1. Who runs the Twilight Lexicon?
Alphie and Pelirroja (Pel). You can read about them here.
2. Where did all this information come from?
Everything found on this site came from one of four places. First, naturally, we use the books in the Twilight Series. Any reference to Twilight will be labeled TW followed by the chapter number, New Moon will be labeled NW and Eclipse with an E. Secondly. we also have compiled all of Stephenie’s e-mails into, what resembles, an on-line chat. I also got permission to copy several questions from the MySpace Twilight group (Note this group was disbanded in 2007, and their material was incorporated, with permission of the group owner, into the information on this site). Stephenie has also posted some thing on our message boards that we thought should be an official part of the site. These are referred to as personal correspondences and labeled as PC followed by the number. Third, we also used information found on Stephenie Meyer’s Website, or SMW. The last item you will see referenced is the timeline – or TL. I put together a time line based on all the facts Stephenie had given me and then sent it to her to make sure it was as accurate as I could get it. She, in turn, fixed up a few mistakes and filled in a few dates for me, making it infinitely that more correct. I have no proof of some of these dates in any e-mails, so the timeline becomes it own source.
3. What sort of information can be found on the site?
Anything and everything pertaining to the Twilight Saga. We have several sections to help divide up the information and keep it better organized for easier access.
Vampire Mythology – Information on the characteristics of the vampires of the Twilight Saga.
Character Bios – All characters mentioned in Twilight listed alphabetically by last name.
Chapter Discussion – A chapter by chapter look at the book, listing people, places, important events, and memorable lines.
Places – Maps of areas mentioned in the book.
Timeline – The basic history detailing when certain events happened.
Personal Correspondence – A compilation of the information gathered from Stephenie’s many e-mails – reads like an on-line chat.
Werewolf Mythology – Information on the characteristics of the werewolves in the Twilight Saga
4. Are there any spoilers on the site?
That depends on your definition of a spoiler. If you consider anything NOT found within the book series, then yes. The site is loaded with spoilers. However, if you consider a spoiler to be something that pertains or possibly ruins the surprises in store for readers of future novels, then no. We only post facts it the Lexicon.
5. Have you met Stephenie Meyer?
Yes. Alphie and Pelirroja have both met her on various occasions: a trip to Washington DC, an event in New York, and an event in Nashville, and various public events.
6. Have you read Midnight Sun, and why won’t Stephenie just release the book now?
We’ve read the 12 chapters that Stephenie released on her site. As far as when it’s coming out, there is a statement on Stephenie’s site regarding the unauthorized distribution of the manuscript. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly in November 2008 Stephenie clarified further:
When you returned home after a grueling tour for Breaking Dawn, you discovered that your unfinished manuscript for Midnight Sun had leaked onto the Internet, and you released a statement saying you were permanently shelving the story. Do you still feel the same?
The funny thing about that statement is I didn’t actually write the majority of it. I wrote about three single-spaced Word document pages of just real pain — with sort of a laugh on the end so everything was kind of tongue-in-cheek. And there were lawyerly people who thought it just wasn’t a good way to do it. I didn’t want to feel misrepresented in the letter and other people didn’t want me to be too emotionally vulnerable. So in the end only the one or two sentences written by me seem really jarring, and people didn’t get that there was sort of a joke in there. For example the part that’s me is where I said, ”If I wrote it now everybody would end up dying.” But that was a joke! And it sounded so serious amidst all the lawyer talk and I think my fans thought, Wow, she’s threatening to kill everyone! [Laughing] I felt kind of bad about that. I never felt any anger, actually. Just a lot of sadness. I mean it was a sucker punch — like someone came up behind you and just hammered you in the kidneys and you had no idea it was coming.ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Is Midnight Sun still dead to you, or can you see finishing and publishing it in the future?
STEPHENIE MEYER: It’s really complicated, because everyone now is in the driver’s seat, where they can make judgment calls. ”Well, I think this should happen, I think she should do this.” I do not feel alone with the manuscript. And I cannot write when I don’t feel alone. So my goal is to go for, like, I don’t know, two years without ever hearing the words Midnight Sun. And once I’m pretty sure that everyone’s forgotten about it, I think I’ll be able to get to the place where I’m alone with it again. Then I’ll be able to sneak in and work on it again.
7. When will Midnight Sun be published?
It was announced in May of 2020 that Midnight Sun will be released Aug. 4, 2020.
