Bare Your Teeth for Me, Baby!

Werewolves.


There. I said it.


Oh, yeah... I love anything tied to lycanthropy. I find all the legends intriguing from transforming via shimmers of light to the scream-your-head-off-in-pain shifts into snarly wolf dude.


What is it about these creatures that seem to suck us into their world? Why am I so fascinated by them? Shape shifters in general are a great seller at the box office and in books, but personally I always return to the werewolf or the vampire—and even the vamps are capable of shifting into wolf form.


In romantic fiction, werewolves run neck and neck with the vampires in popularity. Is it the wildness of the wolf blending with the human body that attracts us, or is it the battle of human versus animal?


If a writer follows actual werewolf lore and legends for his story, those who suffer lycanthropy don’t remember much beyond the murders they commit. The lust for blood is foremost in their lunar-gripped mind and wolfy body. So sex with a lycanthrope spells doom. He or she is going to rip your heart out, literally, and then when he done with din-din go hike his leg on the nearby tree.


Hmm...maybe publishers have a good reasons for stating something like 'no sex in beast form allowed' in their submissions, eh?


I find I like writing about werewolves more than I do vampires.  However, I tend to blend lore and legend with my stories such as a hero who is cursed when he drinks water from the footprint of a werewolf. A reader once told me that she’d never heard of that before, so she did some research and was pleasantly surprised by all that she learned about werewolves. It pleased me that I was able to make a reader so curious.

Dreamspinner Press

In Tuesday’s post, I mentioned that I tend to use a lot of severe weather in my stories. Well, I also write a lot about werewolves. Sure, I have a few vampy stories, but I inevitably find myself typing something dealing with lycanthropy. Recently, I signed another contract with Decadent Publishing for a manuscript written for the 1 Night Stand Series; it’s an m/m, werewolf romance titled Something to Howl About. 

Yet another novel is with my agent called Moone Spell, and Heart of a Were is a novella in the Werewolves in Love anthology. There’s also Cowboy Rubies (m/m paranormal), involving an impending war between werewolves and vampires.


So I guess I’ve been bitten—oh, bare your teeth for me, baby!—by the werewolf virus. There’s so much a writer can do with the theme, and my imagination goes full tilt when I’m in the mood to ‘pen’ a manuscript brimming with wolfiness.
So, what’s your fave: werewolves or vampires—and why?

Faith's fave werewolf movies, shows, and books:

1. Dracula with Gary Oldman - Yes, there are werewolves and wolves in it).
2. Silver Bullet - based on the novel, Cycle of the Werewolf, by Stephen King.
3. The Howling - yeah, it's a bit cheesy, but I still get a kick out of it.
4. Van Helsing - da-rool for Hugh Jackman, lol.
5. Chasing the Mailman - I really like this book. 
6. MTV's Teen Wolf series - I am in love with that show!
7. The Werewolf Book: The Encyclopedia of Shape-Shifting Beings - this is an excellent reference book.
8. The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters - another great reference book for the writer or the curious.