Vampires and Reality

I am all for authors being creative. After all I make crap up all the time in my writings. The difference (and my complaint) is when people get creative and try to call it something it is not. While listening to a conversation about Twilight someone applauded Stephenie Meyer for her creativity in creating her so called vampires. They don’t understand why so many people are upset with her ‘vampires.’ They say she put her own spin on things and made a new story out of an old topic. No. That’s not what she did. She instead created a new creature and tried to pass it off as something it was not. She was writing a child’s love story and probably decided to add these creatures (which may have worked if she continued to be creative and introduced these creatures for what they were something new and different). She was even being creative when she thought about these creatures that sucked blood and got all sparkly in the sunlight; however, she failed (miserably I might add) when she tried to pass these things off as vampires. They clearly are NOT vampires. They more closely resemble fairies which in stories past have been known to have an evil side and bite people. Vampires on the other hand have always been creatures of the night and while there are some variances to their characteristics they remained nocturnal creatures who exchanged living a normal life for eternal life lived in the darkness. They never came out in the sun and sparkled. EVER! Vampires will forever remain an evil creature of the night. There is no such thing as a kinder gentler sparkly vampire. Even if your vampire is nice and likable he still will NOT sparkle in the sun. If he does he is NOT a vampire. My advice for writers is to continue to be creative and come up with new twists to a story. After all that is what writing is about. But if you create a new creature, give that creature a new name. Don’t try to pass it off for something that it is not! That’s like coming across a mountain lion and calling it a bear! If you don’t properly name your creature the readers will balk, and you will just look stupid for not knowing the difference between a mountain lion and a bear, or in the case of Stephanie Meyers, a vampire and a fairy.

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