On The Writing Of Half-Vampire Puberty

[lilithsaintcrow]

There’s an interview with me over at A Good Addictions, where I talk more about process and what Graves’s original name was. I have a couple other interviews to finish and send off today. I have a cup of tea from the bagel shop, my handwarmers are on, and I’m wearing two sweaters. I sincerely hope I don’t have to go anywhere else today. I’ve frozen and thawed about four times already today.

Now, if you’re the squeamish sort, or if you feel threatened by the female body, this post is not for you. *settles into Librarian Mode* We’ll be talking about menstruation and half-vampires. You’ve been warned.

Reader Kayle A. sent me this question not too long ago:

Hi a couple of us just got done reading Betrayls and we loved it but we have a big question. In the book you said that Dru’s blood is like amazing and it drives the djamphir crazy well we were wondering what happens when Aunt Flo visits Dru ya know like when she gets her period?

This is an interesting question, and one I’ve given a fair amount of thought to. Because a half-vampire girl in a school full of half-vampire boys is going to have to solve this problem somehow, or at least the writer of this zany little series is going to have to consider this question and whether to address it.

So far the timeline’s been pretty compressed and Dru hasn’t had to worry about her period–she’s very irregular until she blooms, although I don’t know that anyone has ever come out and told her that. In the book I’m writing now, a werwulfen girl (provisionally named Nathalie and very loosely based on my hairdresser friend C.) answers some of Dru’s questions. This might be one of them, because it amuses me mightily to think of the comic value in such a scene.

Yes, I am a very odd person with a macabre, ironic, and very odd sense of humor.

Basically, when Dru’s on the rag, she absolutely has to use tampons instead of pads. If you consider that djamphir (and wulfen) have very acute senses, including smell, the problem is going to be when blood hits the air. Keeping it from doing so as much as possible is a Good Idea. Of course they’re going to be able to smell her hormonal drift when she’s menstruating, too. So Dru’s just going to have to be a little careful. Since she was supposed to be in classes with individual tutors instead of in the general population with a crowd of boys, it’s not a huge deal. Other than the embarrassment factor of having everyone KNOWING you’re on your rag; but (here I’m going to be honest) when I was her age I felt like everyone could tell anyway. That may or may not have been the case, which raises some interesting questions of perception vs. reality in high school.

I know. This isn’t fair. Biology isn’t fair. Oh well.

However, for Dru and her fellow djamphir, the real problem only comes during combat, when there’s already heightened emotions and a less control for all concerned. Bleeding during a fight is not the same as bleeding once a month.

One of the “rules” of the world I’ve built is that “blooming” is a marker of maturity, the last physical “gate” before the half-vampire’s body settles into the form it will take until “the night hunts them down”, as Bruce (you haven’t met him yet) so memorably puts it. An irregular menstruation while some of the initial biochemical changes are taking place is reasonable, and certain other physical changes will become evident as Dru blooms. Boys get to accomplish their blooming (for them it’s called “hitting the drift”) all at once, and generally earlier than girls. They’re built to be fighters, and the earlier, quicker drift helps them. Svetocha, well…they do have to think about breeding, so their bodies are a little different. Nature gives them an evolutionary edge–becoming toxic to nosferat–at the same time it gives them a sometimes-fitful blooming, the capacity to breed, and all its attendant problems.

Again, biology isn’t fair. And this is a fine metaphor for the stew of hormones kids find themselves in, as well as the difficulty of negotiating the terrain of approaching maturity in our society. It’s less fair for girls than it is for boys. Temptation abounds, many adults won’t answer reasonable questions or try to stop schools from educating teens about their bodies and hormones. The risks of pregnancy and disease, the double standard, social confusion…these are things that are borne more heavily by girls than boys. No, biology is not fair, and life isn’t either.

This brings up something kind of important. When you build a world, it needs to be internally consistent. If you don’t have reasons for things you at least need to think about how you’re going to approach the question. I actually thought a great deal about how Dru was going to approach the problem of her period in a school full of boys who can smell blood. The potential for social disaster is huge. This sort of thing is something every girl in middle to high school has to face, albeit not to the same degree, and it’s rarely talked about without embarrassment and blushing.

Even if I hadn’t planned on putting some sort of discussion of this into the books, I still need to think about it and know it. Worldbuilding is very important, even if the reader only sees the tip of the iceberg. For example, Dante Valentine’s world lives and breathes for me. So much of what I have in my head for that world never made it onto paper. A tiny fraction, less than one percent, made it out. But the bulk of those worldbuilding problems I solved and thought about was the rest of the iceberg underwater, supporting that tiny bit everyone else could see.

So, Kayle, I hope that answers your question. Yes, I do think about these things when it comes to building worlds and characters. I can’t help myself. I want the worlds to be as tight and as internally consistent as possible. I don’t know if I achieve that goal 100%, but it’s not for lack of trying.

Over and out.

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