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Vlad Dracula Reigns In Stoker's Manuscript

Monday, June 17, 2013 7:20

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Q&A- Royce Prouty – Stoker’s Manuscript

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1. I have to ask first off about your Dracula fetish and how that developed when it comes to your book Stoker’s Manuscript? I have always enjoyed Dracula since my youth.

I, too enjoyed Dracula since my youth, but in its movie form. Several friends and relations own shelves of First Edition vampire novels, and I enjoyed discussing their likes and dislikes, but I never thought of vampires as warm and fuzzy, romantic creatures. Always envisioned them as sinister shadowy creatures with whom encounters always end badly for the humans.

It was not until October of 2009 that I read any vampire books, and that first and only was Bram Stoker’s classic. The next day the storyline for my novel came to me. Like all my stories, the entire book came into my head at once, including plot, characters, setting, voice, and ending. I rushed to complete the character sketches and a synopsis, and sent it off to a professional editor, Ed Stackler. Following his suggestion, I wrote the first draft in about ninety days, then put it down and completed my research. Ed also suggested that I read a couple current vampire stories by Elizabeth Kostova and Dacre Stoker, both fine novels, to avoid covering any trodden ground.

2. What can you share with us about Joseph Barkeley the character in your book, origins wise?

As for the image of the character, I saw him, heard him, when the story came into my head. I saw him as a skeptic, an intelligent loner who was going to have to get pulled through events in order to realize he’s in deep trouble.

I have always been drawn by stories where an ordinary person gets yanked out of a normal life and forced to extraordinary feats just to survive. In the end the person changes, becomes stronger, but still retains certain ordinary traits. Barkeley certainly qualifies as such, from the humblest of beginnings in a Romanian orphanage to the reluctant hero who battles a Noble Vampire.

When constructing a cast, I tend to draw a tight little circle around the characters in such a way that they all touch each other. And by the story’s end, account for all their whereabouts. Joseph had to have some small tangent to the villain, and in giving him some vampire blood it allowed him to have some extraordinary attributes. Best to make him a son of the Transylvania soil, and connect him back to Stoker’s helper.

3. When it comes to Vlad the Impaler and your depiction of the son of Vlad Dracul, are there similarities or parallels between Vlad and your fictional character of Dracul?

I just used the same lineage tree as Stoker did for his novel. Why build a new bridge when the existing one is so enduring? From Vlad Dracul came the Dracula sons, and whereas Stoker chose Vlad Dracula and made him a count, I just gave his brothers (plus one more fictional one) the same long life that Stoker did. As for the Impaler part, I kept intact the family’s penchant for human kabob entertainment after dinner.

4. When you read Dracula by Bram Stoker finally why were you disappointed in the end?

I actually had my character Joseph voice my personal disappointments when he commented that here was this exquisitely written, glorious, enduring novel with an inglorious ending as the count Dracula gets ambushed by the protagonists and swiftly killed, knifed in the heart, and immediately turns to dust. Not only did it lack a glorious battle, or even a well crafted buildup, but his turning to dust eliminated any possibility of a meaningful ending.

5. What can you tell us about the plot of the Dracul family’s mysterious burials?

Joseph Barkeley is forced to cooperate with his captor to find the buried remains of Vlad Dracula by deciphering clues left in Stoker’s manuscript and notes, only to discover the Dracul family would wage an internecine war over what is found. Once unearthed, other family members emerge and Barkeley ultimately is reduced to relying on distrust between feuding Noble Vampire brothers for his own survival.

6. Would you share with us the story about the fires regarding Stoker’s novel and the chapter cuts about the 28th chapter missing?

While doing my research I found several articles about fires at both the Lyceum Theatre and the Archibald Constable & Co. publishing house. One article noted that all the Dracula first editions (except three) perished in the fire. When reprinted, the second editions had 27 chapters instead of 28, and the ending scene had changed from a large, involved battle to the disappointing ambush. The removed chapter was later published as a short story set in a cemetery on Walpurgisnacht. The original chapter 28 ending closed with a glorious battle at Dracula’s Castle, followed by the defeated count being carted off to join his wife in that same cemetery.

