Vampires and Demons and Hitmen, Oh My!

If you’re even passingly familiar with my work, then you’ll have noticed I tend to gravitate to certain tropes. Like, a lot. The top three are: vampires, demons, and hitmen/organized crime. There are definitely others (and I’ll likely do a part two for this post), but these tend to be the most common. Anyway, I thought I’d do a little public self-reflection and attempt to explain WHY I return to these particular monstrous wells again and again. Let’s dive in.

Vampires

Goddamn, do I love me some vampires, which can be tough as a writer as they are still generally maligned in editorial circles unless you do something really different with them. What attracts me to vampires is less the monstrous aspects of the bloodsuckers and more what remains of their humanity. Although I certainly dabble with vampires as pure monsters, I really like the idea of exploring certain aspects of humanity through the lens of the undead and immortal. I’m certainly not unique in this approach, though I do tend to shy away from more romantic interpretations (though, there’s nothing wrong with that). My favorite premise is the vampire where you don’t expect them: baseball, Uber drivers, ER nurses, dentists, etc. That juxtaposition of the mundane and the monstrous, where a put-upon vampire has to grit their fangs and deal with shitty customers/patients just tickles me to no end.

If you’d like to check out some of my published vampire pieces (that are also free to read/listen to, here are some of the better ones.

1. Night Games – Pseudopod
2. Second Bite – Metastellar
3. Childish Things – The Arcanist

Demons

My favorite subgenre of horror films is demon-possession, and to say that they’ve influenced my work is quite the understatement. Though I’m an atheist, I was raised evangelical Christian, so demons and Satan and all that were a big part of my childhood. (Fun, huh?). So, it’s not too surprising that fallen angels and the denizens of hell make frequent appearances in my work and not always as monsters/villains. My demons tend to be of the Judeo-Christian variety simply because that’s the mythology I’m most familiar with. Like vampires, demons are great for exploring the human condition, and they tend to lend themselves to stories about anger, betrayal, and regret. This is not to say that I don’t sometimes use demons as simple boogeymen, but my favorite stories are the ones where the demons are more nuanced characters or even protagonists.

Some of my published demon-centric stories.

1. Small Evil – The Arcanist
2. Removal Day – Factor Four Magazine
3. Coin Flip – Flash Point SF

Hitmen/Organized Crime

I’m an absolute sucker for a good mafia/organized crime move/series, and I’ve watched Goodfellas, Casino, Eastern Promises, and a slew of shows like Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and The Jackal more times than I can count. Hitmen, especially, intrigue me, and it’s no surprise they show up in my work a lot. I think a lot of this comes down to my love of the antihero, and what’s more antiheroic than someone who kills for money. Now, I of course know that REAL hitmen and organized crime is nothing like how it’s portrayed in popular media, so it’s essentially crime-coded fantasy. Speaking of fantasy, one of my favorite things to do is mix organize crime with my other favorite tropes, so, yeah, I’ve published stories about vampire hitmen, demons that work for the mob, and, of course, a bunch of just straight up crime fiction. I don’t mean to repeat myself here, but I think the reason I’m drawn to this trope is what it says about people in general, and how, especially with organized crime, a lot of the bad decisions and terrible things people do is a result of feeling like they have no other choice. That’s a bit reductionist, of course, and there’s certainly more nuance to be had in the genre, but for a broad strokes motivation, it’s compelling.

Here are some of my hitmen stories, both pure crime and hybrid horror pieces.

1. The Ripple Effect – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
2. Grandfather’s Pond – Flash Point SF
3. Drums – The Arcanist

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And there’s a tiny little peak into why I write what I write. Although vampires, demons, and hitmen are certainly the most common, I have been known to write stories centering on zombies, time travel, and dinosaurs pretty frequently, so I’ll discuss those in an upcoming article and hopefully impart something more compelling than, hey, I just like ’em. 😉

Thoughts on my overused tropes/monsters? What tropes do you tend to fall back on? Tell me about it in the comments.