Bizarre Love Triangle

I've been reading a few books lately and toying with an idea or two that revolves around the plot of a love triangle. You know, that crazy, often sticky kind of relationship where one person is being pulled in two different directions...sometimes because of lust, sometimes love...either way, things tend to get messy when there's three instead of two.

It occurred to me that I don't really like that kind of plot device...it makes me anxious, and at times, angry. To be torn between two opportunities, to have to make a choice...it's hard on the heroine (or hero) and on the reader and on the writer. And yet I always get totally sucked in (have actually written a thing or two involving a triangle). So why the fascination? Why do we love the triangle scenario so much?

We are a society that tends to value monogamy right? We quest for the one true love. We want the happily ever after. I'm thinking about writing something that doesn't end that way. What if the heroine (or hero) makes the wrong choice? What if they don't realize what they had until it was gone? Then what? Can the damage be repaired? Broken hearts are hard to mend. They carry scars that are unforgiving.

I'm intrigued by the love triangle...you can thank Peeta and Katniss (and Gale) for this. They got me thinking. It's time to shake things up a bit. It's time to make my heroine bleed.

*Rubs hands together* Let's get to work. Insert evil laugh here.

Have We Castrated our Vampires?

I've been thinking a lot about the current state of our vampire world. I mean...the main stream, universally accepted vampire world. Now, don't get me wrong, there are many, many novels and movies out there that depict vampires in various ways. In general though, when we talk vampires, nowadays, most people think the romantic hero kind of vampire. The suave, beautiful, desirable vampire. The hero with a dark side or the villain with a good side. And I don't dislike this type of vampire...unless it's the sparkly kind...but I feel like there's something missing...like we've castrated our monsters, defanged the fanged, turned our nightmare into our fantasy.

I've been craving the blood and gore kinda vampire. The ghoulish monster who will rip limbs off and suck them dry. The kind of vampire who stalks the streets in search of prey...not the kind who stalks the halls of the local high school in search of a girl friend. I want to be scared. I want to have nightmares. I want to read about vampires who need to be destroyed, who deserve to be destroyed. Like Dracula...Stoker's version...the kind of vampire who eats babies and corrupts young innocent women, not for love but for pure, animalistic pleasure.

I want to move away (at least for a while) from the whole idea that vampires, that monsters, are simply misunderstood. That deep down they have hearts that love and consciences that keep them from being truly evil. Really, what are we teaching our youth? That monsters are really good? That there's nothing to fear? That we need to just give them a chance? It's a terrible injustice to the next generation when you think about it. We've set them up to be little, naive lambs...we've gifted them a world where vampires can be boyfriends who have enough self control that they suck animal blood instead of human. And we've made them practically unkillable...but that's a topic for another post.

Now, I know you're all thinking, Angie, why don't you write that kind of novel? Well, folks, because I'm a hypocrite...and a romance writer and although I want to be scared by a brutal vampire killer, I can't bear the thought of veering too far away from my own vampire heroes. So, this is a call out to someone, anyone, who is brave enough...write me a monster...give our vampires back their balls.