The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner INTRODUCTION

No two writers go ab come out of the closet things in exactly the same way. We al are inspi red-faced and motivated in different ways we micturate our own reasons why some characters stay with us while others vaporise into a backlog of neglected files. Personal y, Ive n invariably figured out why some of my characters take on strong lives of their own, but Im everlastingly happy when they do. Those characters are the most effortless to write, and so their stories are frequent y the ones that get finished.Bree is one of those characters, and shes the chief reason why this taradiddle is now in your hands, rather than lost in the maze of forget folders inside my computer. (The two other reasons are named Diego and Fred.) I started deeming more or less Bree while I was redaction Eclipse. Editing, not composing when I was writing the first draft of Eclipse, I had first-person-perspective blinders on anything that barn a couldnt hold in or hear or palpate or taste or touch was irrelevant. That narrative was her experience wholly. The next step in the editing process was to step away from boron a and see how the story flowed. My editor, Rebecca Davis, was a huge part of that process, and she had a lot of questions for me rough the things bacillus a didnt know and how we could make the right parts of that story perisher. Because Bree is the only newborn Bel a sees, Brees was the perspective that I first gravitated toward as I considered what was going on behind the scenes. I started thinking about living in the basement with the newborns and hunting traditional vampire-style. I imagined the initiation as Bree understood it. And it was roaring to do that. From the start Bree was very clear as a character, and some of her friends also sprang to spiritedness effortlessly. This is the way it chronic y works for me I try to write a ill-judged synopsis of what is happening in some other part of the story, and I end up jotting down dialogue. In this ca se, instead of a synopsis, I found myself writing a day in Brees life. make-up Bree was the first time Id stepped into the shoes of a narrator who was a genuine vampire a hunter, a monster. I got to look through her red eyes at us humans suddenly we were pathetic and weak, easy prey, of no importance whatsoever except as a delicious snack. I felt what it was like to be alone while adjoin by enemies, always on guard, never sure of anything except that her life was always in danger. I got to submerge myself in a get along y different breed of vampires newborns. The newborn life was something I hadnt ever gotten to explore so far when Bel a final y became a vampire. Bel a was never a newborn like Bree was a newborn. It was exciting and dark and, ultimately, tragic. The closer I got to the inevitable end, the more I wished Id concluded Eclipse just slightly differently.I wonder how you wil feel about Bree. Shes such a smal, seemingly trivial character in Eclipse. She lives for on ly five minutes of Bel as perspective. And yet her story is so important to an understanding of the novel. When you read the Eclipse scene in which Bel a stares at Bree, assessing her as a possible future, did you ever think about what has brought Bree to that point in time? As Bree glares back, did you wonder what Bel a and the Cul ens look like to her? Probably not. But even if you did, Il bet you never guessed her secrets. I hope you end up affectionateness about Bree as much as I do, though thats harming of a cruel wish. You know this it doesnt end wel for her. But at to the lowest degree you wil know the whole story. And that no perspective is ever real y trivial.Enjoy,Stephenie