongs to me. When I read it, it does.

SH: I guess I haven’t reread my books. I listen to the audiobooks, actually—one time for each book—and I have enjoyed that. The
people who did my audiobooks are a full cast, so it’s like this play, almost.

SM: Oh, that’s so cool.

SH: They say things differently than I would have, but instead of being wigged out by it, I actually like it. Because it’s as
though I’m hearing a new story, and I’m hearing it for the first time.

SM: See, I can’t ignore my mistakes as much when I hear it on audio. I have tried to listen to my books on audio, and I cannot do it. Because I hear the awkwardness in a phrase when it’s spoken aloud, and I just think: Oh, gosh! I shouldn’t have phrased it that way. And there’ll be other things where I hear the mistakes a lot louder than when I read through it and kind of skip over them
with my eyes.

That was one of my favorite parts—reading it.

SH: Now, by the time you finished Twilight, you thought, This is a book—and then you started to revise. Did you revise just to, like you said, relive the story? Or did you have a purpose?

SM: Well, while I was writing I would revise while I was going. I’d start and go back and read what I’d written up to that point
before I started. And some days I’d spend the whole day just making changes and adding things to what I’d written. That was
one of my favorite parts—reading it. That surprised me, you know…. But then it’s the book that’s perfect for you, because
you wrote it for yourself, and so it’s everything that you want it to be.

And when I put the “golden spike” into it, I looked at it and felt… kind of shocked that I’d finished it. And then I thought
maybe there was a reason I’d done all this, that I was supposed to go forward with this. Maybe there was some greater purpose,
and I was supposed to do something with it. Because it was such an odd thing for me, to write a book over the summer; it was
so odd for me to feel so compelled about it.

The one person who knew what I was doing was my big sister Emily. But my sister’s so: Everything’s wonderful! Everything’s perfect! You shouldn’t change a single word! [SH laughs] She’s so supportive; I knew that it was not a big risk to let her see it. So it was the combination of thinking,
I finished this! and Emily saying, “Well, you have to try and publish it. You have to do it.” I don’t know how many times we talked when she’d
say, “Stephenie, have you sent anything out yet?”

So then I revised with a purpose. And I revised with a sense of total embarrassment: Oh my gosh. If anyone ever sees this I’ll be so humiliated. I can’t do it. And then Emily would call again, and again I’d feel this sense like: Maybe I’m supposed to. Then I started doing all the research, you know… like looking for an agent. I didn’t know that writers had agents. I thought
only athletes and movie stars did that.

So that was intimidating and off-putting: I need an agent? This sounds complicated. Then I had to find out how to write literary queries. And summing up my story in ten sentences was the most painful thing
for me.

SH: Horrible.

SM: It does not work well. [Laughs] And it was also pretty painful having to put out this letter that says: “Hi, this is who I
am; this is what I’ve written; this is what it’s about. I have absolutely no experience, or any reason why I think that you
should actually pick this up, because who am I? Thank you very much, Stephenie Meyer.” [Laughs] That was hard.

And sending them out—I don’t want to remember that often. Because you know how you kind of blank out things that are unpleasant—like
childbirth and stuff? It was such a hard thing to do. Back in the neighborhood where I lived at the time, you couldn’t put
mail in your mailbox—kids stole it—so you had to drive out and go put it in a real mailbox. And to this day I can’t even go
by that corner without reliving the nauseating terror that was in my stomach when I mailed those queries.

SH: Wow.

SM: See, I didn’t take creative-writing classes like you. I didn’t take the classes because I knew someone was going to read what
I would write. I didn’t worry about the writing part—it was letting someone else read it. My whole life that was a huge terror
of mine: having someone know what goes on inside my head.

With every book, I always see the part that I think people are going to get mad about, or the part that’s going to get mocked.

SH: So how have you? Because, obviously, millions of people now have read what you wrote. Is it still terrifying for you, every
time you put a book out?

SM: Yeah… and with good reason. Because the world has changed—and the way books are received is different now. People are very
vocal. And I do not have a lot of calluses on my creative soul—every blow feels like the first one. I have not learned how
to take that lightly or let it roll off of me. I know it’s something I need to learn before I go mad—but it’s not something
that I’ve perfected. And so it’s hard, even when you know it’s coming. You don’t know where it’s coming from—a lot of them
are sucker punches.

With every book, I always see the part that I think people are going to get mad about, or the part that’s going to get mocked.
With Twilight, I thought: Oh gosh. People are just going to rip me apart for this—if anybody picks it up. Which they’re not going to, because they’re
going to read the back and say: A book about vampires? Oh, come on—it’s been so done. So I knew it was coming.

But there were always some things I wasn’t expecting that people wouldn’t like. I mean, with everything you put out, you just
have to know: There are going to be people who really like it, and that’s going to feel really good. But there are going to be people who really dislike
things that are very personal to me, and I’m just going to have to take it.

SH: But it’s so terrifying. I don’t know how you even have the courage to do it every time. The book of mine that I thought was
going to be my simplest, happiest book, just a sweet little fun book that people would enjoy—that was the one that got slammed
the hardest. Like you said, it was things I never could have anticipated that people didn’t like.

As I look back on it, I think if I had a chance, I would take those parts out, or change those things that people hated. But
I didn’t know at the time. And so now, as I’m writing another book—I know there are things that people are going to hate.
But I don’t know what they are. [SM laughs] If I only knew what they were, I would be sorely tempted to change them to try
and please everyone! I do the very best I can, but you can never anticipate what it is that people are going to react to.

SM: See, I have a very different reaction to that, because I can’t change it—it is the way it is. I mean, there are things I can do in editing—and I can polish the writing. I know I can always
do better with that. And I know that, even in the final form, if I could have another three months to work on it, I would
never stop polishing, because I can always make every word more important.

But I just can’t change what happens, because that’s the way it is. That’s the story: Who the people are dictates what happens
to them. I mean, there are outside forces that can come in, but how the characters respond to them eventually determines where
they’re going to be. Once you know who they are, there’s no way to change what their future is—it just is what it is.

And so my reaction, when the criticism is really bad and really hard, is: I wish I would have kept this in my computer. I should have just held on to this work and have it be mine alone. Because sometimes I wonder: Is it worth it to share it? But then you feel like you’re not doing your characters a service with that—they deserve to live more fully, in someone else’s
mind.

Yes, I know I sound crazy! [Laughs]

SH: No. I totally, totally understand that. I remember hearing writers talk about how their characters are almost alive, and almost
have a will of their own. And I thought they were kinda full of crap [SM laughs] but there is something to it. I think that
it’s a balance, though. There’s the idea of these characters that are alive in my mind, and then there’s me, the author. And
I have some power to control the story, and to try and make it a strong story—but, then, the characters also have some power
to say no.

SM: Yeah.

You can’t change who they are to make the story go easier.

SH: For me, writing is finding a balance between that sort of transcendental story and my own power of writing—not letting myself
overwrite them too much, and not letting them overrun me.

SM: Yeah. See, I find that difficult—because, to me, you create a character, and you define them, and you make them who they are.
And you get them into a shape where they are final. Their story isn’t, but they are who they are—and they do feel very real. You can’t change who they are to make the story go easier.

So sometimes things happen in the story because my character, being who he is, can’t do anything different. I’ve written him
so tightly into who he is that I cannot change his course of action now, without fe