8. Will there be any other books in the Twilight universe?
At this time, Breaking Dawn is the last book in the series that Stephenie has a contract for. She has ideas that could be turned into a fifth or sixth book, but as of this point in time, she is focusing on other stories.
9. I heard that Alphie is working with Stephenie on her future books. What’s going on with that and can I help, too?
Alphie and Stephenie have become rather close friends, and that is why she was asked to help with Eclipse. Alphie’s personal statement pertaining to this issue is posted here at the Lexicon forum. Stephenie, herself, has commented on the situation in June of 2006 over at an affiliate site, Bella Penombra. Here is what Stephenie said:
A fan shot me an email about the discussion going on in this forum about editorial assistants and favoritism and whatnot, and, after a little thought, I decided to weigh in on the subject. Hopefully my posting an explanation will be helpful, rather than more confusing for everyone.
First and foremost, I’d like to address the worry some of you seem to have that the editorial process will reshape my stories in a bad way. Believe me, I share that worry. The professional editors I work with are extremely invasive. They ask for enormous, far-reaching, plot-changing rewrites. Some I give in on, because I can see the merit there. Others I fight. (For example, one editor was really keen on the idea of a trilogy. So intent was she, and so much pressure did she bring to bear, that I actually experimented with some alternate endings (including one where I dropped a bomb on Washington and killed everyone mid-story—I was really angry that day, ha ha). But I stuck to my guns, and so the Twilight series will now continue past book three…)
Yeah, editing is scary. It’s hard. It makes me cry and throw things. I think I’m getting better at it, and hopefully I’m getting a good sense of which changes I should listen to and which I should reject. I never want to get to the point where I think I’m smarter than my editors and I shut them out completely. You can tell when authors do that, and it’s not pretty. So editors are both a good thing and a bad thing.
These are the editors that work for my publisher. They have a vested interest in how my books turn out, and I owe them some attention, because this is the company that pays the bills.
Now, my editing assistant is an entirely different case. Some might wonder why, since I have four professional editors assigned to different parts of my editing process, I would need someone else. Well, what I needed was a friend to help with my editing, rather than a distant and busy professional.
Of course there are many people who would love to read my books early. Since Alphie made her announcement on the Lexicon, I’ve had several offers to that effect every day. Obviously, I can’t email my rough drafts around to everyone. The point of publishing these stories is not to give them away for free. Ideally, people will buy them. Also, I’m learning to be more and more careful with what I make available. (The constant New Moon spoilers continue to give me headaches…) So, I have to be selective about who I work with.
Why Alphie, then?
Someone suggested that I continue to use my big sister as a reader. Well, my big sister does still read everything I write. However, she is very busy, and usually gets back to me several weeks after I send her something. Also, her normal editorial comment is, “I love it. Send me more.” Nice to hear, but not constructive. My father and mother also read for me, and, while my father belongs to the same school of criticism as my sister, my mom gives me some good constructive advice now and then. But she doesn’t know my stories inside and out. She’s not going to remember if I already used the same line a hundred pages ago, ha ha.
Many of you know how I “met” Alphie. Back when there were only 20 stories on the Twilight page of fanfiction.net, I used to read a little of what was being written about Twilight. I was drawn to Alphie’s “The Lion and the Lamb,” because I happened to be working on the same project–rewriting Twilight from Edward’s perspective. Though her version was entirely different from mine, I was impressed with her skill and style. I gave her a review (something I’d never done before) and she contacted me. I was thrilled with her idea for the Lexicon, and I gave her every assistance that I could. Emailing was too slow, so I suggested that we talk on the phone. The first time we were on the phone we talked for hours and hours about all kinds of things, Twilight-related and otherwise. It turned out that we had an amazing amount in common, and we were in sync from the very beginning. I’ve had a few people morph from “fans” to “friends,” and this happened very naturally with Alphie.
One of the most frustrating things about my job is that I have to wait so long for feedback. When I met Alphie, I was very excited about my Edward’s version, and I was dying to share it. I sent eleven chapters off to New York in January, and I’m still waiting for feedback now. It’s exasperating. Alphie understood all the difficulties of writing from Edward’s perspective, because she was doing it herself. By this point, I knew her well enough to trust her discretion, and so I forced her to read what I had of Midnight Sun just because I was dying to talk to someone about it. She was very excited, and sent me tons of insightful comments–sometimes a compliment, sometimes a question over a confusing point, sometimes a correction when I’d contradicted myself. It was very helpful and encouraging. And amazing, because she would read my chapters within hours and get back to me with these helpful comments while the chapter was still fresh in my head.
