Stephenie Meyer sat down with MTV to talk about Life and Death. Twilight and Life and Death do mainly parallel each other, but there are some key differences such as the gang encountering Bella/Beau and the ending (which we won’t spoil) is quite different.
There are also some text changes that go beyond pronoun and proper name swaps. Stephenie explains why the iconic three things quote was changed:
MTV: One line of dialogue that’s significantly different is that iconic scene where Bella lists all the things she knows about Edward and she says, “I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.” That’s drastically different from Beau’s perspective. Why did you make the change?
Meyer: You know, it’s funny. That specific quote, my editor was so sad because she didn’t want me to change it. But because it was used so much — I mean, it’s on the back of the book — I was very tired of it. It was too heavy. It was too overwrought. It was too painful. So I got to just relax it and sound like what a boy would say. I have three teenage sons, so I have some experience there. To me, it feels a lot more organic than the other quote. My editor wouldn’t agree.
MTV: Was there anything that was particularly difficult for you to change?
Meyer: If I loved it, I kept it. It wasn’t like I had to sacrifice something I loved because it didn’t sound like Beau. Mostly, every change I made is one that I’ve been dying to make, so I was just really happy. As I read [“Twilight”] here and there, there would be a word that seemed out of place, but by the time you’ve finished editing it, you’ve gone through it 200 times and you just want to set it on fire.
You can catch the rest of the interview on MTV, be aware there are some spoilers involved.
Follow Us!