Amanda Meuwissen's Blog - Posts Tagged "vampire"

I know all writers aren’t the same, but at least for me, I don’t…create characters. Characters appear to me, and then little by little as I write their story, they reveal to me things about themselves and who they really are.

This is one of the reasons why I like to ruminate on original story ideas for a long while before I start writing, because often over time, maybe from everyday life and experiences, I’ll discover something completely different about a new character before I even write their first scene.

You want to call it Divine Intervention, feel free. I know I do.

Meet Connor Daniels, one of the main characters in my first book after The Incubus Saga ends, tentatively titled Life as a Teenage Vampire. I knew the basics about Connor right from the start. 18 years old, dark blond hair in a buzz cut with honey colored eyes. Average height, slim but surprisingly muscular underneath his baggy T-shirts. Crazy smart, especially with robotics, but goofy and a huge geek. What I didn’t know right away was that he only has one arm.

Whether I was inspired to change the character, or as I like to think of it, brought to the realization that this is how he was always meant to be, a series of events led me to this conclusion.

I won’t lie, a large part of it first came from my love of the new Captain America movie and The Winter Soldier character. I fell in love with this version of Bucky Barnes more so than in the first film, and became obsessed. Add in how his awesome metal arm reminded me of the cool older gentlemen who gave talks at the library about his hook hands when I was a little girl, the girl born without an arm in my high school, a good friend from college without fully formed fingers who has the motivation and spunk of someone with three hands, and several men I pass in the Minneapolis skyways without right or left arms, and it was no wonder this was on my mind. But the final push that made me connect all of this to Connor was Even Kuester.

If you have not seen this young man’s amazing artwork with prosthetics, go to his site now. His work is beautiful.

I looked at the arms Kuester had created for his good friend and immediately thought…Connor could probably make something like that with his robotics knowledge, and…and suddenly my mind went into a whirlwind, as more history and facts about this character filled my mind. Creating prosthetics for himself with his dad ever since he was little, until his level of skill surpassed his dad and he began making more and more, even making a prosthetic leg for the captain of the football team eventually. And suddenly there was so much more dimension to Connor, his motivations, his reactions, that I fell even more in love with his character than the protagonist of the story.

I’m excited to write about Connor and give some insight into one of the many millions of people we have in this crazy world who isn’t always focused on, who’s often forgotten. Because no matter the reason for being left out of many mainstream stories, everyone deserves to have their story told. I hope that Life as a Teenage Vampire manages to portray that in many ways, with Connor just one example, and that you all love him as much as I do when he makes his entrance.

Here’s to Connor!

It happens every so often that I either 1) suddenly want to devour every piece of fanfiction about a fandom that I can (like after seeing Captain America: The Winter Soldier) or 2) suddenly want to reread all of my own fanfiction about a particular fandom (like what recently happened to me when someone reviewed an old Saiyuki fic of mine).

For the uninitiated, fanfiction is just that, fan written fiction. The example I love to give is Harry Potter. Say you love Harry Potter, but you wish there had been more about the Marauders when they were younger, so you decide to write some stories about that yourself – that is fanfiction, and it can take many forms.

I started writing fanfiction long before I delved into original fiction because it helped me realize stories better and reach natural ends to my ideas. It taught me how to write, just as reading does.

So a few weeks ago, I got a new review on a very old fanfic (about a decade old), and it made me go…huh. And before I knew it, I had devoured the entire 3 story series, all 62 chapters worth between them. And wow, it amazes me every time as the years pass how there are scenes I just love, and wouldn’t change a word on…and then scenes that make me cringe, and whole paragraphs starting out chapters that I would literally delete and start, well, maybe even three paragraphs down if I were to write it again, because that is all driveling filler.

But it’s fun because it reminds me why I love to write, amazes me at some ideas that I’d forgotten I had, and inspires me toward my next endeavors.

