We're back in the debate! And this is a very interesting post from Kristin Battestella on the werewolf v vampire question, so enjoy!



Vampire versus…Vampire?

So often vampires and werewolves are pitted against each other in the battle of the genre beasties. However, more often then not, these terror titans work in tandem in fiction and media, creating a broader, richer tug and pull sharing in the horror medium. My 2008 Eternal Press novel The Vampire Family has a family of vampires that can shape shift and transform into wolves and scary weres- and scary werecats, too. My follow up series Fate and Fangs: Tales from the Vampire Family serves up vampires who prefer their wolf shapes in Book 3 Struggle.

While it is easy to have books and ebooks either have all the monster magic together or for readers to find literature specific to vampires and werewolves and all the mixes in the spectrum, films have also scored on the presumed animosity. The Underworld franchise tells of ancient vampire and werewolf wars- but fans of either creature can get their fill in these features. Likewise Twilight has made the Team Edward and Team Jacob themes top sellers. Vampires versus werewolves ideologies are good for business, simply put. Whether for or against, reluctantly working together or struggling to love or hate one or the other, in the end, vampires and werewolves are good for each other.

Unfortunately, the current subdivision of the vampire genre is getting too divergent for its own good. The watered down, lovely dovey, youth and glitter love vampire movement spurred by the Twilight craze has helped the vampire literature and media culture just as much as it may have damaged the genre. Book, television, and movie markets are now flooded with vampire material- all in the same youth, teen romance driven trends. As knock off begat knock offs, the quality pool has dropped considerably. People are tired of vampires. They think horror has been played, and all the sudden the same editors, publishers, and powers that be are now turning on the massive overdrive they helped to create. Backlash is inevitable.

Soon people even forget what came before the glitter vampire. Readers are afraid to take on another vampire story because ‘they all suck now’. (No pun intended) The quality vampiric horror gets lumped into the problematic downward glitter spiral. And when you the writer submits you hard worked, scary horror, medieval furthest thing from contemporary teenage vampire vampire manuscript, what does the publisher tell you? The worst thing a writer can possibly hear:

No.

And it isn’t just the ‘no’ that is the worst part. It wasn’t that your story wasn’t well written or not just good enough. It might be damn decent perfection and fit in just perfectly with what this publisher’s interests are. But no, it is the fact that the marketing, timing, and overblown played mayhem of that other vampire type has just ruined your publication chances. Well, doesn’t that just suck? (Pun intended)

So then, you see, the vampires versus werewolves theory is not what hurt your novel’s chances. Rarely does a publisher say, ‘we already have a werewolf book, so we can’t take your vampire story.’ In fact it is quite the opposite, editors often look for both together to balance out their catalogue and reader varieties. They might even prefer books or series dealing with both monsters so they can cross reference all their categories. How many times have you clicked on a publisher’s store links for both ‘vampire’ and ‘werewolves’ and seen the same books? Quite a bit I suspect.

Now, have you ever seen separate links for ‘vampire horror’ and ‘vampire romance’? The breakdown between the vampire medium is almost nonexistent in appearance, even if those readers and writers and vampires lovers in the know immediately know there is a difference. How many times have you been in conversation with a fellow vampire lover and they say either ‘oh, that was too scary for me!’ or ‘This vamp was too lovey dovey for me.’ What’s sad is how many times has a reader passed on your book because they like one or the other and dismissed your book as being the wrong vampire type for them.

What then, must a vampire author do to remain relevant in a subgenre at war with itself? Keep writing damn good copy! Whichever side of vamps your on- either pure horror or paranormal romance- keep it good. Keep your universe, characters, and tales true to what the manuscript needs to be its best. Don’t give in to the mislabeling and trends. Vampires rise and fall, go underground and subculture or rise up from the dead and reign supreme over media. Not too long ago, everyone wanted exclusively paranormal light and vampire romance, now call outs are returning to pure horror and uniqueness. Make your creatures of the night stand out from the pack. Keep them worthy of the hand in hand werewolf antagonism. Good competition is healthy in fiction, writing, selling books, and reader’s choice. Write crap copy and no creature wins!

Find out more about Kristin and her works:

At her blog

At her website

At her livejournal

On Facebook

On Myspace

At her Yahoo Group

And on Facebook again!

For me, one of the hardest parts of being a writer is determining what "being a writer" actually means. I've always written. It's one of the earliest things I remember doing. And for as long as I've known that people can actually be published, that's all I've wanted to do with my life: write, be published.

