too many vampires

Wow, there is a imvu ad at the top where a guy is sucking blood from a girl in a vampire-like fashion. Coincidences.

Anyway, its just a fad. A vampire novel sold well,(I use the term vampire loosely.) and now everyone else wants a slice of the pie, but now all you see is vampire novels. And everything else is a steamy romance novel. And then there's the steamy vampire romance novels. The only thing I thought I may be interested in had 'hot and erotic' in the reading usurp. Seriously bookstores, other things sell too.

Bitter, am I?

 

I suppose we could start a trend for clean-cut adventure seeking vampire-oriented types who always get but decide to reject the girl...

 

True Blood the series is awesome. I learned it was based on her books and so I went to read them.. and I couldn't. The writing was atrocious. I was frankly surprised she ever got published. They were full of glaring grammatical mistakes and horrible syntax.. I couldn't take them. I liked the show, but keep the books away from me. Her writing is worse than Meyers.

 

Wow, big thread. I am inclined to agree with the title of it though, there are too many vampires in literature at the moment. You don't need a vampire for a decent supernatural tail. For those who can see it, I advise you to watch the BBCs new drama 'Being Human'. It tackles the vampire mythology in a slightly different, more adult way and has a decent ghost and werewolf mythos as well.

I'm not a fan of the Twilight books or indeed any literature in a similar vein (excuse the pun). I never got in to Anne Rice either. It seams to me that this literature is purely targeted at those wanting some sort of romance books and, because of this, are no better than a supernatural mills and boon.

Is there anything wrong with this? Well no, inherently, they all have a place in the market. What I don't like is the assertion in 'the industry' (publishing houses, TV executives, movie studios) that this is the only thing that people want to read in vampire fiction. It's clearly not true.

I have to pick up on the point that someone made earlier. It was along the lines of "People like vampires because of their immortality".

That is not really the case in these works. The litmus test is easy, if the people who like Twilight (and in many cases rave about it) would not read another more traditional vampire novel, then they are purely reading it for the sparkly-vampire-boyfriend elements.

 

But how do any of us know that Twilight fans don't read other vampire novels? I think that fans of Twilight often are automatically dismissed as being flighty preteen girls who wouldn't know great literature if it smacked them in the face, which isn't really a fair assumption to make. I know lots of people who are very well read and really enjoy Twilight.

 

The only problem is should it continue and then continue further it gets that label, or from what i've seen of other series-bond books when they go to far beyond what they originally were meant to do. beat a dead horse, it still isn't going to get up. not saying that the Twilight series of books is a dead horse but it can become one if stretched to breaking.

 

I just think that while Meyers took a different look at the vampire scenario, she overdid it. Sparkling killed it for me, along with the lack of fangs. If we don't use some of the basis of vampirism, how can we connect to the past? It bothers me. They're meant to have fangs, to be soulless demons feeding off the living, not normal soul-seeking monsters looking for a shag with a human girl.

 

See, I'm the opposite. While the sparkling didn't do it for me, I liked that she went a different direction than I'm used to seeing. I guess I just figure vampires are made up anyway, so why not take the idea and run with it?

 

I like a difference when i read a book with the topic of vampires. I like the changes, the humanity brought in, why would it disappear? The dress, they live in castles/houses, so they must have some sort of humanity left, why not use it?

I think also the sexual side is a bit overused. having a throat ripped open or drained of blood, i dont' know but if some vampire was standing outside my window offering me that, i'd be declined to let her in, wouldn't care how darn beautiful she was. I think the beast side should be told separately from the human side of them though. dont' mix the two.

 

I like what I've done in my book. I won't give it away because I'm hoping to publish it soon, but I've made a strange twist on the whole vampire thing. Hopefully it works. o.<

I like the lustful beauty of the vampires. Thier perfections, thier almost hypnotizing glow. It's surreal, but awesome to imagine. I also love how they move so gracefully, as if they're floating. But I also love how masculine and rugged werewolves are. I'm more of a werewolf girl then a vampire girl. )

 

That's not what I was saying at all. The point was made that people like Vampires for their immortality and that was that same love of immortality that is currently driving the market. What I am saying is if you take that pre-teen market and show them other books about vampires, they won't be interested in them. My cousin and all her friends are like this, they just want the 'sparkly-vampire-boyfriend' bit.

I'm not saying that it is a majority of readers although I suspect it is high since it is that demographic which seams to be buying the book most. What I am saying is that, where as you can't just dismiss the book as only appealing to the pre-teen market, you also can't assert that it isn't pandering to them.

 

i just don't see how they can continuously portray a vampire to be lustful/beautiful it becomes tiresome when that's how they are always seen, i think it show the death side, the flesh only regenerated by the infusion of new blood, a temperary fix so they need to feed. this sexually side i believe more of a hollywood fall back, doesn't fit how i'd want something scary to be

 

First of all, I think the Sookie Stackhouse series is great. The writing is up to par, and my friends enjoyed it as well. We all agree it's Twilight, but better (and earlier published). Meyer ripped it off like nobody's business - right down to part of the hospital scene, for God's sakes!

I've never read Dracula. Is it good?