As The Incubus Saga draws to a close, and I continue into the first few chapters of Life as a Teenage Vampire, which I am already fully in love with and cannot wait to share with the world, my next project after that is already stewing, and all because of a single thoughtful review.

The lessons learned? Readers, comment, review, let your authors know how much you love their work, whether original fiction or fanfiction, because it might just inspire their next masterpiece.

And writers, don’t knock your old work. Go back once in a while and read it again. Some of it will be crap, some will make you laugh or sneer, but some will capture your imagination and heart just as it did the first time, and it’s important to let ourselves fall in love with our own writing.

Ah, Saiyuki, a manga and anime that was one of my first literary love affairs.

I’m going to detail out how one of my current new characters has developed to give some insight into my process at the start of a story.

My upcoming vampire novel, currently titled Life as a Teenage Vampire, was always going to have the vampire teen as the protagonist, though despite him speaking to readers in 1st person for his sections, it is arguable whether or not his love interest and best friend shares his role as protagonist with 3rd person-owned sections. I knew I had to find some sensible balance between both characters’ perspectives to tell everything I wanted in the right light.

But first I had a vague sense of the characters and story I wanted to tell. This was what came to me naturally, before I gave things much thought. Two 18 year old seniors in a small town (something I can write about with authority), one becomes a vampire, one is gay while the other is straight (later realizes he is bisexual), the gay friend is in love with the other, and by bonding more deeply over the first becoming a vampire, their friendship grows into something more.

A story of change and survival with an undercurrent of love, my favorite.

Next I named them. I won’t lie, when I’m stuck on names, I go over to babynames.com and type in words under meaning in the search that relate to the character’s personality. It’s fun, and often leads me to good names, or at least in the right direction.

But this time I didn’t need to do that. Emery is a character name I have loved and wanted to use for a long time, and since I had already planned to give the character the last name of Mavus—one of my husband’s nicknames from Meuwissen—Emery Mavus was born without much struggle.

I knew he had dark hair and hazel eyes, that he was sturdy having played football, but had switched to theater, and therefore had a bit of pudge from less physical activity. I didn’t sit down and decide any of this, I just knew it based around little reveals the character would give me as I wrote him. His athleticism but also his ability to act well, as would be seen in having to hide his nature from most people after becoming a vampire.

Something still felt off about him though until I decided to search areas around the world where Mavus was a common surname, and discovered that the largest population of people with that name live in Turkey.

Suddenly, I understood why Emery was always darker skinned in my mind. His father was of Turkish descent, though born in the US, and it only recently dawned on me that after Emery’s grandfather passed away, his grandmother, who had immigrated to the US with her husband in the 50s, moved home to Turkey, giving me an opportunity to have her visit and introduce some Turkish culture where fitting.

I never sit down and tell myself, I’m going to create a gay character. I’m going to create a person of color. I want to include this or that particular heritage. As I tell the story, these things are revealed to me, and I simply choose not to fight them.

Now, I don’t know if all other authors go through something like this process, where some things you just know, and other things you discover through research and the writing process, but I definitely find that letting it be organic like this makes for fuller, more realistic characters that readers can identify with and love.

How did your last character come to be?

*Photo from HERE.

Considering I have 4 published books, and more fanfiction written than I think I could ever catalog or properly document for insane word count, it may come as a surprise that I have never participated in NaNoWriMo before (National Novel Writing Month).

On November 1 every year, participants begin working towards the goal of writing a 50,000-word novel by 11:59 PM on November 30. I already have around 40k words for my current work in progress, but I know I have close to 50k more to go before it’ll be complete, so I decided that participating in NaNo was the perfect vehicle to ensure I finish the rough draft of my next novel before the end of the year.

50k words is not as daunting as it may appear at first glance. This equals about 1200 words a day—not too difficult, and helps instill that age old ‘write everyday’ habit I’ve gone on about before. My goal is to at least do 1200 each day, so that if I do encounter a day where it just doesn’t happen, or I fall short, I’ll have enough words in the bank that it won’t derail my overall progress.