And I've acheived that! I actually have quite a few books and stories out there now, and I'm really proud of all of them. That said, it's hard for me not to feel doubt. It's hard not to look at what other people are writing and doing with their writing and wonder if I've made the right choices. And I can't lie - there are some things I wish I'd done differently in my writing career. With most of those things, it's too late to change them, but I'm a pretty big believer in not hanging onto the past. I can't do anything about what's happened, but I can still influence what's going to happen, so that's where I want to direct my energy.

Why am I being all introspective, you ask? (Or maybe you don't, but I'm going to pretend you did). It's a combination of some hard and heavy recent thinking, and reading this blog over at Crunchy Betty today. The idea of not just "throwing things to see what sticks" and of "making mistakes and risk heartbreak in the name of authenticity" really resonates with me. In my private life, I do a lot of things at the risk of heartbreak. I make a lot of choices and take a lot of chances because they are (at the risk of sounding incredibly corny) what my heart wants. And I never regret them.

I've often struggled to take that attitude with my writing though, because whilst I've acheived the "write, be published" dream, I've also taken the "throw things and see what sticks" approach. And whilst I'm proud of all my published works, I'm not happy with the scattershot approach and I'm not happy with struggling to make my voice heard amid a crowd of countless other writers for each one. I write in an overcrowded genre - I don't really care about that, I love UF/PNR and don't have much real desire to write anything else. But being in an overcrowded genre sometimes makes you desperate to be heard, I guess.

I don't like being desperate. I like being happy and confident that my work is the best it can be, and that readers who find it will think so too.

So all that hard and heavy thinking has lead me to make a few decisions. I haven't acted on them yet, but I'm psyching myself up for that. I'm not deliberately being vague, but I don't want to blab about stuff before it happens. But, um...yeah. I'm working on some stuff.

I knew the werewolf fans would appear eventually! Today, my fellow Eternal Press author Carrie Lynn Barker explains why it's werewolves all the way for her.


This happens to be an easy choice for me; werewolves all the way. Ever since reading a pair of books by Donna Boyd called The Passion and The Promise, I’ve been a werewolf lover. Glen Duncan’s recent novel, The Last Werewolf certainly clinched the deal. I’ve never believed in the passive, romantic vampire that Anne Rice created, though I do greatly appreciate her work. However, I like the virile, violent, primal world of the lycanthrope. I like the creature that kills because that is its instinct, because that is what it was born to do, which is how I think a werewolf should be. There is no thought and no moral code.

In Glen Duncan’s novel, The Last Werewolf, I find the kind of creature that I envision when thinking of a werewolf. He or she is human only until the rising of the full moon and then the human is no longer in control and the wolf is in charge. A vampire is always a vampire, with no real thread of humanity left. They can walk, talk and act like humans but they are still demons. Though the vampire lore has been diluted in recent years (due to the overabundance of their kind running rampant in Hollywood), a vampire is just a demon. The person who is the werewolf though still clings to his or her humanity for most of their existence. The inner struggle of having to give in to the creature that shares your body is a psychological study in itself. I find it a fascinating subject.
I think had vampires continued to be the monsters they were originally created as, in traditional folklore, I might be on the bloodsucker bandwagon. But I never thought of a vampire as something to be loved or pitied, something cuddly and ‘smooshie,’ which is how I think of most vampire characters out there now. That is why I love Jake Marlowe, the last werewolf. He isn’t asking for your sympathy; he’s just telling it like it is. He’s not looking for someone to keep him safe; he is just trying to stay alive. He may carry the weight of all the people he’s killed but he isn’t asking for the reader to feel sorry for him.

When I decided to write a lycanthrope into my novels, I gave the character, named Alendra, full control of what she calls her ‘other self.’ The wolf is still a part of her, at the cellular level but she can change whenever she pleases. It was an essential part of the story line; sometimes things can’t wait until the full moon rises. A traditionalist though, Alendra only becomes the wolf when the moon is full. Though there is a character who calls himself a ‘vampire’ in the same book, he is one of a kind and not a vampire in the traditional sense of the word. Both though are created by the government, a la X Files, as pawns in an ultimate battle for power. I find that the raw instinct of the werewolves worked better alongside my main character, Christiana Fletcher, a government creation herself. In my second novel, I gave Chris a whole pack of werewolves to play with, because I enjoyed writing about them so much.
So until the vampire returned to the character Bram Stoker, among other classic authors, wrote about, I’ll sticking to the werewolf side of the coin.



