Glower…loses?

So I had mentioned before about the word “glower” appearing with alarming frequency in the Twilight books.  Last time I was at the library, they miraculously had Twilight on the shelves, so I thought I would read it again and count…to satisfy my own curiosity.

Well spank my bottom and call me sugar…she only uses it  5 times!

No one was more surprised than me!

It’s possible that I missed one or two, but that is still way less than I would have put money on.  She certainly uses stare more (and cold chest, but that’s for another post)  Perhaps the word sticks out because it is something we don’t use in daily conversation.  I don’t know.

I apologize to Stephenie Meyer and to her editor.  I was wrong.

Glower Wins!

This is not something I like to admit to persons real…I have read all of the Twilight books.

Hate the sin, not the sinner.

They are the most badly written best sellers I have ever read.  Like most of the adults I know that have read them, I spent the whole time thinking:

This is trash.

This book is soo badly written, it’s almost unreadable.

Why do I keep reading?

But then I would finish the book and think to myself

I wonder if the next one is available at the library?

(I feel I should be given credit for using the library.  It is the one redeeming facet of this story.)

So I plowed through all four books in about a week, which gives you a clue to how densely written they are.  And now, much to my personal horror, I am using the audiobooks to while away the time spent doing laps in the pool.

And something I vaguely noticed in the actual books has become GLARINGLY obvious in the recordings.  Stephenie Meyer loves the word “glower”.

It is all over all four of the books.  All over them.  I went to a thesaurus to find the synonyms for it:  glare, gloom, look, look daggers, lower, scowl,stare, sulk, watch.  There were certainly plenty to choose from.  But she chose “glower” as the word mascot for her novels.

Now, I know that as a writer, when you find the perfect word it can make you as giddy as Christmas morning.  There is no better feeling.  That kind of giddiness can lead to bad things, though.  Especially if you trick yourself into believing that it is always the perfect word.

I blame her editor, actually.  If I, the casual reader, noticed it’s overuse, then a professional wordsmith should have seen it like a neon sign.

So I am on a personal mission.  I am going to go through the books and count how many times she uses that particular word.  I might even speculate on what word might have worked as well, or better.

I will try to keep you posted, and hope to have the final count up here soon.

One would think I would have better things to do with my free time.  Apparently, I don’t.