What is it with these things? I mean, I hated Twilight. I'm sick to death of seeing YA Vampire novels oozing out of bookstore walls - wasn't this trend supposed to be over by now? And yet... I love True Blood. I loved Forever Knight. I loved Interview with a Vampire. I even loved Underworld. And right now I'm reading the second in The Strain trilogy (conceived and co-written by Guillermo Del Toro, who also directed the surprisingly good Blade II). And seriously, I could go on and on - my Nook library is disgustingly fang-infested.
Much has in fact been written on what makes Vampires stories are so appealing. The difficulty there is that they aren't actually a genre. Vampires are more like a motif that appears across genres, and the variety is pretty astonishing. Compare the hyper-sexualized non-sentient vampires in Larry Niven's Sci Fi classic Ringworld to the biological evil in the thriller The Strain to the politics and romance in the Sookie Stackhouse novels. Paranormal romance may be the most popular nesting ground on the modern Vampire, but he is hardly confined there. The appeal is likewise different depending on what kind of vampires we're talking about, and what that genre's target market is.
If I were to write a vampire story, I would write one aimed directly at people like me: educated middle-aged women. The protagonists would be adults and would not waste time whining about the unfairness of it all. They would have awesome shame-free sex. They would be concerned about maintaining careers and incomes and so forth in the face of obvious logistical problems. They would be concerned about the realities of extreme age differences. They would be concerned about the long-term future, since they could reasonably expect to be alive to see it. They would consider the questions of immortality and morality with the wisdom of experience.
I know I know, there are already fifty such titles out there, right? Well good!
Your description of the kind of novel you want to write reminds me of the wonderful Ann Rice novels that I used to read. I haven't read another since I finished hers as I was worried that no others could live up to hers but would def read yours if that is the kind you plan on writing :)
ReplyDeleteThank you D.J.!
ReplyDeleteOh, and I loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the show.) I would say I totally suck, but that would be too lame a pun.
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