Bob has got to be the worst vampire in the world. Without a guide to learn how to be a good vampire, he's making it up as he goes along... while holding down a day job.
[Previously Featured #2 Vampire ]
*****
Everything I'm about to tell you is a li...
That's it guys. Sorry. Story's over, now you can all go home.
This novel has changed so much from what it used to be. I finished the first version in April 2014, patted myself on the back for finishing and dived right into what I thought was the sequel at the time. Something strange happened while I got deeper into SO YOU USED TO BE HUMAN: I got to know the characters a hell of a lot better and really started having fun with the story in a way I hadn't before.
The initial premise for Bob's story was me trying to find out why he was such a badass vampire, but I instead discovered all of the reasons that he wasn't a badass and that was a lot more refreshing to write. I got to deconstruct the myths of the vampire that we all knew from pop culture and that was a hell of a lot of fun since I got to reconstruct and make sense of the nonsense so that it felt like vampires could actually exist in our world.
These vampires know all the stories. They exist in secret, but they also use Twitter and Instagram and do everything they can to thrive. But they probably have really shitty Twitter feeds.
What was I saying about what I learned? Oh right: my style of writing had changed. In fact, the way that I approached the story was very different.
When I discovered Wattpad, I dived right in and just wrote by the seat of my pants, making it up as I went along. This time with the sequel, I sat down and asked myself "What is this chapter about?" I was approaching the new chapters thematically and asking all of the hard questions about what the characters wanted from each other. It wasn't a huge outline of the entire story, but it always kept me writing and challenging the characters in realistic ways. By the end of the writing the sequel, just looking between the two books caused this huge disconnect that was driving me crazy.
When I was asked to write a screenplay of the first novel, that process made me realize just how flawed and meandering the first novel was. To be honest, writing the screenplay made me realize what themes were strongest and how I could apply it to the story.
Here's where writing on Wattpad is useful and sometimes fun: I could actually go back and do a full rewrite.
So I got an editor and we spent about nine months hashing out the story that used to be SO YOU MIGHT BE A VAMPIRE. I went in with 118K words. After adding new chapters and more character development, I had reached 120K words in the rewrite and was at what used to be the midpoint of the story, but for me, was feeling very much like it was the end of the story. So we made the decision: find the natural ending of the story and continue writing a second book based on the rest of the story. The evolution of the story now deserved a new name, and SO I MIGHT BE A VAMPIRE was born.
That book, that full rewrite is what you just read and I'm incredibly proud of the work I've done with my editor Nikki Barran.
I hope you have laughed your ass off, groaned at Bob's asshattery and found some reason to love Bob despite his flaws. He's a terrible human being and a worse vampire but there's something charming about him because he just keeps trying, no matter how fucked up things get.
You can continue following Bob's story in the new sequel "SO I'M A VAMPIRE... NOW WHAT?" for more wacky and unpredictable vampire stories and maybe after I'm done that, I can finally get back to editing the next book, especially now that these characters have given me such rich lives and experiences to continue writing about.
You can order your own copy of SO I MIGHT BE A VAMPIRE from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other online retailers.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
