Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer, #98: Writing About Vampires: "Jancinda"

Bella Lagassi as Dracula

I started writing vampire stories about the time the Twilight series was winding down. I did not follow the series. I read one of the book and, for all the criticism of the writing I did not think it was all that bad for a Young Adult novel; I saw the last film and, once more, didn’t think it was stupid or kitschy. In fact, I thought that the twist at the end (that the battle between the two armies of vampires did not really happen but was only virtual reality) was clever. The main thing about Twilight, though, was that it gave vampires a bad name. I saw submission guidelines that said “No Vampire Stories”; some would allow the genre but said “no sparkly vampires.” I had some ideas so came up with my breed of vampire tales. The first one I wrote and published was called “Jancinda,” the name of the female protagonist in the tale. She would become an on-going character.

Vampire literature has changed and developed since it began in early 1800s. The vampires of the earliest stories, The Vampyre by John William Polidori (1819) and Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu (1872) were quite different from Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). Later on, Anne Rice’s novels, such as Interview With a Vampire, changed the vampire “world.” Other writers, like Stephenie Meyer with Twilight, continued to develop and alter the nature of vampire literature. I added my contribution, small though it may be, with the series of stories about the vampire Jancinda Lamott.

Carmilla and Laura

Vampires started out as creatures of complete evil. Dracula was bad and nothing else; no redeeming qualities in him. Carmilla, the lesbian vampire in that novel that bears her name, only wants to satisfy her thirst for blood and her passion for a young human girl, Laura. But by the time of Anne Rice, 1976 and onward, vampires become more complex, conflicted, and multilayered. By the time of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and The Vampire Diaries they are complex characters.

Jancinda Lamott

My character Jancinda crosses over to the world of vampirism one winter night when she is bitten by one of the undead named Julian. Of those bitten, all but one in three thousand die. Some, though, become vampires through this contact, and Jancinda is one of the few that does. When a vampire bites a person who will transform, he or she has the duty to care for them and introduce them to the world of the undying. Julian, however, has no such scruples and leaves Jancinda lying in the snow to die when the sun comes up. A woman named Bonita Perez senses her and takes her into her apartment. The vampire Bonita begins to teach Jancinda how to live the new life she has entered.

Jancinda is able to adapt but struggles with what has happened to her. She has to kill (my vampires only need blood once a month). She sometimes anguishes over the ethics of this. Once she asks a friend, “How can God let something like this happen to us and then hold us responsible for it?” She sets up an online business that does resumes, grant writing, and editing, and does quite well. And she maintains a relationship with a human boyfriend named Wesley.

Bonita

The story “Jancinda” is about this. Wesley is suddenly dumped by Jancinda, wonders why, and persistently asks her why. She will not return his calls. She will not answer his letters. One night, drunk, he goes to her apartment and pounds on the door, demanding entry. To his surprise she lets him in. After some obfuscation, she tells him the truth:  that she has become a vampire.  He is afraid, thinking she is deluded and might kill him in her delusion that she is one of the undead. She proves it to him by showing how she has no reflection. Then he is afraid she will kill him because she is not deluded and wants to get his blood.

Jancinda promises Wesley she will not harm him. He sympathizes. He knows vampires drink blood, but he does not know that being a vampire enhances and sharpens your sexual desire. Jancinda’s vampire nature takes over, and they fall into their old lovemaking routine. He describes Jancinda as passion seizes her:  As I ran my hands over her breasts and stomach and down past the waistband of her shorts, I became aware of changes. Her skin pulsated with bursts of heat—so much heat I thought it might burn my fingers. Her skin paled. Her eyes filled with a fiery, hungry look. I felt her hands run over my back. Her nails had changed to sharp talons. Kissing her and putting my tongue in her mouth, I felt the smooth, sharp spears of fangs.

But their lovemaking does not change things a lot. Wesley sees her from time to time, though she still will not date him. When he runs into her and she is with her vampire friends, it makes him uneasy. They eye him like he’s a very attractive piece of meat they would love to wrap up, carry home, and dine upon.

Later, though, he gets a desperate phone call from Jancinda. She has been in an automobile accident that jammed the doors of her car shut. The police and a crowd of people are there, so can’t use her vampire super-strength to break the doors or transform to a bat and fly away. She asks him to come. He arrives just before dawn. The police say she can go. Hardly able to breathe because the sunrise is upon them, she wraps up in a sun-proof blanket, Wesley secures her in the trunk of his car and delivers her to a “safe house” where she will be shielded from light.

His act of valor makes Jancinda see why she loved him when she was mortal. They begin their relationship once more. Jancinda says she will accommodate him and tell the other vampires to leave him alone. Neither of them know where the relationship will go, but they intend to maintain it. More stories about the vampire Jancinda Lamott would follow.

“Jancinda" appeared in the anthology Bite from the Heart, available on Amazon. Get a copy here. 

If vampire stories are your thing, check out my novella, Sinfonia:  The First Notes on the Lute, A Vampire Chronicle, Part I, available here.

I would love to hear your comments.

Happy reading.