Lost in the Castle

Author's note

First and foremost, a huge THANK YOU goes to everyone who has read this part of the story-- the first book-- till the end!

There were moments when I thought I'd never come this far in writing it-- some particularly challenging chapters (the old records about the Impaler are pretty hazy), the thought that so much had already been written about Dracula and vampires, the question 'How on earth am I going to explain Samara's rebirth, time travel and the fact that Vlad is still there?'...

Well, I thought then, you put yourself through this. You started, now you're not giving up. And I'll get to what my mind came up with, all the reasons and explanations, in the second, and the third part.

In the meantime, let me tell you that all this book started as a piece of flash fiction, written for a Halloween prompt: 'Write a two thousand words long story (that's the first chapter) using a character called Sam, male or female, who gets lost in Bran Castle on a Halloween night after following a mysterious guide down a corridor that had been cordoned off...' As the prompt was given by the Wattpad Time Travel profile, there was supposed to be that bit too.

When I decided to continue the short story, and make it a novel, I realised that I had complicated my life a lot by making my guide Vlad Dracul himself... It took me a while to research his history...

Some characters I used really existed-- Vlad, Radu, Junior (Vlad's third son), Jusztyna (his third wife; she wasn't really a princess, but she was from an important family, related to a king), Petru Rareş, the Knights of the Order of the Dragon, even Samara (not under this name, but she was Vlad's first wife whose identity is unclear). Of course, I changed them all to fit my story, made them vampires, altered or twisted a few facts, and if I ever meet any of them, I'll apologize for that.

I tried to be accurate with the period details and descriptions, but I'm not a historian. I owe my knowledge to Google, Wikipedia and some very interesting websites.

The story is set in the late medieval / early Renaissance period -- America hasn't been discovered yet, the fork has been in use for about ten years and only by the King and Queen of Portugal and their court so far, and the printing press was invented some twenty years before.

It doesn't need to be perfectly accurate though, the place is sort of 'separated from the main stream of time', it's not 'frozen in time', not even a 'time loop', but as it evolved on it's own, it lacks our technology and has its own rules, laws and rhythm of life. I'll get to explain this better in the second book. Hopefully I won't disappoint you.

What else? I set the story one year back in time-- Samara travels to Romania in October twenty-eighteen even though I started writing this book one year later. That's due to the situation in our world right now, the lockdown... I need the characters to travel freely and it wouldn't be possible if I didn't move it...

Thank you so very much again, if you want, the first chapter of the second book, Lost without you, is already out there, so you can put it in your library.
There will be weekly updates (once a week only, until I have all 'on paper' and start editing 🙂).

The new matching covers are made by Novel_Worm
Thank you!

A special thanks goes to Gadralneure who became my very helpful advisor and extremely patient editor from the day I published the first chapter, ten months ago.
Your help and support had been invaluable throughout!

Keep writing everyone, never give up. Remember, your stories just cannot please everyone, you must ignore those unpleasant comments... 'Your descriptions sound like from the cheapest romance novels', 'Your punctuation is all wrong and it is annoying', 'I don't get it!', 'Of course it's Halloween, and Dracula, what else?', 'If she wanted to read a book, why did she come to that castle at all, she should have stayed at home.'  😁 Yes, these are some of those I've received. They don't precisely lift your mood, they can even spoil your day, but if you listen to everybody, you'll do nothing. Or, better, your story won't be yours anymore, if you start changing it according to all that you hear.

So just choose your way, start walking, don't stop and see where it will take you. 😄

Most importantly, have fun writing! (Some say that good writing is not about having fun-- well, I don't agree. Because if you don't enjoy what you are doing, then who will?)

Hope to hear from you on the following book.

Silvia

●Book one is also partly published on Tapas, but the entire Lost in the Castle trilogy is only available on Wattpad.