She was so helpful, in fact, that I began to crave her help on my real work, Eclipse. The looming rewrite of Eclipse was keeping me up at night, and the idea of having someone to discuss all the craziness was too appealing to resist. She agreed to help me.
Alphie does not tell me what I should write. She doesn’t want me to change my plot or characters. She doesn’t influence what happens in the plot. Alphie reads the story. She tells me when something confused her, or someone’s eye color was different in another chapter, or when she thinks I expressed something particularly well. She often puts big “HA HA HA HA”s at the end of a line, and I love that 🙂 She also listens while I talk through scenes and plot lines and offers her opinion when I ask for it. I bounce things off of her to get a first reaction. I also whine to her a lot and she doesn’t complain. (Our contract does mention that my whining is part of the deal, so she was warned).
Maybe you’re reading this and thinking, “I could do that.” And maybe you could. But Alphie is perfectly qualified for what I need. She knows the Twilight storyline like no one else (the Lexicon is proof to that). She is dedicated to the series in a way I can barely believe someone besides myself could be (again, the Lexicon shows this). She is an excellent writer in her own right (which many of you know by reading her fan fiction). She has a college education in the English field. She reads fast without missing the details. She knows my characters and she loves them, too. She’d already proven that she could provide helpful beta comments before I decided to offer her the “job.” She hasn’t let me down since. Maybe there are others who would fill this need of mine just as well, but Alphie and I have already found each other. I only need one editing friend, so the position is filled.
I do bring in other readers occasionally, for special needs. I asked a friend of mine to read New Moon during the editing phase specifically because she’d never read Twilight, and I wanted to know which points would be confusing to someone who picked up New Moon first. I wanted to get a teenager’s opinion on another aspect of New Moon, so I made my kid’s favorite babysitter read it. When I needed a male teen’s opinion, I attacked the son of a friend of mine. That kind of thing. (Yes, it’s dangerous to know me.)
Anyway, ease up on Alphie. She’s my friend, and I get defensive when people go after my friends.
Which brings me to the next point. Do I play favorites with my fans? Yes. Unfortunately, if I want to have any kind of contact with the fans, favoritism is inevitable. I can only answer the tiniest percentage of the letters I receive personally, but I’d rather do that than answer none at all. I can’t visit every Twilight site, but, again, I’d rather visit a few than visit none. I can’t use everybody’s names in my stories, but when I’m searching for a name and one stands out to me on a message board, I’m going to snatch it up. Also, when I need a name for a throw away role (a dead person’s name in a newspaper perhaps, ha ha), it’s more fun to use fans’ names (if they don’t mind being dead) than to go through the phone book. That’s why there’s a thread for name suggestions on the Lexicon. I go there first. That doesn’t mean I won’t turn to the phone book if I can’t find anything that fits the picture in my head.
I adore my fans. I am the hugest fan of my fans. I can’t believe people are so excited about my books. It seems like it must be fake, some kind of dream. I want so much to keep in contact with them and enjoy their company when I can, but I can only do this so often, and I can only interact with just that small percentage.
Hopefully this book-long explanation has eased some fears and frustrations. I wouldn’t have bothered to write all this out, but I want you guys to know how much I value you all, and why I do things the way I do.
And here’s a reward for reading this far: guess what? Eclipse is done. The rough draft anyway. It’s my favorite of the three, too. Now I just have to survive the editing!
Thanks for reading, everyone. Does it sound too cheesy to say that I love you madly? Tough. I do.
10. How can I contact you if I have something to contribute or have found a mistake?
We can be reached via e-mail. Please note that we will only respond to questions not answered on the Lexicon and will not be able to give out spoiler information for any future books.
11. How can I contact Stephenie Meyer?
You can’t right now. Sorry. She has been over whelmed with e-mails and has basically shut off her old e-mail account. She loves her fans very much and feel guilty when she can’t read or respond to all of our e-mails. So for the time being, there is no quick way to contact her by email.
You can write Stephenie care of her publishers:
Stephenie Meyer
c/o Author Mail
Little, Brown and Company
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Littlr Brown disclaimer: Please understand that it is up to the discretion of the individual author as to whether or not a correspondence will be answered.”
