I spoke to Seth Gray bout his online drama, Dead Boyfriend, an imaginative thriller that shakes up the horror genre mythos of teen vampire slayers and the bloodsuckers that love them.
LT: Tell our readers about Dead Boyfriend, and how you came up with the story.
SG: Dead Boyfriend is the story of Regan St. James, a teenaged vampire hunter, and Ira Greer, an early-twenties vampire. They meet completely at random one night, after they hook up at a bar. Regan doesn’t realize his man of the moment is a vampire until the next day, and by then it’s too late. Ira’s a good lay, and Regan’s intrigued. Kind of shallow motivation on the surface, but the kid’s only eighteen.
I came up with it by reading a Twilight-Supernatural crossover fanfiction, of all things, online. I’m normally very positive on fanfic, but after reading it was like “I can do this better, and more originally.” And so I did.
LT: With vampires being so popular right now, did you have any reservations about writing about them?
SG: Not really. My only hang-up is that someone will make an active comparison to Twilight on my forums or in a review, and I’ll have to hang myself with an electrical cord. But so far I’ve skated safely past it. We’ve come close a few times, but narrowly avoided it.
LT: Courting Death is the first part of the story—what can we expect from the second half?
SG: More snark, more biting, more Regan/Ira interaction, and more sex.
LT: What are the important themes in Dead Boyfriend overall?
SG: Eventually I’d like to do some interesting things with the nature of humanity versus what it means to be a monster, but I’m keeping it pretty popcorn lit right now. Draw the readers in and then hit ‘em where it hurts.
LT: If you picked music for Regan and Ira, what would it be?
SG: Regan’s favorite song in the whole world is “The Winner Takes It All” by ABBA. Their falling in love song is “Bad Time to Fall in Love” by Terra Naomi, and their relationship song is “Teeth” by Lady GaGa.
LT: What authors do you like?
SG: Laurell K. Hamilton, Kim Harrison, Terry Goodkind, Garth Nix, to name a few.
LT: Other than keeping up with Reagn and Ira, do you have other fiction for our readers?
SG: Dead Boyfriend is the first actual work I’ve finished ever, so not really. I’ve got some short pieces I keep meaning to get around to that I always manage to prioritize away, but someday I’ll get to them. I’ve written some raunchy fanfic in my time, however, but I won’t burn your eyeballs with that.
LT: Is there a work in progress you’d like to tell us about?
SG: Actually I’m making notes to start a traditional manuscript right now, but until I’ve actually got some words down on it I don’t feel comfortable talking about it.
In the Dead Boyfriend Universe I just recently started a side story called HOWL featuring Regan’s former hunting partner Eric. It’s an interesting little piece about Eric, a straight guy, finding himself unexpectedly, but undeniably attracted to a man he meets in a bar. Only four parts of it have hit the net so far due to some problems I’ve been having with my computer’s power cord, but I am definitely still working on it.
LT: So, if you had a chance to re-write someone else’s book or change a movie, which one would it be?
SG: Oh, man. I have no idea where to even start. I can’t think of anything specific off the top of my head, but there have been several books or movies that have had an interesting, powerful female character that suddenly turn into a helpless bimbo just so the guy can rescue her. Stuff like that bothers me. Some of the strongest people in my life have been women, so I hate the useless female archetype in fiction. Hate it. That’s why I don’t like Twilight, actually.
LT: When reading someone else’s work, what can an author do to drive you insane? In either a good or bad way?
SG: In general the author that writes for plot as opposed to writing for character makes me nuts. Get to know your characters and their personalities and give them interesting things to react to and the plot should follow logically out of it. That’s something that really bothers me, when characters randomly turn stupid just before the climax of a book because the author wanted a cliche hero-villain smack down.
LT: If Regan had his chance to kick anyone’s butt (and not just out of your characters, but anybody elses’ as well) who would he beat up?
SG: Hmm, this is a very interesting question. I think if Regan could have a crack at anyone, he’d love a shot at Buffy Summers, Vampire Slayer.
LT: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
SG: The second volume of Dead Boyfriend will be a different piece than the first was. Things happen that let us see a really different side of Regan. He goes to a dark place for awhile. Ira has his own challenges to face when he finds himself defending his relationship with Regan.
I hope current readers of Dead Boyfriend stick around for the adventures to come, and those that haven’t sampled it yet should swing on by.
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©2010 Lori Titus
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Tags: Dead Boyfriend, Seth Gray
March 9th, 2010 at 1:22 am
Dead Boyfriend is absolutely amazing. I can’t wait for the second part to come out. You all should seriously check it out, especially if you are tired of most recent teen vampire books and craving a good vampire story for once.