Dracula and the Wolfman exchange fashion tips.

Through my own stubbornness and need to be a special snowflake, I’ve written myself into a predicament in my Monster Haven stories.

When I began writing Monster in My Closet, I set myself some ground rules:

No weapons or martial arts for my heroine
No leather outfits
No angst, snarkiness born of past hurts, or inability to get close to people
No werewolves
No vampires

The first three were easy. Zoey has her own warped sense of style, and I think she’d feel uncomfortable clad all in leather. She has no physical defenses, and has to be dragged to the gym by Sara. If she had a gun, she’d probably shoot herself in the foot.  And she’s an empath, so getting emotionally close to people is kind of her thing. Not a problem.

But the last two rules are a bit of a puzzle. There’s no shortage of interesting creatures vying for Zoey’s attention. Book two, Pooka in My Pantry, has many of the Hidden from the first book, plus a whole new batch. Right now, I’m working on the third book, and the variety is so great, I have to keep a list of who/what is in the house.

I’ve explained how the Hidden came to be, since I’m not satisfied with monsters and urban legends sharing the world with humans without some idea of how they were created. They came from us, sort of. The Hidden were born from the spark of human imagination, then evolved on their own from there.

Um, so why aren’t there any werewolves or vampires? We certainly tell plenty of stories to spark their existence into reality.

It could be argued that the stories are relatively new in human history, so weres and vamps haven’t gained much of a footing. Creating that rule would be a catastrophe. First of all, I’d have to stop everything and read up on the complete history of vampire and shapeshifter folklore.  I would not hate that. It would consume me, and nothing would get done for a very long time.

More importantly, if I veto those creatures based on how long we’ve been telling stories about them, I can’t ever use a chupacabra. That’s not going to happen. I’ve been holding on to the chupacabra research for some time now, waiting for a chance to use it as a character, even if it’s just a cameo. I freakin’ love chupacabra stories.

Worse, that would also knock out the Mothman. And let me tell you, my Mothman is incredibly important in book three, Fairies in My Fireplace. I’m not going to say much more, but I can’t do this without him. He’s also instrumental in book one of the next series (tentatively titled Djinn Fizz).

So. No werewolves? No vampires? I think I have to revisit the rules I set for myself in the beginning. The rules of the Hidden world have to outweigh the arbitrary snowflake rules I set for myself.

If anything is possible in my world, then bloodsuckers and lychans can’t be impossible.

Anybody have suggestions? Where are all the vamps and weres?