Vampires have been legend since the dawn of time. Stories and myths can be found in the most ancient of civilizations. They have proven time and time again that they a have sticking power. They go through cycles of hot and cold but over the centuries, they have never gone away.
I think one of the things that keeps the vampire genre so popular is the fact that they grow with the times. The vampire is so versatile. They can be both good and evil and on many occasions, some shade of grey in-between.
As with any fiction, I think some of our love of those creatures has a lot to do with the “escape factor.” It’s that ability to set aside the normal day-to-day existence and dare to step into a world filled with creatures and things that we can only dream about.
Sure, at times those things can scare us, but more often than not, they just send that chill of excitement up our spines.
Who doesn’t want to be the heroine of a story being scooped up by the dark and dashing vampire? C’mon admit it; you want to feel his hot breath on your skin and the sensual scrape of his fangs before he sinks his teeth into you. Oh, he won’t kill you. He just wants a taste. A prequel if you will before your night of excitement truly begins.
Of course, with the recent surge in vampire popularity, it’s not enough to just write a vampire story. You have to give a little oomph to it. Lots of people make fun of the “sparkly vampires in Twilight. Like them or not, they’re a perfect example of this concept. Mrs. Meyers did something different. She took an old idea and added a fresh twist. The same applies with the Southern Vampire Mysteries aka the Sookie Stackhouse series. In those stories, the vampires are “out of the coffin.” That is quite the turnaround from regular vampire tradition, and it worked for her!
Point being, the market is hugely competitive at the moment; so, to stand out, you have to have something to give your audience that they might not get with another story.
We all know the standard vampire themes: Vampires cannot handle sunlight, crosses (or any holy relics for that matter) are a great deterrent, garlic is supposed to be toxic, and a stake through the heart makes a good killing weapon.
When writing my story, I asked myself, why? Why can’t vampires handle the sunlight? Why do holy relics bother them? I wanted to give the reader a real, solid reason behind the answers to these questions. I wanted to make my vampires real enough to step out of the pages.
With all that in mind, I wanted to do something a little different with my vampires. I decided to take a slightly retro approach and modernize it. I looked back at the more gothic vampires, the ones that killed for their blood instead of taking sips or going to blood banks. I wanted them to be closer to reality but also answer questions as to “why” they are like that. Along with that I wanted to deliver a story that let you experience, with the main character, the transformation from human to full fledged vampire. While reading, I wanted you, the reader, to learn what it takes to be a vampire; you will experience the gut wrenching feeling of blood lust. You’ll know the loss of friends and family. You’ll make your first kill. You’ll feel the high and experience the crushing guilt afterwards. If you can get over that, you’ll learn to hone your new supernatural abilities. In the end, you might even like being a creature of the night.
At the moment there are two novels in the Immortalis series.
Immortalis Carpe Noctem and Hunters & Prey. Each book will take you further and further into the vampire world and teach you what it’s like to be a creature of the night.
I hope you enjoy!
Immortalis Carpe Noctem
Hunters & Prey
Thanks for having me on your blog Ashely!!
ReplyDelete