Today is day 3 (and I haven’t written anything yet, aside from this blog post) but so far I already have 3679 words written for my novel Life as a Teenage Vampire.

Here’s a small snippet of my work, which I’m also posting little paragraphs of each day on my tumblr page to help keep me motivated. Participating in NaNo this year? Tell me about it! Any advice to share? Any questions for me as a rookie taking on this awesome annual activity? Let me know! And by December 1st, here’s hoping I have the beginnings of my next serialized work for BigWorldNetwork.com, and my next novel on its way!

Life as a Teenage Vampire by Amanda Meuwissen

It was a trick. Emery had made it all up, knowing that the details would lead Connor to vampires. These were just Halloween fangs. Connor wasn’t really hypnotized into submission; he was just stunned, believing his own crazy imagination. He’d longed for years to have Emery this close, after all, crowding him into a corner, lips descending. He’d just imagined them descending a little closer to his mouth, though his neck wouldn’t be so bad…

…if not for the sharp sting, the breaking of the skin and rush of blood sucked out of him so fast he felt dizzy, and then—wow.

It didn’t hurt at all. It felt like Emery was tucked into his shoulder intimately, fully aware of the pleasant buzzing he caused in Connor’s gut every time they touched. Connor had dreamed of this, imagined it just like this, and felt lulled by Emery’s body being so close, and the way he shivered feeling those lips on his skin. He almost thought he heard Emery’s soothing voice whispering affirmations he’d always wanted to hear.

“Em…” Connor breathed out, barely audible.

The room was dimming, but he felt cozy where he was. His arms were limp and heavy as he lifted them to pull Emery closer, feeling the soft fabric of the sweater against his somewhat numb right palm. He pulled tighter, twisting flesh and plastic fingers alike in the fabric, pulling…with the faint sense that he should be pushing instead.

“Em…” he choked out like a whimper, like he was crying. Why was he crying? This was everything he’d ever wanted…

Reality snapped back into painful, terrible focus when Emery released him, his fangs pulling from the tender skin of Connor’s neck, the brief feeling of a tongue licking over the wound, and then Emery jerked away from Connor with a harsh intake of breath.

Emery’s hands had moved at some point from the wall to Connor’s shoulders, and the second he removed them, Connor dropped straight to the carpet.

“Connor!”

There are two types of writers (and those of us who fall into a third category somewhere in between)—those who plan out everything to the letter before they write, and those who write by the seat of their pants, allowing the characters and writing process to dictate where the story goes.

Or, as George R.R. Martin puts it:

“I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they're going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there's going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don't know how many branches it's going to have, they find out as it grows. And I'm much more a gardener than an architect.”

Even those of us who would staunchly consider ourselves architects will often change things when our characters surprise us and a little gardening is needed. But I think it’s also important for gardeners to at the very least retroactively do some heavy planning, namely by taking notes as they write and brainstorm ideas that they can easily reference later when editing.

I am a middle of the road writer. I plan, more so with every new book idea, but those plans change, often greatly as a story moves forward, and I’ll find myself altering even the biggest plot points. This is made so much easier by taking excessive notes from the start of the writing process through completion.

Title ideas? Written down. Character bios and physical descriptions? All down. Snippets of dialogue. An outline. And, eventually, notes about plot points, reveals, really any pertinent details marked as connected to the chapter they appear in so that later I can easily see any plot holes or things I missed that need to be brought up again, or maybe even removed.

I cannot tell you how helpful this practice was as I edited what will be my new series, Life as a Teenager Vampire, starting with BWN in February! Even with a few ‘kill your darlings’ moments. I had the notes, but darn it, the scene or detail no longer worked with the overall story. (Of course I still saved those notes, and any scenes I cut, because you should never, ever delete something you could potentially use later or change your mind about).

So I implore you, fellow writers, whether you’re a gardener like Martin, a planner, or a mixed bag like me, take notes throughout your entire writing process. You and your readers will be thankful for the attention to detail and (hopefully) flawless plot that comes out of it.

