What’s So Great About Vampires: War of Nytefall: Rivalry – A New Novel from Charles Yallowitz:

My fellow blogger, Charles Yallowitz, has come up with another of his great (and occasionally funny) lists, this time about vampires – to which he is clearly addicted! – to promo his new book. Read on, my friends:

A big thanks to Noelle for helping to promote my newest book, War of Nytefall: Rivalry. This is my third book that revolves around the Vampire Civil War of Windemere, which is the same magical world that was home to Legends of Windemere. Yeah, I guess that’s kind of obvious considering the title.  Now, I’ve been asked a few times, usually on days ending in ‘Y’, about why I decided to go for vampires.  They’ve been done a lot over the decades.  Well, my first response is because they were the next project in my mental queue and I’ve been dying to write stories with the Dawn Fangs as the focal points.  My second response comes after some thought because vampires seem to always have a toehold on popularity.  Even when they’ve been overdone, you still see people swarming to new versions.  So, what is it about these monsters that has kept them around for so long?

1. They’re immortal. Seriously, they live forever, which is kind of an obsession with mankind.  Most of us are scared of death to some extent, so there we could look at these immortal monsters as a fictional vehicle to avoid this fear.  It could also go the other way where we see how lonely and sad vampires are, so we see that mortality might have some advantages.
2. Due to vampires looking human, audiences can connect to them. People tend to relate to other people or humanized things in fiction. A movie that has a dog as a main character may give them a voice the audience can hear or show a wide range of emotions through physical gestures. This creates a bridge, which vampires always have because they usually look perfectly human.  Them being pale, having fangs, having powers, or acting strange doesn’t take away from their human look. Only thing that does that is the classic widow’s peak haircut.
3. Vampires can be reimagined to various settings. While werewolves require a lunar cycle, vampires don’t have that level of limitation. Even that isn’t consistent since it was originally being weakened by the sun and other versions are fine during the day.  You can put vampires in fantasy, science fiction, drama, horror, westerns, and any other genre with some tweaks to the formula.  Yes, you will have people complaining that it isn’t ‘their vampires’.  Yet, there’s a long history of alterations that supports doing just about anything with them.
4. Characters can have sex with vampires and not be considered a necrophiliac. I don’t know if this is a reason for them still being popular.  It’s just something that I can’t wrap my head around when I think about it.
5. The power! The sheer, brutal, savage power!  Audiences just love vampires for their strength and abilities.  Some want to possess it because the idea of turning into a bat or bending metal bars is fun.  Others love to see weak mortals overcome something so terrifyingly strong.  You can even have hierarchies of power within vampire societies, so you can get an underdog from their own ranks.  It also demonstrates that a weaker being can become stronger over time, which can be fairly inspiring.
6. Vampires are as versatile as mortals when it comes to character roles. They can be the monster hunting down the heroes or the cunning villain planning world domination.  They can be the noble hero who is fighting against his darker nature or the brutal anti-hero that seeks his own type of justice.  Romantic partners, jealous stalkers, loyal allies, devious traitors, and the list keeps on going.  This ties back into them looking and acting human.  It means they can hold the same roles as humans as long as they are established within a world that allows for their existence.
7. Because they’re fun and, most times, are treated with respect. It isn’t easy reinventing the wheel that is vampire stories.  Every creator has to put their own twist on the mythos in order to avoid being called a copycat.  This can be the vampires themselves, the world they’re in, or the society they’ve made.  The previously mentioned versatility of vampires makes this both easy and difficult.  You can really do anything with them, but you also need to work hard to make it fit.  Don’t just say something is a vampire because it has fangs and that’s it.  You need to have the creatures earn the title right from the beginning, which requires respect.  Doing this successfully for any level of audience helps the popularity of vampires continue.
8. Seriously, that necrophilia thing is creepy.

Hope you enjoyed my off the cuff list.  The topic was actually a lot harder than I imagined it would be.  Check out my own take on vampires in War of Nytefall: Rivalry.  Thanks for reading and see you in the comments.

About the Author:

Charles E. Yallowitz was born, raised, and educated in New York. Then he spent a few years in Florida, realized his fear of alligators, and moved back to the Empire State. When he isn’t working hard on his epic fantasy stories, Charles can be found cooking or going on whatever adventure his son has planned for the day. Truthfully, his tales of adventure are much more interesting than his real life, so skip the bio and dive into the action

You can find Charles at:

Blog: www.legendsofwindemere.com
Twitter: @cyallowitz
Website: www.charleseyallowitz.com

Good luck, Charles, with the new book! Bring on the reviews, folks!