You can find out more about Carrie Lynn Barker at her website, her Facebook page, or you can follow her on Twitter. And how beautiful are these covers, as an unrelated note? I love them!

1. There will be another werewolf v vampire blog up later today. I'm really enjoying seeing everyone's different points of view, even if the werewolves aren't winning!

2. My Free Read from Evernight, BOUND BY NIGHT, will be released on 8th June! If you like monks, curses, and sex in churches, you might like this.



3. THE WOLF WITCH has a great review over at Night Owl Reviews, They reckon it's "a charming story full of heartwarming adventure and passion," and I reckon that must be so.

(I realise that all I really talk about on this blog any more is writing and perfume-making. If you're especially interested in the perfume side, I am considering putting it on a filter so I'm not clogging up people's flists with whittering about essential oils and whatnot, so if you have a strong opinion either way, let me know!)

Anyway. I ordered a ton of new essential oils this week, which should arrive next week (if not, I will cry), and in preparation for having shiny new toys to play with, I've been doing a lot of reading around, finding blends to try, and educating myself on perfume and body chemistry. It's a subject I find particularly fascinating, and have done for years. A few years ago I smelt Lancome's Hypnose on a friend at work and fell in love with it. It's a blend of vanilla, passion flower, and vetivert, all scents I love, so I went and bought a bottle. On my friend, it was floral and mellow and beautiful. On me, it smells almost like licorice, and I just can't wear it. Since then, I've been a lot more choosy about buying my synthetic perfumes, and always grab a free sample first if I can. It's amazing the things that can affect the way a scent will smell on you - apparently if you have a high fat diet (which I do; I cook butter in butter), it'll have a definite impact on perfume in terms of bottle-scent v skin-scent. 

So with that in mind, having made about a dozen solid perfumes now, and those having had a few weeks to age in the tins, I've been able to test them out properly. For example, the rosewood/orange/cedarwood blend I made in honour of Scar from THE WOLF WITCH has aged beautifully. It's gone from a sweet, light scent, to an intense, smoky-sweet one that lasts for hours. It's now my favourite of what I've made so far. In contrast, two I made recently and loved initially (one clove/cinnamon/lemongrass, one cinnamon/lemongrass/cedarwood) have aged pretty poorly. They just don't smell of anything on me. 

I scrapped those two and spent yesterday and some of today making new blends to keep myself occupied while I wait for my new oils (oh God, they cannot come soon enough). First up, I made a grapefruit and vetivert blend, with a tiny amount of bergamot to brighten it up and add to the citrus notes. It smells really juicy and summery. Then I got a bit more experimental and made one with rose, sweet orange, clary sage, and cypress. This smells very, very nice in the tin. I haven't tried it on the skin yet (I've decided to leave new blends about a week before testing them on the skin), but I have high hopes for it. It's a bit woody, a bit sweet, and makes me think of English stately homes. And finally, I made a rose and ginger blend. This just smells divine. I'm really looking forward to testing this one. 

I've got a long list of new mixes to try when I have new supplies, and I'm trying to be more thoughtful about selecting top, middle, and base notes, rather than just randomly grabbing scents I like and throwing them in together. That said, there is something really fun about going crazy, even if it doesn't work out. I'm determined to find a mix for clove and cinnamon that does work for me, because they just go so well together. And I need to find something to do with aniseed. It's not a smell I like, but hell, I bought the oil so I have to use it.

Anyway. I'm writing a story for Evernight's Halloween anthology and I have an Ethan Banning short to get finished for Word Vagabond's Ethan Banning Month, so I must away and get back to work! 

And we're back to the debate! I'm very pleased to have Yolanda here today, fighting the werewolf corner.

Furry, frightening & fascinating

Hi, everyone! Firstly, I'd like to thank Naomi for having me over here today. :)

I'm a huge fan of anything supernatural. I also love a good dose of mythology thrown into my stories. So it's no wonder that I absolutely love reading and writing about creatures of the night.

And I'm not talking about vampires. Although I am a vampire fan from way back--and always will be--lately I've found myself totally fascinated by werewolves.

Werewolves have a lot of appeal. And not even the fact that they can shift into furry wolves is enough to turn me off. I love werewolves.

