Traditionalist with a twist

x/posted from Fangs, Fur & Fey


TOPIC: How do you pick the sort of creature/being you utilize?

Personally, I like to have my cake and eat it ;) I wanted to write about vampires, and faeries, and witches, and goblins, and trolls, and all those other creatures that fuel our fears and dreams in the myths and legends. So that’s what I’ve done. I’ve kept the majority of the traditional elements, (such as vampires surviving on blood and forgoing the suntan *g*) and then set it all in a contemporary London, along with my own little twists tweaks here and there.

My twists come when I spend time daydreaming researching my world. One of the myths I find fascinating is that of the sidhe fae wanting to seduce humans. When you look at it from the human side, it’s a great way to explain away that unwanted pregnancy, or the young man who runs away leaving his responsibilities on the farm behind – you can just blame it on something that you have no control over. But if you look at it from the sidhe point of view, it doesn’t stack up. I mean, if you’re such a beautiful being, living amongst others like yourself, are you really going to want to seduce some poor farm girl who happened to be feeding the hens. Is a faerie queen going to be so desperate as to steal away the lad that milks the cows? Nu-huh, somehow I don’t think so.

So I asked myself why. Why would this happen, what would encourage the sidhe to be attracted to humans, and how would it affect not just the sidhe, but also the humans, and other non-human races. How would this cause the world to evolve? How would they all interact together? What difference would technology make? And endless, endless other questions ;)

Then I got into daydreaming researching my main character. In the world I’d created, what race would she be? What problems would that cause her? How would she deal with them? What sort of job would she have? What emotional baggage would she carry with her from before the story started? Why would she be special to the other characters? And what would they want from her?

Which is how Genevieve Taylor, a sidhe fae, who works for spellcrackers.com came into being ;)

Suzanne McLeod
www.myspace.com/suzannemcleod.