Thoughts on vampires

When you choose to write about vampires, you realise just how many different types of them there are in modern culture.

Having been doing a little research on the subject - partly to check that I'm not unintentionally ripping more people off than I think - it's been interesting to read about how vampire-esque myths appear in lots of cultures. The 'modern' vampire vampire beliefs that went supernova after Dracula appear to have emerged from Eastern Europe around 1700, but there are lots of similar references to undead people rising from the grave to feed upon the living in other cultures from long before that.

With so many myths and legends around, it's easy to weave a version out of it that suits your story, which is what I've been attempting. (As TV Tropes puts it, Our Vampires Are Different) I've been quite influenced by a couple of TV versions of the myth - British TV's Being Human and Ultraviolet. Both of those treat the vampire as a continuation of the human they were before being turned, and so not necessarily evil by creation, but by choice. Both present the vampire as a being of power, but that power comes from having sacrificed something, which led me to the idea for my central character. What if someone in a universe like this had been turned without choosing it? How would she choose to live after that? From there, I've also brought in a concept that there are a number of ways in which a vampire in this world can choose to live - every one of them has some kind of cost, but the value of that cost depends on the sort of person you are. You're damned by your decisions and your choices, not your nature.

It's been interesting to write so far, and creates some good moral dilemmas to work from. Plus, the characters that have resulted from these thoughts are springing to life and driving the plot along for me, which is always a good thing. Even I'm not completely sure where it's going, which motivates me to write more so I can find out.