Stephenie Meyer answers fans’ Questions! « Twilight Singapore – a coven for all Singaporean Twilighters!

Stephenie has recently answer a WHOLE lot of the fan’s questions ever since The Twilight Saga: New Moon has hit the theaters! Questions about her books to her opinion on the movies and even one about Midnight Sun! Here’s a couple of them:

What was your favorite thing about Chris Weitz and how was his interpretation of the books different from Catherine Hardwicke? – Mira N.

My favorite thing about Chris Weitz: everything. Sounds hyperbole-ish, but he’s really that amazing. If you follow along on some of the cast interviews you’ll hear the same thing over and over. We all adore Chris. I would have to say that my very favorite thing about Chris as a director, coming from my unique position, is his passion for being true to the source material. He really immersed himself in the Twilight world and came to the set with the feel of it already in his head. We were very much on the same page. Second thing, he listens really well—to everybody, cast and crew.

In comparing New Moon to Twilight, I would say that the biggest difference in style is that Chris is more classic while Catherine is a little more edgy and modern. I wouldn’t want both movies to be the same, though. I like seeing different interpretations. After all, no two people see the same thing when they read a novel. I enjoy seeing that visually.

After that, I gave up the idea of creating a fake city and just hoped the people of Volterra did not mind a few vampires. When I went to visit a few years back, all the people I talked to were totally fine with the vampires—what had upset them was the fountain. They don’t have one, and think their square is perfect without it.

Do you make any appearances in the New Moon movie? – Mandy, Captain of Official Team Jacob

Nope. I felt really awkward doing the first one, and I still have to cover my eyes for that part of the movie. I decided this time I didn’t want to do anything like that, and it never came up, so problem averted!

My question for you is…. are you at all surprised by the variety in age of your readers? I am 32 years old and absolutely loved your books, and I know I am not alone, in many discussion groups I have found there are 30, 40, even 50 somethings reading twilight. Thanks and keep writing! – Amy B.

Because I wrote Twilight for my twenty-nine-year-old self and not for a future YA audience, it always made sense to me that women my age would get it the same way I did. Are you ever too old to remember falling in love for the first time?

I was wondering what made you choose Italy for the home of the Volturi? Is there a special meaning about Italy in your life or was it a random setting? Thanks :] – Kerry K.

I chose Italy because I needed a place with a really long history. Choosing Volterra itself was a strange thing. I wrote the whole Volturi scene before I’d picked a location for it. For the first time, I was planning to create a fictional city, because at this point, I was starting to realize that people were actually going to read this book, and I was nervous about what the real life citizens of Forks would think, and more especially what the real life people of La Push would think—I’d taken some rather big liberties with their fictional history, and I wasn’t sure if they would find it amusing or irritating. So, to avoid similar moments of panic, I decided to set my clan of ancient ruling vampires in a made up place. I was going to call this place “Volturin,” and I knew it needed to be located in Tuscany about an hour or two from Florence—I’d already written the drive from the airport. I’d also already written my descriptions of the plaza and clock tower and Volturi turret. So I pull up a map of Tuscany, trying to decide if Alice should drive north, south, east, or west, and look at that—there is a city named Volterra just about an hour from Florence. So I google image search Volterra, and the very first picture that comes up is the Volterra clock tower. Chills. I called my sister (who’d already read about my fictional Volturin) and told her to go look at Volterra. She freaked, too, because she’d pictured it the same way, too. It was actually a rather creepy moment.