Emery Mavus just wants to survive his senior year of high school. Becoming a vampire complicates things. So does a bizarre mentor, a group of vampire hunters, and an unexpected, new attraction for his openly gay best friend, Connor. An occasional uncontrollable hunger for blood might be the least of his worries.

READ THE FIRST CHAPTER HERE!

And each week there will be a new chapter available at BWN, every Thursday, that you can either read or listen to the audio of with me narrating.

Interesting story to go with today’s episode of Life as a Teenage Vampire. I had a rather intense fan of my writing not too long ago who I discussed this story with when it was still in its infancy. You all know how I love to talk writing, and headcanon with people. It brings out the best ideas! But when things started getting deep into vampire lore, this person refused to accept that I could do things my own way, that I wouldn’t follow what to them was unequivocal fact.

First of all, if you’ve never watched The Death and Return of Superman, everyone should in general, but also, there’s a particular spot in this amazing little 16 minute film (around 15:19) where they bring up vampires, and I take the advice given there to heart, as it is spectacular. Seriously, watch the whole thing, but especially that part if you're a writer.

Anyway, the idea of tan vampires came up, addressed in part in this little excerpt:

Tan. Emery was naturally darker skinned, though he’d looked sickly pale up until he fed from Connor the other night. This thought successfully distracted Connor from his dreamy musings and launched him into a diatribe on vampires and white skin that lasted all the way to school.

This section in chapter 7 and the following interlude is my response to this reader who honestly made me sad when they railed against me for having a different opinion than them, because there is never only one way to do something, and as a writer, you should never, ever feel like there is.

Be creative. Make something your own. And always stay true to what your story means to you.

I never want the experience I had, which goes so much deeper than a disagreement on vampire lore, to discourage me from interacting with readers. I love you guys, whether you read my fanfiction, my original works, or both. Just keep in mind that sharing fiction stops being the beautiful thing that it is when we assume that our way is the only way.

I wanted something truly special for the cover to this story, and while I have a great cover at BWN right now for the series run, the BWN Creative Director helped get me in contact with one of my favorite artists at DeviantArt, Saga. And what a joy to work with. So talented and easy to coordinate with to get just what I wanted, and the final product is just remarkable.



The serialized version of this story is on chapter 10 this week, updated Thursdays, and I am so excited for it to get into season 2 in May, and eventually 3, which is the final season, and then to share the finished book with you. Thank you all who are following this story!

I don’t know about you, but coming up with ideas for stories is easy for me. I do so daily, sometimes hourly, and while many of my ideas are fleeting, or not something I would ever flush out, several are good enough that I have to stop and jot them down. I keep so many Word documents filled with story ideas, it would probably be intimidating to most people, but while I’m working on my next book, I want the ideas for the one after that, and the one after that, ready and waiting to be explored.

Currently, you can read my next book as it’s being serialized on BWN, Life as a Teenage Vampire, and while that is still being edited and tweaked, I’m working on my next book, The Royal Spark, which is for the most part a jumble of notes and the first few chapters. Several potential story ideas for after that have their bare-bones notes written out, and when the time comes it’ll just depend on where my muse directs me.

But the hardest part when working on a new story is going from concept to chapter 1—the beginning words, paragraphs, and even the first few later chapters of the story that have to be powerful enough to capture your audience so they want to read more. The answer is different for every story, other than ‘be engaging’, because not every story needs to start the same way.

The Incubus Saga starts in the middle of the story, after Nathan has lost his brother and is willing to make a deal with a dark fae in order to save him, which consequently kicks off the rest of the epic trilogy, but throws readers right into the world from the first few words.

Life as a Teenage Vampire starts with some exciting action, but not really anything pertinent to the plot, other than it helps introduce you to these hapless, normal teenagers who are about to enter an adventure of very not normal circumstances.

