Talking with Tim

July will see the release of Nancy A. Collins‘ third installment in the Vamps (HarperTeen) series: Vamps: After Dark. As detailed in her bio: “Collins is the author of several novels and numerous short stories. In addition, she served a two-year stint for DC Comics’ Swamp Thing series. She is a recipient of the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award and The British Fantasy Society’s Icarus Award, as well as a nominee for the Eisner Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and an International Horror Guild award. Best-known for her groundbreaking vampire character, Sonja Blue, Collins’s works include Dead Man’s Hand, Knuckles and Tales, and Sunglasses After Dark. Her most recent work is the Vamps series, published by HarperCollins. Collins makes her home in Cape Fear, North Carolina, appropriately enough.” My thanks to Collins for the email interview. It’s great that young adult readers are being introduced to her storytelling talents, giving them another novelist to seek out down the road.

Tim O’Shea: How did you first develop the Vamps concept?

Nancy Collins: The vampire society of Old Bloods and New Bloods emerged from a scuttled comic book series I created for Vertigo Comics called “Dhampire”. It was about a half-human/half-vampire hybrid and how he didn’t fit into either world terribly well. For several years I tinkered with the basic structure of that world, extrapolating on it, until it became the VAMPS world. I had the society and social structure down, but didn’t have a storyline/plot to go with it until my agent suggested that I try and pitch it as a YA series. After that, it was merely a matter of creating the various teenaged vampires and their families.

O’Shea: You’ve had your work optioned for TV and film development in the past. Are you optimistic about the prospects for success with the Vamps development opportunity?

Collins: Yes, I’m optimistic. Granted, the development phase of a television show or movie can be extremely long, arduous and frustrating. There’s a reason why the advertising says “Years in the making!”

O’Shea: You utilize humor in your novels, how do you pace the humor so it does not derail your storytelling or throw off the overall pacing of the novel?

Collins: I try to make the humor an outgrowth of a character’s personality, so it usually comes in the form of wisecracks or sarcastic observations. I try and steer away from slapstick/physical comedy in my books, which, in my opinion, doesn’t translate well to the written word. However, I am something of an absurdist, and I enjoy comedy & laughing as much as I enjoy a good horror movie. So sometimes I include absurd bits of humor, such as the half-wolf Fella in WILD BLOOD, who is the product of a wolf mother and werewolf father, essentially being a huge dog with thumbs, which he uses to roll the car windows down and open his own dog food. One of my dearest friends, Del Close, pretty much invented improv comedy, and he was HUGE horror fan (Robert Bloch in particular), so clearly there is a correlation between scares and laughs.

O’Shea: Do you have friends or family read your drafts before you turn them into your editor?

Collins: Sometimes by fiancé will look at what I’m doing, or I’ll read some of it aloud to him to see if I’m getting my point across correctly. Although with VAMPS my 17-year-old nephew, Joshua, read the first six chapters as a test audience.

O’Shea: You enjoy a variety of musical genres, including rock, R & B, surf, bluegrass, and blues music. Can you listen to music while you write, or do you require absolute silence?

Collins: I can listen to music when I write, but it has to be instrumental for the most part. I can listen to music with lyrics during the editing stage, however.

O’Shea: Making the transition to writing for young adults, what have been the biggest benefit that you’ve gained?

Collins: I think I’ve learned to make my plotting and writing far more streamlined. It is easy to fall into padding your sentences with extraneous qualifiers when you’re writing for the adult market, since they expect you to produce a 90K-150K word novel, even when the story is only worth 75K words. When you’re turning in 50-60K novels, you have to be far more succinct in your storytelling.

O’Shea: Is it too early to discuss your potential project (“a book proposal for a new supernatural series based on fairy tales my grandmother used to tell me”)–if so, can I at least ask if it’s targeted for teens or not?

Collins: It’s called BILLIE AND THE HOBS and it’s aimed at a general audience, meaning that kids as young as 9-10 can read it, but so can adults. I wanted to write something more along the classic children’s literature that influenced me growing up, ala Charlotte’s Web, A Wrinkle In Time, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, The Thirteen Clocks, etc. It’s a Southern Gothic fairy tale, set in 1910s Arkansas. I’ve described it as a cross between Narnia and To Kill A Mockingbird. It has fairies, hobgoblins, catfish mermaids, gator men, mule-centaurs and a one-eyed witch-queen who rides around on a giant mosquito the size of a horse. Right now the book proposal is making the rounds. We’ll see if anyone is willing to take a chance on it.

O’Shea: I see mention of John Kennedy Toole at your website, along those lines have you ever read Walker Percy?

Collins: I read the Moviegoer, years ago. I used to see Walker Percy from time to time when I lived in New Orleans, and spoke to him once or twice. He was a genuine Southern gentleman. I also met Tennessee Williams once, a year or two before he passed away. It was at a Carnival season drag show at the old Pink Flamingo on St. Charles Avenue. He was a real character.

O’Shea: Again, pulling from your author site, you mention an admiration for the fictional character Philip Marlowe–what do you admire about the character?

Collins: I admire his personal ethics. Despite being surrounded by corruption and sleaze, he manages to stay true to whatever deal he has agreed to. He’s a man of his word, even if living up to his side of the bargain costs him everything, which makes him a true Romantic. He’s one of the most ethical characters in fiction.

O’Shea: Back to VAMPS, what did you set out to achieve with the first two novels (in terms of character development/setting up the VAMPS universe). And what do you hope to achieve with next month’s release?

Collins: The 3rd installment, AFTER DARK, sets in motion events that will change the lives of all of the characters forever—some in a good way, others in a decidedly bad way. You also get an idea of how extreme the ongoing war between Old Blood society and the Van Helsing Institute has become. There’s a lot of action, drama, break-ups, hook-ups, secrets, and a fashion show.

O’Shea: In the course of writing the VAMPS novels, which of the characters have grown on you the most and that you find you look forward to writing into the story?

Collins: I’ve really enjoyed writing for Exo (Xander Orlock) and his family. The Orlocks are the most stereotypical ‘monstrous’ family in the series (the father looks like the title character in Nosferatu), but they are also one of the most sympathetic—Count Orlock adores his wife, his wife genuinely loves him in return, he is supportive of his sons, and is viewed a loyal friend and wise advisor. I also like Cally Monture, who is conflicted by her half-human heritage—she is very capable, no-nonsense, and self-reliant, but at the same time she yearns to be fully accepted by her father and live a ‘normal’ teenager’s life. Or as normal as it gets when you’re a vampire.

O’Shea: What’s on the horizon for you creatively?

Collins: I’ve just finished a book proposal for a contemporary dark fantasy series, this one aimed at adults, called Golgotham. It’s about the romance between a human artist and a witch. It’s set in an alternate universe, where magic not only exists, every major metropolitan area has a supernatural ghetto where creatures such as leprechauns, sprites, centaurs, etc. live in the open and trade with human society. The ghetto in New York City is located in the Lower East Side, and is called Golgotham. It’s my take on Bell, Book & Candle, I guess. I’m also working on a book proposal for a new Sonja Blue novel, the first in nearly 10 years.