Carmilla from Castlevania
There’s only so much I can say about the Vampire Queen considering her past and actions are the main part of War of Nytefall: Rivalry. Yet, I can reveal her true name, which is Jewelz. I can share a little bit of her history too without going into the details, but we’re also going to see where she came from. After all, the previous characters got their origin posts, so why not her?
Way back, I used to goof off on AOL Instant Messenger and sometimes it was role-playing online. One person I chatted with a bunch created this vampire character named Jewelz who she said I could use in a story. I would use Clyde and the two would interact with each of us trying to one up the other. Fight scenes were extremely violent and we even tried love scenes with the characters to see how they worked together. We lost contact, but I had the notes on Jewelz only to keep two parts:
- The name.
- She could go toe-to-toe with Clyde.
This is why earlier incarnations of the series had her show up as his lover, which kept causing trouble. She would only be partially developed because Mab would be in the way and many times she went evil. It was frustrating that I could never really get it to work, but I eventually accepted that was the case. Of course this led to a long string of other ideas that kept her revolving around Clyde. My personal favorite was his daughter from the future who was born completely from his blood and wanted to make sure he survived some disaster. Her way of making him survive was to launch him through a portal, which sent him to Windemere. I don’t know why Jewelz kept turning into the bridge between Earth and Windemere. Should have known that would cause problems too.
For about 2 years, I had her on the shelf because I didn’t know how to make her fit once the Dawn Fangs went to Windemere. She wasn’t needed to get Clyde there since he was a local now. The last piece of her purpose was gone, but I didn’t want to toss her into the garbage. Looking over my old notes, I tried to see where things went wrong and kept coming back to another character. Jewelz would have gone a lot farther if Mab wasn’t in the picture. I decided to play off that and it rapidly grew into them having an ancient rivalry. The rest of the story really blossomed around this concept and it helped me design Jewelz in a new light. It also gave some credence to the name.
You see, I needed Mab to have an opposite here. Jewelz is vain while Mab doesn’t really care about her looks. They both have ego, but Mab is laid back while Jewelz desires credit and praise. Of course, both of them had to be thieves, which continued the curious differences. I noticed that Mab tends to steal whatever catches her attention and has no real theme to her heists. Being the polar opposite, Jewelz focuses almost entirely on gemstones and crystals. I could keep going, but then there won’t be much to discover in the book.
All I can say here is that it was a lot of fun to create a foil for Mab because it meant Clyde couldn’t touch her. It wouldn’t be right for him to take on the character who wasn’t designed to face him. This put him in a tough spot and elevated Jewelz to a more powerful level because she needed to be able to keep that monster at bay. Overall, I think she came out very well and has a lot of secrets that readers will enjoy. So, step into War of Nytefall: Rivalry and check out the rest of her story.
What comes first in your writing, the plot or the characters?
