Teen Drama and the Twilight Originality Debate

To kick off this paranormal romance and adventure project, I turned first to some of the material that has been well enough received to become television shows. I have long been curious about a certain series, The Vampire Diaries, by L.J. Smith, which has lately become the stuff teen angst dreams are made of on the CW. I first heard about this series back when Twilight fever was peaking and accusations began to fly that Stephenie Meyer stole material from this series, which had been written years earlier in the early nineties. I had, from time to time, picked up one of the books out of curiousity, but was not drawn to it. So now was the time to get to the bottom of this question. Here are the facts:

Title(s) I read the first two books in the series:
The Vampire Diaries: The Awakening (Start: 10/23/10 Finish: 10/23/10)
The Vampire Diaries: The Struggle (Start: 10/23/10 Finish: 10/26/10)
Both Published 1991
Book counts: 63, 64

I want to first address the accusations of plot stealing aimed at Meyer. Yes, when you read the first novel in this series, the similarities are striking. Human girl falls for non-human, non-human eating vampire. The Vampire reads minds (although in a very different way than Edward Cullen). The Vampire saves the girl from various attacks, leading to the secret being spilled, a subsequent confrontation in which the girl asserts that she is not afraid and then the obvious romance. There are a handful of other similarities, which I noted briefly while reading, but that is where it ends. The bottom line is that the differences FAR outweigh the similarities. These are totally different creatures. So different, in fact, that while I noted some very similar scenes while reading, the overall book overwhelms that feeling of similarity to the point that I can no longer really remember where I noted the sameness, if that makes sense. Take, for example, the lead characters. Elena is as different from Bella as night is from day. Where Bella is shy, klutzy, more at home with adults and rather lacking in self confidence, Elena is the most popular girl in school, knows she is beautiful (and uses that fact), is a serial dater, and comes across as very much a high school queen bee. Which is, of course, alright, seeing as these are high school books. This touches on another aspect I noted. Meyer's works have become popular with people of many ages. At some point I read, though I can no longer find the source, that Meyer originally wrote for her own age category, with characters who were in their twenties (and thus more appropriately aged for the kind of hard-core devotion they experience) and only changed directions when the publishing industry told her this would be a better fit for Young Adult lit. Smith's series, on the other hand, was very clearly written for young adults. It has the feeling of Dawson's Creek meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A solid fit for the CW.

I could continue in this strain, elaborating similaries and differences, but I think you get the point. There is no such thing these days as an original story. Period. If that bothers you, sorry, get over it. It is impossible for a writer to write in complete vacuum and as writers, we are all subconsciously affected by what we read ourselves, or what we see on TV, hear in the news, etc. Did Meyer read Smith's novels? Who knows. Maybe. She would have been in the right age demographic when they were published. Does she even remember doing it? Maybe not. Could she have read something in this or other works that got her imagination working, and then caused her to change it to her liking and re-use it in her story? Sure, why not? The point is, that is natural. The stories are too different to worry about plagiarism, but beyond that, who cares?

Now to discuss the books themselves. As mentioned, these are solid high school works. One thing I had wanted to explore in these projects was the idea that some YA works (like Twilight and Harry Potter)are making big splashes with adults as well. I wanted to see if others might also be good for adults. In this case, I would say a tentative no, not unless you are an all around book junkie like myself. I read YA all the time, but most adults would be hard pressed to find something relavent to themselvs in Smith's pages.

However, if you or a friend can count yourself amoung the YA demographic, I might have to suggest this one. Early on, I was not impressed. The protagonist, Elena, leaves a lot to be desired. I didn't like her, didn't identify with her, and found her to be an all around snotty teen girl. She would have been the one I avoided in school when I was that age. That being said, the story became compelling, to the point that I was motivated to pick up the second installation to see how it progresses. Elena aside, the other characters are interesting. While I was not initially interested in the Vampire protagonist, Stefan, he grew on me as the pages flew by. Especially once I took the opportunity one night to watch the TV show and found this character to be good-looking, interesting and played by a really talented actor! Even Elena started to grow on me, in her whiny, arrogant way. In fact, in general, the series is MUCH better and well worth watching.

Overall, a pretty solid effort and arguably among the first in this paranormal romance craze. Final grade: B

On to the next!
Keep reading!
Sarah