12. How can I link to your site at my site?
We have several buttons and banners for you to choose from. Take what you want for a link from your site to ours.
13. Will you link to my site?
It’s possible. Currently we are only listing the sites with pertinent information to the Twilight Saga and the most heavily trafficked fan sites. If we have missed one, feel free to let us know and we may add it in.
14. Can I be a member of your staff?
Possibly. We currently have all positions filled, but may be asking for help in the future.
15. Who did the art work at the top of the page and can I use it to make an avatar?
The artist’s name is Leela Starsky and you can visit her website here. We commissioned the piece from her so that we wouldn’t get into trouble with Little Brown for using the image of the apple. We ask that no one take the image for their own use unless you are openly promoting the Lexicon. We have a series of banners and avatars made up for that purpose.
16. So Just How Did This Website Get Started?
The Lexicon Story :: According To Alphie
The Twilight Lexicon came about from pure necessity. After reading Twilight in February of 2006, I found myself craving more and went on line to start my search. Unfortunately, other than the website set up by Stephenie Meyer herself, I was unable to find much of anything. I did find a few live journals that seemed to be struggling for members, which saddened me because I truly believed that if the fans could pull together, we could really start up an awesome fandom.
It wasn’t until fanfiction.net included a Twilight section that things really started to take off. I posted my first bit of fan fiction, a small piece told from Edward’s perspective, and was inspired to write more. I knew that Stephenie was working on a version of Twilight told from Edward’s point of view and had at least one chapter written. Keeping that in mind, I started at chapter two and took off on my attempt to create a valid piece of fan fiction that stuck as closely to the book as I could keep it.
Four chapters in I got a review from Stephenie Meyer. Needless to say, I was both shocked and worried at the same time; shocked that she paid me such a nice compliment and worried that I was getting it all wrong. I contacted her and expressed how difficult I was finding writing in her AU as there was no lexicon. I asked if she would mind if someone would start one and she said she thought it was an excellent idea, offering at the same time to answer any unanswered questions.
Well – DUH! Of course I had questions!
Basically from there on in, if I asked it, she answered it and then some. Often times she would answer questions I hadn’t even asked. It was as if she was begging to get this information out to her fans and at long last someone was willing to help. I gladly took up the roll, enlisting the help of my on-line Harry Potter, and now Twilight, friend Imogen, and voila! The Twilight Lexicon was born!
We have tried to reference every piece of information as best as we could, stealing from several places. First, naturally, we use Twilight the book. Any reference to Twilight will be labeled TW followed by the chapter number. We also have compiled all of Stephenie’s e-mails into, what resembles, an on-line chat. I also got permission to copy several questions from the MySpace Twilight group. These are referred to as personal correspondences and labeled as PC followed by the number. We also used information found on Stephenie Meyer’s Website, or SMW. The last item you will see referenced is the timeline – or TL. I put together a timeline based on all the facts Stephenie had given me and then sent it to her to make sure it was as accurate as I could get it. She, in turn, fixed up a few mistakes and filled in a few dates for me, making it infinitely that more correct. I have no proof of some of these dates in any e-mails, so the timeline becomes it own source.
I hope you find the information helpful and interesting as you dive deeper into the Twilight Universe. As far as I know, everything currently posted is as accurate as Ms. Meyer is willing to spoil us with. There are gaps, and they are there because that information will be released in an upcoming book. For example, we have no information on Rosalie’s transformation from human to vampire other than when it happened. And yet, we very nearly have everything you could want to know about Esme’s transformation. I can almost promise you that if it isn’t posted here, it’s a spoiler and we will all just have to wait.
Many thanks to go Stephenie Meyer for putting up with my constant e-mails and badgering. She’s a very charming person and so gracious for letting me pick her brain and steal her away from Edward long enough to get the information correct.
17. Did they use this website to write the Official Guide to the Twilight Saga?
Sort of. Alphie and Pel were hired to organize and sift through all of the saga books, notes, emails, and interviews that Stephenie had given them to put them into the Guide. They were even given long bits of stories for characters and several family trees charts and told to make it all fit together. They sent a draft of their work to Little Brown who then turned it over to an editor. Stephenie added in lots of details that Alphie and Pel didn’t have – mostly on various smaller characters. Art was added and whole sections were rearranged. The book is Stephenie’s intellectual property, but Alphie and Pel did supply a great deal of the organizational pattern of the book.
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