People love asking writers “Where do you get your ideas?” Step one: Recognize when you’re having an idea. 

So back a couple of years ago when I got the Sims 4 vampire pack and had grown tired of recreating “What We Do in the Shadows,” I decided to try a vampire legacy. Sims players love their legacies, in which someone plays the same family through several generations. While some legacy players just let the families do their own thing and take screenshots of it, others plot out fairly elaborate stories, and that’s what I wanted to do. 

I wrote out detailed character bios, story notes, and potential plotlines, and at some point I realized I was putting as much effort into creating this legacy as I would into writing an actual novel. And I decided I’d rather write the novel. I never did get very far with the Sims legacy (I basically suck as a legacy player), but I ended up with a book out of it. 

Just for fun, want to see those Sims and some of the storyline screenshots? (For my novel, I changed many of the names and backstories, especially for the characters that came with the game.) Even if you don’t want to see them, here they are anyhow. I went to all that trouble; I might as well use them.

Brooke Waters was the founder of my Forgotten Hollow legacy. (Forgotten Hollow was the name of the vampire town that came with the game.) I changed her name to Ashley for the novel because Brooke Waters sounded a little too punny. She was heavily inspired by Brooke Logan from “The Bold and the Beautiful.”

Vladislaus Straud (a vampire character who comes with Sims 4) was her wealthy vampire husband. Each one was using the other: She wanted to marry into a rich family, and he wanted a human woman to bear his children. 

I gave Caleb Vatore (another vampire who came with the game) really long hair before I had him romance Brooke behind Vlad’s back. 

Here’s Brooke with baby Leo, her son with Vlad. D’awww.

“Um, hey, honey — we’re going to have another baby! Isn’t that awesome?” Vlad didn’t look too happy. It’s like he knew that kid wasn’t his. 

Karli Lynn was a game-generated nanny. Here she is with little Leo and Kaya. Although you can’t tell here, both children are vampires. 

Karli also became Brooke’s confidante, and she warned Brooke that the affair with Caleb wasn’t going to end well. Neither were those vampire bites on Brooke’s neck. 

Eventually, Vlad overheard Brooke and Caleb and learned that baby Kaya wasn’t his. Le gasp! Scandalous!

Vlad convinced Brooke to let him turn her into a vampire so she’d be with their family forever. Or at least that’s what he told her…

And here’s Vlad taunting vampire Brooke, who’s locked outside and about to burn to death in the sunlight; I deleted the door to the balcony so she couldn’t get back inside, mua ha ha ha. (Vlad looks different here because he’s wearing his “dark form,” something Sims 4 vampires can do when they’re feeding or generally being evil.) 

RIP Brooke, who died in a fatal sunlight accident. (Except it wasn’t an accident.) 

The Grim Reaper was nice enough to stop and have a pleasant little chat with Kaya after he took her mother away. That didn’t make it into the novel.

Heh. Since my Sim Vlad didn’t actually know he was part of a soap opera storyline, he was quite distraught when his wife Brooke died. Karli looks like “Do you believe this shit? I mean, he stood there and watched her burn up.” 

Storyline Vlad told Caleb to take his daughter Kaya and GTFO of the Straud mansion or else. 

That giant dust cloud is toddler Kaya throwing a fit at the Vatore house; she really wasn’t happy to move in with them. 

Child Leo suspected he wasn’t being told everything about his mom’s death and his sister’s sudden disappearance, and he wasn’t happy about it. 

Karli smuggled Leo over to the Vatore home so he could see Kaya again. 

Here is child Kaya annoying some very old, very mean vampires in the park. 

And here’s Leo getting a nighttime visit from his ghostly mother, who had so much to tell him… 

That’s about it for the screenshots; like I said, I suck at playing legacies. But if you want to know the rest of the story, keep your fingers crossed; maybe someday I’ll actually get an opportunity to publish it.