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A good question. Mara McCuniff, which is pronounced MARE-uh Mic-CYOO-niff, is the name of my first and favorite published
character. Her first appearance was in my first novel, The Vampire Memoirs, which was written during college and published
shortly after I graduated.
Since I have a "thing" for vampires, she happens to be one, too, but in the
category of the Reluctant Vampire. She was sort of forced into that whole immortality thing, you see. At the time (the late
4th Century, actually), she was happily married, had kids, good friends, and was pretty well off, with servants, and so on.
An ancient vampire showed up one day who didn't give a damn about that, and had somehow come to the conclusion that she was
destined to be his bride. And therein began her adventures as a very reluctant member of the undead.
I played
around with the whole vampire mythos with her by making her possibly the nicest person you could ever meet. She's gregarious,
kind, gentle, compassionate, loving, generous, and loves people and children. No, not to eat for breakfast. She's married
to a human and has two adopted children and loves them all to pieces. Her best friend Jackie is a vampire, too, but overall
she prefers the company of humans and would rather discuss Danielle Steele novels than the plight of vampires in the modern
world.
That being said, rather than stick with the two books that she appears in (The Vampire Memoirs and The Vampire
Journals), I also think up short stories about her. Usually they're stories that put her into other people's work, which
is more familiarly known as "fanfiction" or "fanfic." As a published author, I admit a certain trepidation
with delving into that decidedly amateurish route for creating stories about an otherwise original character. After all,
people are getting their fanfic pulled by overzealous legal departments of film and TV studios. And what right do I have
to stick my character into say, an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer?? Who do I think I am, huh?
No one, really.
Obviously I got over the discomfort of writing derivative fiction, or I wouldn't have the links below for you to play with.
As for getting pulled by overzealous legal departments, I do wonder how that would play out. After all, I have every right
to put up stories about my copyrighted character, even though her guest stars do happen to be owned by other people. Hmmmmm....
Well, I won't snitch on you if you don't snitch on me, heh heh.
Mara Meets Buffy
Mara Meets Buffy Again
The Last Sith
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