I was asked a couple of weeks ago to be part of The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance 2. The problem was that I had no vampire ideas and had pretty much said that in 2004 when it was suggested I write a vampire romance back then. So even though I agreed to be part of the collection of short stories, I had to gulp as I said yes. Not only did I have to write short–something that isn’t natural for me–I had to write a vampire love story.
This is new territory for me in another way as well. Always before, the characters have come to me first and then I worked to fit them into a project if I needed to. This is the first time ever that I had the project and the parameters of it first and nothing else. No characters. Not anywhere!
Panic didn’t quite set in, but I was soliciting help from my writing buddies. I had a chance to chat with one of them and she suggested an idea. It wasn’t the direction I was leaning, but it was interesting. I spent three or four days mulling it over, but I wasn’t getting scenes or real characters. What I had was a lot of talking and not good dialogue. It was complete info dump stuff.
And then I heard this voice in my head. It was feminine. She was a vampire, she’d been in love with a demon. Hmm, I thought, this could be interesting. I heard about vampire clan structure–at least what she knows of it–but that was about it. No conflict. No real story.
Then yesterday, as I was walking out to my car from the Evil Day Job, I hear–in first person–that demons and vampires are enemies. I think I just found my conflict! I still don’t have a story, and figuring out the short part is going to be a huge challenge, but I now have a heroine! I don’t know her name, but she’s there. The hero is hanging around, too, but he’s still shadowy and I don’t have a good grip on him yet, but I can see him and I have an idea on his name.
This is why I totally ♥ my subconscious. It went to work and came up with an idea I’m actually getting excited about writing. The other fun thing is though I hadn’t planned to do much world building–not in this length–I’m getting all kinds of info there as well. How cool is this?
The problem is that while my memory is quite good, it’s not good enough to remember the types of small details I need to insert into the book.
