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Do Female Vampires Menstruate?

November 18, 2024

Criticism, Literature, Philosophy

genre, Gothic, literature, philosophy, reality

“Of course not, you idiot”, I hear the pedant telling me, “female vampires don’t menstruate because vampires don’t exist”. Well, not so fast. Remember my post on whether narrative worlds are real. Yes, vampires are fictional. But reality is another point altogether.

Nonetheless, let’s not get caught in semantics. Most of us agree that vampires aren’t “real” in the sense that we might bump into one in the supermarket – buying tampons?

And yet, as a Gothic scholar and overall someone interested in vampires, the question has intrigued me: Would female vampires menstruate? What would it mean in terms of their ontology? After all, blood is directly connected with a vampire’s existence. The absence of any reference in literature and art in general is deafening. So, since there are no answers that I have found, I decided to write this post and give them myself.

Do Female Vampires Menstruate? Image of goth woman.
A vampire’s existence is directly connected with blood: They consume it and must be careful not to have theirs spilled carelessly. So, in this context, whether female vampires menstruate or not seems to be a crucial question with important repercussions about their ontology; what they really are…
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Understanding Depth in Fiction

June 3, 2024

Fiction Writing Tips, Writing

creativity, fiction, literature, reality, writing

For most people, depth in fiction sounds like a good thing, right? Just as we conflate vivid descriptions or rich vocabulary with high-quality writing, having a deep narrative must be a great thing, right? Right?

The thing is, there are so many fluid variables in the statement “Depth in fiction is a good thing” that it’s impossible to answer that in any sense-making manner before we truly focus on what it is we’re talking about.

That’s what I’m planning to do in this post.

I’ll first offer some definitions and reflection points on what constitutes depth in fiction and whether it’s always a good thing (sneak preview: it ain’t), and then I’ll list some ways that could add depth to your narrative – if you decide you need it.

depth in fiction. image of woman looking at the sea
This might seem just like a random stock photo to convey the concept of (visual) “depth”, however there is a subtle element crucial to my argument on depth in fiction. Namely, the balance between depth and width. If the camera angle was wide (imagine a drone image, high above the person), we wouldn’t quite get the same sense of depth as we do here.
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What Is Fiction? The Problem of Defining Reality

April 8, 2024

Literature

creativity, fiction, literature, reality, society, writing

I love deceptively simple questions. “What is fiction?” definitely counts because, on the surface, it appears childishly obvious. One might say “Fiction is writing stories that aren’t real”, or something of the sort. Probably you couldn’t even entirely disagree with that. And yet, this is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Obviously enough, if we want to talk about fiction and reality (aren’t they, after all, supposed to be antonyms?) there are special cases, too. “What is fiction?” seems to have a different answer if we offered as an example fantasy fiction, and yet a different one if we talked about, say, historical fiction. And what about memoirs? Not to mention the crazy notion (of yours truly) that all books are autobiographical.

The problem of comprehensively answering the question “What is fiction?” boils down to two main issues:

  • Who is the author of a work?
  • What is reality?

I told you, I love deceptively simple questions. “The author of a work is the person who wrote it, you dummy!” I hear someone telling me. The same person might even roll their eyes hearing me asking what is reality.

But, as you will see in this post, neither of these questions has a clear answer. And this complicates our attempt to answer “what is fiction?” as well. Though worry not, I’ll face the challenge!

“What is fiction?” is not a question that can be answered with recourse to whether it depicts reality or not, but whether it’s predicated on affect
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