Frequently Asked Questions: New Moon

**Warning! Spoilers ahead**

 

How come Alice and Jasper can affect Bella with their supernatural powers, but Edward and Aro and Jane can’t?

This question comes up at every single signing! The answer is explained in Eclipse, but I’m going to tell you all anyway, just so there’s less confusion.

Bella has a very private mind. She can’t be touched there. What Edward and Aro do is clearly a mental thing; Jane, also, works inside the head (Jane doesn’t actually inflict pain on anyone’s body, she just puts the illusion of pain inside her victim’s head. It’s a very effective form of torture). Conversely, what Jasper does is no illusion. He affects the physical body, slowing the pulse and upping the endorphin levels to calm someone, for example, or raising the pulse and pumping out the adrenalin to excite them. Alice, also, works outside the mind in the realm of possible realities. She doesn’t see the thought process behind the decisions, just the outcomes.

Was Edward somehow physically connected to Bella with the whole hearing-voices thing?

No. So powerfully was Bella’s subconscious knowledge trying to break through her wrong-headed notions, that it produced some very convincing delusions. I’m not surprised that people thought, in the beginning, that Edward was somehow there (wishful thinking on all our parts). However, I AM surprised that people continued to think this after a certain event that made it impossible to believe that Edward was aware of Bella’s circumstances. Can you guess what it was? Laurent, in the meadow. If Edward had had any inkling of the fact that Victoria had returned for Bella, no matter how far away on the planet he was, he would have been back in Forks within twenty-four hours.

What did Edward break in the living room after the vote?

Edward ripped into halves a sixty inch plasma TV that the Cullens had shipped in from Korea because it’s not available in the states yet. Emmett was a bit annoyed.

What happened to Lauren’s hair?

Ha ha. I had fun imagining this one—I only wished that it had fit into the book somewhere. Lauren fell victim to the “model discovered in the mall” scam. An alleged modeling agent approached Lauren in a mall in Victoria, B.C., and told her she was a natural model. Lauren ate it up. The agent told her that if she did something edgy with her hair, and took some high quality head shots, her future was assured. Lauren followed the instructions—dropping fifteen grand on the pictures taken by the agent’s partner—and waited for her career to begin. She’s still waiting. Snort.

Why did Edward leave? WHY?

Read here for the story behind New Moon.

What kind of flower is that on the cover, and what does it mean?

That is a ruffled tulip. As for the meaning… If you’ve read the Twilight FAQ, you know that the apple cover had a lot of meaning for me, and I was an active part of the covering process. However, that experience is more the exception than the rule in the publishing world. Something to keep in mind if you intend to embark on a career as a writer: lots of things you might expect to be under your control are not. Covers, for example. Those are mostly up to the publisher and the marketing and sales departments. So I don’t know what the tulip means—I didn’t have anything to do with this one.

What does the title refer to? Is it a werewolf reference?

Nope. The term “new moon” refers to the phase of the moon opposite a full moon. It is when the sun is on the opposite side of the moon from us and thus the bright side of the moon is not visible from earth. This is the darkest kind of night. New Moon is the darkest period of Bella’s life.

How far along are you on Eclipse? Midnight Sun?

Book three in the Twilight Series, Eclipse, is in the final stages of editing. This means that it’s pretty much done, with just a few minor fixes to go. We’re on schedule and Eclipse will be released in the fall of 2007.

Midnight Sun is only a side project. Which means I have to do my real work before I can play with it. Right now, my real work is book four, so Midnight Sun will have to wait for a while. I have no idea when it will be released, because I have no idea when it will be finished. I’m only on chapter twelve right now.

Is it true that there will be no advanced readers copies of Eclipse?

Yes.

For a million other questions and a thousand other answers, try the Twilight Lexicon.