There is a creature that is very popular in fiction and has been for a long time. That creature is the vampire.
Some say it is overdone. Many say they are tired of the monster that drinks blood and lives at night. Still, writers keep pumping out vampire stories, and readers keep sucking the books dry. But not only books. Movies, video games, TV shows, basically any way people take in entertainment this beast will rear up and the consumer will bare their necks.
I think I know why.
The actual creature is not that exciting. Like a zombie, or a werewolf, even a construct like Frankenstein’s monster, the creature does not show much more appeal. It is the constant recreation that brings us back to this creature.
In the role-playing game Vampire The Masquerade the vampires are set up in generations, each vampire made getting a lower rank and less power. In Anne Rice’s incarnation, the person being changed into the beast needs to be drained nearly to death then feed on the vampire to get their power. In Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot anyone who is fed on turns. Still Dracula needs to feed on his victim many times, and each time they turn a little more.
Just as there are many and varied ways to become a vampire, there are just as many different powers that come to them. Some are immortal like Dracula. Some, like the vampires of the movie Underworld, can transfer memories to each other. We have some that are super fast. Some that are immune to all forms of attacks.
We love vampires because every writer puts their own spin on the beast, recreating their birth, their powers, and their weaknesses. Stephenie Meyer made it so that her vampires did not die in sunlight but sparkled like diamonds in the sun. Some hated this. Some loved the idea. It turned the creature normally seen as monstrous into a creature of beauty.
I have written vampires in my upcoming release Hemlock, book two of the Manhunters series. In two days, you will be able to read about my spin on this creature. Before I made my creative decisions I did a bit of research.
I went old, very old. I looked up the first incarnations of the beasts before Stoker, before Vlad, and I found some interesting things.
The look of the vampire in my work is different than anywhere you are likely to see them. The feel is different. I treated mine quite like an ever-growing plague. Mine have different levels of consciousness based on who changed them. So many things were made unique because I knew when I sat down to write them that many readers are sick to death of the blood-sucking beast.
And many might just think my vampires suck.