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Friday, October 28, 2011

My vampires don't sparkle

Today Anne Rice shared this amusing article on Facebook:

Should vampires sparkle?

The article gives a brief, but interesting, history of vampire fiction.  The genre has been around longer than you might think — a lot of people think Bram Stoker's Dracula was the first, but that's actually not true.

Much of the vampire lit of the 17th century was poetry, often about the dead returning from the grave to kill a former beloved. The poetry often featured a religious theme as well.

Vampires remained present in literature throughout much of the 1800s. Varney the Vampire, a penny dreadful published in 1847, was the first vampire novel to explore the concept of a vampire entering a window at night to attack a sleeping maiden.

The article goes on to say that Dracula was inspired by the 1872 novella CarmillaDracula was not the first novel to present vampires as sexual creatures, just the most famous one.

The article also talks about how authors of vampire fiction in recent years all want to do things differently.  The ultimate example of an author changing the rules is, of course, Stephanie Meyer's sparkly vamps.

I have to admit, I'm changing up the rules a little myself.  What fun would it be if I didn't?  Then I'd just be writing about somebody else's vampires, instead of creatures entirely of my own making.  My vampires aren't undead Halloween monsters, but they aren't sparkly, either.  They are super-predators, and hell yes, they are sexy, too.  I think my ideas work quite well, but then again I may be biased.

I am curious...  Whose vampire "rules" are your favorites?

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