Fable & The Verbivore

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Episode 163: Vampires and Werewolves

Bethany Stedman

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Ep 163: Vampires and Werewolves Fable & The Verbivore

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This week, we’re continuing our series on monster and spooky stories by unpacking Vampire and Werewolf stories.

We start off by talking about how these stories typically fall along a range between horror and paranormal romance, and they strike some form of balance between danger and sensuality. We also look at the origin of the paranormal romance genre that many of these stories fall within, which links back into Gothic Romance stories like Jane Eyre and often has male leads that reflect some Byronic hero traits.

In this episode, we explore the differences between vampire and werewolf characters and how when they’re placed within a story together they naturally contrast with one another.

  • Vampires - Tend to be older immortals who’ve lived through many ages of man; Often more stoic and serious; Sensual and charming; Maybe had a choice in being turned

  • Werewolves - Tend to be more youthful; More free and impulsive; Wild, untamed, and animalistic; often bitten by accident and had this life thrust upon them

We also touch on some of the tropes that can show up in these stories - ones like Alpa/Omega/Beta, Soulmates, and even Sunshine and the Grump. These stories also often have roots in classic or even dark fairytales - such as Beauty and the Beast - or myths that show contrasting love dynamics - like Hades and Persephone.

As we wrap up this discussion, we discuss how the stories that we tell are a reflection of and a reaction to the time in which we’re creating and how we are all influenced by the stories that come before. That’s simply how creativity works, and we feel it’s empowering to dispel the myth that a story has to be a uniquely original and groundbreaking idea. Your distinctive viewpoint, take, and characters will make whatever story you choose to tell uniquely yours.

We hope you enjoy this conversation. Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

The Verbivore mentions a book that she read on how we create that talks about Picasso and his creative inspirations and influences. That book is The Runaway Species: How Human Creativity Remakes the World by David Eagleman and Anthony Brandt.

Here are a few articles and videos we referenced for this conversation:

We touch on several of our previous podcast episodes. They are as follows:

Books and Films Mentioned:

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
‘Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)