Writing About Vampires
Since October begins at the end of this week, my favorite time of year is now officially on its way. I’m hoping that the holidays will bring at least some joy to our ever-crazier world. When it comes to the question “Pumpkin spice lattes, yes or no?” I am definitely on the “Yes!” side of the answer. I’ve already begun my quest to see how many pumpkin cream cold brew coffees I can fit in between now and Thanksgiving.
As much as I love Halloween, I still find it funny that I ended up writing about vampires, let alone that my most popular novels would be about a vampire, a very human vampire, as a matter of fact.
When I decided to write Her Dear & Loving Husband, I realized that I knew very little about vampire myths and legends. I had never been into the paranormal/urban fantasy genre before. I had read exactly zero vampire novels before Twilight, and I had seen exactly zero vampire TV shows before True Blood. The historical novelist in me wondered if you have to do research to write about vampires. After all, vampires are imaginary creatures, so I thought I wouldn’t have to do much studying to write Her Dear & Loving Husband. The vampires I wanted to write about are products of my imagination, and I didn’t need to read books to understand them because they were already mine.
Still, being a curious person, I had a lot of questions. Where did vampire stories come from? How long have they been around? I thought Bram Stoker’s Dracula was the beginning of the craze, but it turns out he was inspired by stories of the undead too.
In fact, vampire legends have been around for as long as there have been people to tell them. In earlier years, people explained whatever needed explaining through supernatural beliefs. Good things happened because of good spirits and bad things happened because of evil spirits. In the years before science could explain medical oddities—such as why some people sweat or cry blood or how someone could stop breathing and “come back to life”—these things were explained as possession by evil spirits. Such people had come back from the dead and they were to be feared.
Stories about dead friends, neighbors, and family members who had come back to life circulated throughout villages, beginning our fascination, and our fear, of vampires. Societies all over the world have some stories about the undead in their folklore. I had some fun taking what I learned about vampire stories and putting it into the classroom scenes in Her Loving Husband’s Curse where James teaches a vampire literature class. It’s a funny scene and it was one of my favorites to write in that novel.
For those of us writing vampire stories, we have the freedom to create our preternatural characters however we wish. The possibilities are endless. As I considered how my vampires would live, I decided that I would stick mainly to conventional ideas. James Wentworth, my favorite vampire, sleeps by day and lives by night. He’s immortal and will stay looking thirty years old as long as he remains a vampire. He drinks blood. He has to learn how to live among humans without revealing his true nature because he knows how people can react when they’re confronted by things they don’t understand. As for garlic bulbs and signs of the cross, well, those are just Eastern European legends after all. If you can live forever, I don’t see how some garlic can hurt you, though it might give you bad breath.
As someone who wrote historical fiction, which is based on fact, I didn’t think I would enjoy writing about such imaginary, fantastical characters. But once I allowed myself to try it, I realized I love writing paranormal fantasy because I can mold the supernatural characters in my own way.
By stepping out of my comfort zone, by allowing myself to explore a genre I had never considered before, I had a whole paranormal/fantasy world open up for me, and it’s one I’ll be forever grateful for.
To celebrate Halloween, and pumpkin spice lattes, Her Dear & Loving Husband is currently free and the entire Loving Husband Series will on sale for $2.99 through the month of October at all major online retailers. Enjoy!
And while we’re on the subject, here’s a recipe to make your own pumpkin cream cold brew. I tried it, and I liked it.
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Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew
iced coffeecold milksweetenerpumpkin pureevanilla extractpumpkin pie spicesea salt
