AtoZChallenge 2015: R is for Re-Imagining
Welcome to our AtoZ Challenge. Our theme here at Wittegen Press this year is ‘why’, specifically, why have we, as authors, written the titles we have. And, each day, the book we’re talking about will be FREE.
Of all the titles I have released, Night Blood has been on the longest journey and has been re-imagined three times.
I began writing it when I was 15, shortly after I fell in love with the vampire genre through The Lost Boys. I thought the revamp (pun intended) of vampires in the 80’s was brilliant, and I adore these modern fangs. The Lost Boys showed me that vampires can have up-to-date style and still be deadly. Fright Night. on the other hand, showed how an old vampire must adapt to the modern world. These stories were so different from the likes of Dracula that they instantly inspired me to start my own tale of the supernatural.
Most of the vampire movies I loved then were American, and most of the TV shows I watched too, so, of course, naive writer that I was, I began to write my story set in America too. In fact, I finished three stories with Tom Franklin over the next couple of years. Then, like everything else I wrote back then, with no internet and only my sister to share my stories with, Tom was laid to rest in a filing cabinet.
It wasn’t until I got to university and started writing fanfic that I pulled Tom’s stories out of their box. That is when I began my first re-imagining. Working with friends on the internet on fanfic taught me that I did not really know enough about American culture to base my plot and my characters there, so I moved the stories to the UK, Cornwall to be precise. I pretty much just filed off the serial numbers in this rework, changing place names, but not much of the story. This time, though, Tom ended up relegated to a file on a harddrive when things like passing my exams got in the way.
I never forgot about Tom Franklin, my half-blood vampire, though, and when I finally took the leap into publishing, this was the second story I worked on. This time, I took my original story and, with skills I’d been honing in the fanfic arena for years, I ripped the story apart and put it back together into a more mature story. Thus, I published Death In The Family as I first called it.
My sales were slow, but what reviews I had were good. There was something wrong, but I didn’t think it was with the plot. So I looked at other things, and concluded that my chosen title and that of the series, Heritage is Deadly, might be putting people off. Final re-imagining was with the title, I changed it and the title of the series to Night Blood – punchier and hitting my market’s keywords.
So, that’s how I came to where I am today, and I am now working on the sequel, Witch Blood.
There have been a lot of re-imaginings of movies and TV shows of late – what do you think about them, do you have one you think really worked, or totally failed?
FREE Book Offer
Night Blood by Sophie Duncan
Code for FREE download at Smashwords*: RM76A
Leaving a good London school with solid prospects, Tom Franklin has the world at his feet. Yet one thing has always haunted his perfect life: his dreams. When Tom discovers that the nightmarish images of dark places and even darker instincts are in fact repressed memories from his early childhood, he must face the heritage from his birth-father, a savage vampire known only as Raxos.
Realising his memories are his only hope of controlling his awakening instincts, Tom returns to, Coombedown, the sleepy, Cornish village in which he was born, unknowing that the night-breed in his veins will lead him into danger.
“Night Blood” is a young adult, paranormal novel.
This is the first story in “The Night Blood Chronicles”.
*Click Smashwords to go to the book on their site. Click the buy option. Put the code in the Coupon Code box, click ‘apply coupon’ and the book will be free. Coupon is only guaranteed to be valid for 21st April so please use immediately.
Our other AtoZ blogs: Tasha’s Thinkings | Sophie’s Thoughts and Fumbles| FB3X (AC)
AtoZChallenge List 2015 click to see other participants.
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