The Lyceum Theatre also suffered two fires within a year of the Constable fire, one large and one small. This all followed a trip that Bram Stoker took with his boss, Henry Irving, to America in which they attended the World’s Fair in Chicago. There they met with Edison and Tesla to explore a partial conversion from gas to electricity at the theatre. What I did was connect those historical events, condense the dates, and insert a fictional character, a Tesla employee, to serve as one who helped Stoker compose his grand novel, thereby connecting the modern cast with the original players via actual historical events.

7. What is an example of some of the cryptic messages hidden in the Stoker text?

All of the cryptic elements in my novel are my own inventions. How and where I inserted them came to me during my research. For example, in Stoker’s actual notes he lifted names of actual people he knew and placed them on tombstones and buildings and such in his story. Likewise, I had Stoker’s fictional helper bring some fictional names from cemeteries in Transylvania.

Since my story is not centered around cryptic messages, but more about what those messages unearth, I have the character solve them relatively early and without a grand show of it. Had the riddles been the main story element, then the entire story would have focused on each clue, ending with its discovery.

8. What else would you like to share with us about the book? A wild card question if you will.

About twenty-five years ago I heard an interview of Gene Roddenberry, who, when asked about writing science fiction, responded roughly as follows: Think of a river meandering between two lands, the far side being science fiction land. The trick is to build a bridge in such a way that when you’re leading your reader across and he questions ‘can that really happen?’, then he’s already on the other side and you are free to roam around in unreality. It is at that bridge point where Roddenberry suggests that the writer spill a little extra ink because you only get one shot or the reader simply will not buy the story’s premise.

When creating Star Trek, Roddenberry knew that he had to get past the inconvenience of traveling faster than light speed, so he took great pains in the pilot shows to explain “warp drive,” and that is why he chose a plain-speaking mechanic like Mr. Scott as his engineer to explain the concept of matter and anti-matter converging asymptotically in an engine to produce a slingshot effect for travel.

In constructing my novel, I knew the bridge to vampire-land was already built, and I only needed to find a fresh entry point. However, Bram Stoker wrote his story within the confines of 1890s science and medicine, producing what looks today like conflicting conventions. I felt it necessary to explain the nocturnal creatures within the modern precincts of science and dispel some of the inconsistencies that I would never accept myself, such as shapeshifting. In other words, I wanted to reinforce the old bridge and bring it up to modern code, if you will, for a sturdier walk across.

9. What have you learned about Bram Stoker himself that you find fascinating during your research of this book?

Bram Stoker was busy. A real do’er, he had more than a full time job overseeing every facet of the Lyceum Theatre in London, from stage director to facilities manager to CFO. In addition, the adjoining nightclub, also under his purview, was the place to gather after shows for those considered London’s gentry set. Somehow he managed to do all that and pen his monumental novel, complete with a hundred pages of notes and reference material. The original Dracula was far from a whimsical endeavor.

Through all that, more than a decade leading up to its 1897 publication, Stoker played second chair in all ways to his boss, Henry Irving, the theatre owner and actor, who did not treat Bram as an equal. Yet, by any measure, it was Stoker who was the more accomplished and more than a century later it is the author who needs no introduction, while Irving is behind the asterisk.

10. What are you up to next, book wise, and also any luck with that Alaskan adventure novel? Thank you for this interview.

Recently I re-read my Alaska adventure novel and, having learned from this first editing process with Putnam, decided that it could use one more line edit before presenting. It is not a paranormal tale, as I wrote it prior to conceiving any vampire stories.

Currently I am working on a sequel to Stoker’s Manuscript. The storyline recently came to me and I am busy working on the character sketches and detailed synopsis.

To purchase the book and to find out more about the author visit http://www.royceprouty.com/

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Before It’s News® is a community of individuals who report on what’s going on around them, from all around the world. Anyone can join. Anyone can contribute. Anyone can become informed about their world. "United We Stand" Click Here To Create Your Personal Citizen Journalist Account Today, Be Sure To Invite Your Friends.

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