For Spark I’d like to share with you the first section of the story, and then explain where I plan to go from there, which is actually different than my initial draft.

Knight filled the syringe to the brim. Every last ounce needed to be injected into the subject in order for his plan to work. He had synthesized the formula to match the one he had given himself exactly, with one variation. Undetectable unless someone knew what they were looking for, the miniscule nanomachines he’d added produced a substance that would react like a time release drug over several months, manipulating the subject’s personality to such a small degree the change would seem natural. A man slowly losing his mind, growing colder, harder, and more twisted to his base desires.

Satisfied, Knight replaced the cap on the syringe, and slipped it carefully inside his jacket pocket, where it would wait, as he watched the subject throughout the day, until the ideal opportunity presented itself.

Knight had chosen the subject after years of careful planning and insinuating himself into the man’s life. The subject wasn’t the hero type upon first glance. Tall but altogether too thin rather than well-muscled. Not a natural Power or a Mage. Merely a man, a high school teacher, pushing thirty. He had few close friends. Minimal family. No romantic attachments. He lived alone, and kept his schedule clear most nights save the time he spent on classwork. Yet despite this, anyone who knew him loved him deeply.

His charm wasn’t in being the strongest, or the smartest, or best looking. His body was weak, often sickly. His talent for biochemistry reached no further than the classroom; not the type to make new discoveries or affect drastic change in the field. And while some might consider him handsome, he hid behind thick black-framed glasses, tousled hair, and cardigan sweaters that made him look more like a twenty-something grandfather than a lonely young man.

It was his sincerity that swayed people who got to know him. His stalwart belief in others. His ability to triumph over obstacles and tragedy in his life with an unwavering smile. He also desperately, his entire life, had always wanted to be a Power. An unassuming good person who would never squander any abilities he was granted. And that was the most important detail of all.

Because who would ever suspect a hero with the best of intentions?

Originally, what came next in the story for the first chapter was introducing the readers to Reid and Jerry, the main characters who, for the most part, alternate perspectives throughout the story and share the lead role, while Knight only gets a few snippets of POV as the villain.

I like those initial scenes, and still plan to use them. It helps build out their world, their lives, who they are and why you should care about them. But as I’ve been working toward moving deeper into the plot, I haven’t been able to shake that something seems off about the beginning. It’s too slow, too…boring (even if I know I’m being unfair to myself) to really grasp readers and hold their attention.

If you’re a writer, you know that world-building needs to be organic, and it can be the hardest part of starting a new story, especially if your world has elements that drastically differs from the real world. You want the reader to understand everything without lengthy exposition. While my original scenes aren’t exposition heavy, they still feel stilted in how I introduce everything, so I want to find a better way that will allow me to clean up those scenes for later, maybe shorten them to drive the plot forward faster and keep readers better engaged.

So I have this idea of doing a flash forward to when Reid is already a superhero, already Spark, as the story is named after, facing his nemesis (Jerry, or Prime) for the first time, and ending on a bit of a cliffhanger for chapter 1 that isn’t resolved in chapter 2 because chapter 2 flashes back to those original scenes I wrote.

Starting in media res for readers, there will be several things I can remove from what will now be flashbacks that had felt heavy-handed to me, and the reader will have extra incentive to read more because they’ll want to catch up to that moment where I left things hanging in chapter 1.

It’s not a new concept by any means, plenty of books and TV shows and movies have utilized this method, but in my case, it works to bring readers into a new world much better than my original plan.

And that’s the hard part, but also the crux of getting readers invested in your story—finding the most resonating way to tell it at the very beginning. There isn’t an easy way to stumble upon what opening is best for your story, but chances are, if something nags at you or feels off about what you’ve written so far, you’re probably right.

My solution? Share it with as many of your close friends, writers, editors, etc., as you can before you’re officially editing the story. See what people’s reactions are, talk things out, voice your concerns about what isn’t working to you, and eventually you’ll discover how to fix things and make your first chapter one that your readers will remember for a long time.