I mean, they might be slaves to the moon, but it still sounds like a sweet gig to me. They're strong, fast, can live longer than an average human, are frightening, love the hunt, are predators... it doesn't sound so bad to me. Sure, shifting might hurt, their animal side is always buried deep down inside, and it might be hard to think like a human sometimes, but I think the pros outweigh the cons.

This is Joe Manganiello and he plays Alcide Herveaux in the TV series, True Blood. He actually happens to be one of my fave characters in the Sookie Stackhouse series, so I was very excited to see him portrayed this well on screen. ;) I remember meeting him on the page years ago and hoping that things would work out between him and Sookie. He's a fine werewolf specimen, isn't he?

Are you noticing a trend here? :)

It's even managed to spill into my own writing. I have two urban fantasy series that I'm writing at the moment, and werewolves make an appearance in both of them. :)

So, what about you? Are you as intrigued by werewolves as I am?

Thanks for reading,
Yolanda

AUTHOR BIO:

Wife. Mother. Writer. Bibliophile. Dreamer. Animal lover. Intrigued by the supernatural. Horror freak. Zombie enthusiast. Movie & music fan. Slave to her muse.

Yolanda lives in Sydney, Australia with her awesome husband, lovely daughter, and cheeky cat.

She has a new urban fantasy series coming out soon. A PATCH OF DARKNESS will be available from Samhain Publishing on May 15.

Website | Twitter | Goodreads

We will return to the werewolf v vampire debate tomorrow, as I still have lots more guest posts for you! But since today I did the first round of edits on BOUND BY NIGHT, I thought I'd share a sneak peek at the third and final Brides of Darkness novella, The Crow Bride. Mostly because I'm really pleased with the opening chapter for this one.


( Behold! )

Want a glimpse of Daghan, my cursed monk from BOUND BY NIGHT? Then go no further!


( Snippy! )

What do we think? I'm pretty excited about this story being released. Free stuff is always awesome, after all!

We're back to Team Vampire today with Isabella Olivia Ellis. I don't see why everyone is so hung up on werewolf body hair. It only happens once a month, people!


Thank you for having me on your blog today, Naomi.

I am Isabella Olivia Ellis, author of “The Vampire’s Bride” (available April 26th) and “The Vampire’s Second” (available in June).
I hate to seem too predictable, given that my two upcoming Evernight releases are both about vampires, but here goes:

Vampires over werewolves. Anywhere, anytime, and any second of any day. Vampires vastly appeal to me in comparison to wolves on two different levels.

Let’s talk about the physical first. I’m the kind of girl who likes my men lean. I want them to be about six feet of sinewy, lanky man structure (I wanted to say meat there, but it seemed to infer something other than height). When was the last time you saw a husky vampire? Need I say more? Then there is the issue of how hairy werewolves are (helloooo, part-wolf?). I stand up and in my best Valley girl accent I cry “That’s not happening.”

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want a plucked, waxed, and totally bare metrosexual of a vamp. However, I also don’t want a guy so hairy that I could get lost in his chest hair and need a rescue team of Navy SEALS. Though, that does bring very interesting erotic scenarios to mind. Mmmm. Navy SEALS.

Whoa there. Let’s keep on topic, Isabella. Onward, shall we?

I suppose we can meander on to the emotional now. Keep your hands inside the car at all times and don’t touch the dendrites and neurons, please.

The basic idea of werewolves is that they uncontrollably morph at a certain time (usually a full moon), right? They become hairy and are seized with hunger. I imagine there is some moodiness. In fact, probably a lot of moodiness. Doesn’t sound fun to me. It’s like the male version of the worst period you could imagine.

Vampires, even dating far back, have always struck me as elegant and debonair. The kind of man you could take to a dinner party. Sure, he might end up talking a bit too long with a flirty phlembotomist, but he wouldn’t embarrass you by crawling onto the table on all fours and baying at the moon. How does one even begin to explain that?

“Sorry, my boyfriend has a strange allergic reaction to shellfish?”

Imagine the money spent on a tuxedo that is only going to end up ripped once his bulging wolf muscles emerge. Even if he doesn’t morph, the smell alone would probably never Febreeze out. Thanks a lot, Fluffy, Men’s Wearhouse is never going to give me my deposit back.

You know, I simply do not have time for men who act like dogs.
Again, thank you for inviting me on your blog, Naomi.


For all interested:
My website is isabellaoliviaellis.blogspot.com
Facebook: facebook.com/bellaoliviaellis