Crits, comparisons, and Twilight

You know what really annoys me? Having a critter say they are reminded of Twilight just because there are certain commonalities. Like dark hair. Or family. Or a bit of a romance. It’s incredibly annoying, as if no one ever had characters like Bella or Edward before.  It’s like saying Romeo and Juliet is just like Twilight.

When the story is clearly not the same story, is it necessary to try to plug it into Twilight?  Can no one ever have dark haired, tortured characters ever again? Can no one ever touch the same themes again?

Grrr.

Seriously.

Sorry. I just saw a crit (not one for me – although I’ve gotten it and I’ve seen it said to several other people when their wips weren’t anything like Twilight, either) and it’s really annoying. The critter generally loses a lot of credibility with me when that happens because there are millions and millions of books out there. Not everything is Twilight because there are teens falling in love. There were books similar to Twilight before Twilight and there likely will be after.

Read the fucking story. Crit the story. Before you say it, please think really hard about it – is it really like Twilight?

There will always be characters that remind you of other characters. There are only so many personality types. And there will always be books that remind you of other books.  We wouldn’t have genres if that weren’t the case.  It would all just be called fiction.

Get over the Twilight comparisons unless it actually means something. If everything reminds you of Twilight, you need to read more books.

No offense to Mrs. Meyer intended.

P.S.
Mine isn’t even about teens, vampires or anything else close to the themes of Twilight. Why?