Yes, I started my blog almost a year ago and have barely
posted. That was my fault. I was finishing up school and then moving and
now I’m finally settled in, enjoying the beach life of the Florida gulf coast and
writing! I’m also spending quality time soaking up some interesting realities…
LimoBlissBlog 2012
Evidently Twihards of the world are taking Kristen Stewart’s
cheating very personally. SO much so
blogs have been taken down, ranting Youtube videos have been made and Team
Pattinson t-shirts have already hit the streets.
Ryan Seacrest 2012
Personally, I admit to finding it rather surprising because, after all, this was a girl would not publicly discuss her relationships and worked very hard to keep her relationship with Pattinson under wraps for a very long time. I was rather surprised that she’d be that stupid to fool around and do it in public where cameras were lurking no less.
E! 2012
BUT – that’s not what this blog is about. Believe it or not…
Personally, I admit to finding it rather surprising because, after all, this was a girl would not publicly discuss her relationships and worked very hard to keep her relationship with Pattinson under wraps for a very long time. I was rather surprised that she’d be that stupid to fool around and do it in public where cameras were lurking no less.
BUT – that’s not what this blog is about. Believe it or not…
Me – being the big mouth that I am – was not about to let that one go. So I leaned over and said, excuse me, I couldn’t help over hearing, (they weren’t that quiet to begin with) but are you saying that you’re not going to see Breaking Dawn 2 because Kristen Stewart messed around on Robert Pattinson? Lady A was “Of course! She’s totally ruined Bella and all that she stands for.” I then pointed out that Bella was, of course, a fictional character whereas Kristen Stewart is a very real human being. Lady B responded to that with “She’s responsible for the character! She is that character as far as I’m concerned so it’s the same as Bella cheating on Edward!”
Huh?
Seriously? Somehow,
when Stephanie Meyer wrote Twilight I don’t think she had this type of outlying
drama in mind. I don't think when she and Catherine Hardwicke sat down to discuss picking Kristen for the role of Bella that they ever gave a thought to the fact that one day Kristen would be considered the second worst homewrecker in Hollywood - she's right up there with Angelina and Elizabeth Taylor now. Nor, as an actress, is she responsible for the character that she plays on the screen. An actor does not write the script, nor do they choose the direction in which the character goes on screen. That is the responsibility of the director.
FNS 2012
FNS 2012
Anyway...As
writers we always hope that our readers will love our characters as much as we
do. One of the most gratifying things
for me, personally, as a writer, is when a fan tells me how much they like,
love or appreciate a certain character.
It means that I did my job properly.
I want to create likable, lovable characters that have something to
say. There are literally hundreds of
cute anecdotal posters out there floating around Facebook and Twitter and
Pinterest boasting sayings such as “I get too attached to fictional characters”
or “That moment when you finish a book and look around to find that the rest of
the world is just carrying on like they don’t know somebody important yet fictional
got killed”.
Readers get attached to
characters, writers get attached to their characters. To this day, I fully
admit that my hero in Heart of Stone, Aaron, was my all time favorite
creation. I was truly in love with the
character from start to finish. BUT (ain’t
there always a but?) I knew then and I still know now that he was not real.
How is it that some readers see
the reality for what it is and some totally lose sight regarding the whole
fiction aspect of the reality?
Kristen
Stewart is not Bella Swan anymore than Robert Pattinson is a glittering
vampire. Jennifer Lawrence isn’t Katniss
Everdeen anymore than Liam Helmsworth is Gale. (Btw, it’s just my opinion but
The Hunger Games is a far better written set of books, but that’s just my
opinion and given it’s my blog, I’m stating it.) Kristen Stewart is a human being who has all
those feelings, emotions, hormones and urges that humans have.
She’s not a one to two to three dimensional character from the pages of
a book. She’s a human and she lives, she
breaths, she smokes pot (or she used to anyway), she drinks, she’s from a very
non-traditional show-biz family, she’s a good actress. So good in fact she’s
actually convinced millions of people, evidently, that she IS Bella. As I pointed out to those two lovely ladies
above – no, she’s not. She’s not the
character. It was a role. The same way
Snow White was a role (and we all now know where that role got her…).
Fandom is a wonderful thing, without fans, nobody would be
reading what we write – BUT – let’s look at this realistically, shall we? Kristen Stewart messing around on poor Robert
Pattinson (which, in all honesty, I fail to see the allure, poor guy looks like
his face has been squashed in a vice) was wrong, but it’s not the end of the
world, it’s not the demise of an entire book series or franchise (although, I’m
sure there are some pretty pissed people at Summit right now because there’s
still a press junket coming up for Breaking Dawn 2 and that’s probably going to
be pretty damned ugly after this.) She is not the character. The character doesn’t
actually exist. Kristen played that
character on screen but that’s all she did.
She is NOT Bella.
Your thoughts on the fine line between fictional fantasy and reality?