"Well read" means nothing but "read lots of books, usually fancy ones like War and Peace and Pride and Prejudice." Anyone who enjoys Twilight is just anyone who enjoys Twilight. I like the idea behind the romance of it - Meyer failed at it. It's abusive, plain and simple. This is the books in a nutshell: "And so the fantastic, Adonis-like god with abs of marble cold perfection and dew/almond/deep red/honey-colored eyes dazzlingly sparkled off into the twilight/new moon/eclipse/breaking dawn with the adorably clumsy, everyday girl who later became a fantastic, Venus-like goddess and blah blah blah blah blah." It bites and sucks. Take it to Italy and shove it into the sunlight, hope it sparkles and provokes the Volturi to kill it

That all being said, anyone who thinks any part of Twilight is well written is insane. Double for Meyer's sci-fi book, too. Ugh *shudders*

 

i thought dracula was a good read, but that may be me. I also liked Salem's Lot by Stephen King, for me it was because of the internal thoughts of the characters and the fear that was instilled. it wasn't so much about blood and sexual tension but more dealing with the fear inside.

 

I tend to disagree with that view point - just a little...

Reason being is that vampires are rife with symbolism, and to be honest I've never seen a vampire successfully depicted, in any media form, that didn't contain most of that symbolism - even if played with a little. I also think that - going back to a point I made earlier - despite whole genealogy mythologies being created about the origins of vampires within various stories, those that "exist" are bred from human beings, and therefore contain many of the same basic traits - that's part of their appeal, which also means that, just like humans, they have a level of sexual appeal.

Traditional vampires have inherent sexuality purely because of the methods they employ to live - seduction, biting, feeding... it's all incredibly intimate and so easy to make it pure sexual allegory. I don't believe that those things have to be mutually exclusive from the element of fear, either.

 

lol we'll disagree - just a little

perhaps its just because i've read so much of how the myths came about, know the history of Vlad and the Countess of Blood, so see the violence and ugly side of it rather than beauty which i always took to be a hollywood sale.

i suppose in a way one could see the 'beauty' with the Countess but it was vanity and so wonder if vampires would be more so that way, seeing their beauty but others seeing the death of flesh.

probably just me. but i understand about how tales are told, i'm sure we all do. it just seems that everyone falls along the same line when writing about them. much to say about elves and wizards. when if you research about magicians like Merlin(which actually was a name given to wandering mystics/seerers) and not one man. you'll see he was a bit like nastrodamus and possibly da vinci.

i like fantasy and the stories made from it, but like the truth still attached.

 

Personally, I want to see an actual "dark" vampire. Not one that's just plain gory but one that's humanized the way serial killers are but better able to embrace their dark nature b/c it *is* their nature. Most of the time we just see them as purely primal, out for sex and blood, and there is no humanity left at all in them. I personally view this as a travesty because vampires were always human before they were turned. So I want to see the way they deal with the remnants of their humanity. I haven't yet read a novel where that has been done.

~Lynn

And you can enjoy Sookie all you want. I think her writing atrocious.

 

lol maybe its my darn scientific side of the brain but i can't give vampires that 'humanity' stamp, they are fictional so i like to keep the fantasy about them that way. its sort of like a conflict of beliefs i suppose but i like the rawness of their drawn brutality

 

Well, that's pretty much what I was attempting to say, just didn't do it quite so succinctly...

I play with the symbolism (that appeals to me) of vampirism quite a bit, I suppose I should mention, and *sigh* one of my main characters is something of one herself, and I guess I see her acts as neither ugly or beautiful, just necessary.

 

I've just been writing a vampire. It is incidental that he is a vampire, it doesn't actually change the story. I wanted to make him a feral serial killer type and the badge seamed to fit. He's not just out for blood, he really enjoys what he does. But at the same time, I keep finding myself getting drawn back in to those stereotypes. I think there is just too much written about them which is crammed in to each story. I'm deliberately not explaining vampireism in the world that I have created. He is what I need him to be, a hit man for hire in this case. We'll see how he develops across the series.

 

there you go, Vampire hunter D, a japanese animated movie, shows something like that, a contract killer who is part vampire who is paid to hunt vampires. Another show had a vampire under contract of a human to hunt vampires, he hated them because they were after passion/lust and forgot what true vampires were.

i like the different tales, but still, even those who follow the accepted thoughts, if they are well written, as thoroughly enjoyable for me

 

Yes, it is along those lines, although what I am trying to do is take it to it's logical conclusions based on the world that is being created. I don't like the exposure to sunlight thing so I'm choosing not to use it. To me, that makes him more dangerous as there is no cut off point when he has to stop chasing you.

But I'm keeping the fangs and I'm keeping the sense that these things are dangerous. In the world I am creating, actually, they aren't dangerous as such. In my universe magic is just returning to the world and it changes people in different ways. Some are unaffected, others are adept, able to channel magic, others are changed physically by it (vampires, werewolves, dwarfs, trolls) so there is the ability to have a vampire with a heart of gold in my story but I don't want to focus on vampires because I am starting to find them somewhat boring. They have, excuse the pun, been done to death.

So I have this one character. He chooses his own path and he chooses to go bad. He's not a contract killer in the Vampire Hunter D sense of the word, he is a nasty piece of work who just got lucky because the universe granted him these powers to kill people, which he uses to the full.

I don't need to explain that in the story though because people know enough about vampires to recognise them as an archetype.

 

sounds interesting, like i said, the genre doesn't make a good story, the writing does. But an uniquely told tale is always a nice change of venue.

thanks for the preview

 

I'm trying to write the type of vampire I was referring to. Can't seem to really get started though because it's going to be *seriously* dark and I'm slightly afraid to start writing it because of how dark it is going to be. Guess I should get over it and write it anyways

 

remember your quote, Lynne...'nothing comes from nothing' so you have to write to see

good writing to you