The Final Messenger

Author's Note

I can't believe I started this project mainly because of @Rogueeno urging me to write my gay vampire novel. Thanks, bro. I truly, honestly don't think I would have gotten my ass off and started writing without your encouragement.

I also have to thank the many thoughtful critiques given by the members of The Midnight Coffee Club, which is a small club dedicated to giving writers feedback by other writers. I improved my writing and discovered so much good shit through reviewing each other's stories. You can, of course, be a good writer alone, but great writers are not born alone. They grow to be as great as they are with the help of many people who constantly give feedback and suggestions to their work.

The Final Messenger is a story that's been sitting in the back of my mind for 2 years, back when me and Niryn were both the same age. To be specific, it was planned in April 2019 at the stroke of 3 am on the Notes app, my primary platform for writing at the time.

The story started in late Dec 2020 and as of now, finished in November 2021. The whole novel is 56k words in total and was constantly being written and revised in train rides, waiting in lines, before sleep, during college classes and in my spare time.

There were periods where I fell into a slump and had nothing published in a month, but always managed to push myself to write something in the end. Once I started, I kept going. I just found it too fun (a sign of a bad writer, some might say).

The funny thing is that I was never a writer. First and foremost, I am an artist who draws traditionally and on a tablet, who is now studying illustration in college.

Writing was never my calling. All my life, it was meant for another purpose. School compositions, debate essays, literary analysis. Very technical, rote stuff. That was where I shined, what I had a "flair" for, as my literature teacher put it. I never thought about writing fiction unless it was in the form of a comic or illustration (hey that's an idea for the future) and definitely not something as fully-realised as a novel.

My background as an artist probably informed my writing. There's no way to separate the artist from the writer after all. I've been told the way I portray the story is extremely visual and even old-fashioned, especially the first few chapters when I was still trying to find my voice. Very "1900s writer", very "Wuthering Heights vibe," giving very much "portrait of a lady on fire vibes" which is an immense compliment even if I didn't care much for the film.

Like any story, it started off very different from the final product.

For one thing, Adria was more of a captive locked in one of the Edevanes' many rooms. I made up a law which states that once a person has been "turned," they need to be taken in and trained by an experienced vampire until they're able to hunt on their own.

So rather than being a stray, Adria was there from the start. However, since she refused to learn how to feed on humans, she was a burden, tossed away and forgotten in a room away from everybody else.

There were also supposed to be a lot more vampire characters, perhaps a dozen more. It was like a roommate or cult situation where each time they came across a stray vampire, they were adopted as one of their own. Each of them was taught to recognise Niryn's face, as the master did not want their beloved hunter to be mistaken as one of their livestock.

Another main difference was that Niryn was more indoctrinated, rather than being constantly irritated by Lydia's presence. She was way more trusting and obedient, I think because I planned for the murder of her parents to be a twist rather than something she knew all along and kept locked in her heart as a grudge.

What else? My writing style was far more elaborate, clunky, stream-of-consciousness and meandering. In short, insufferable. I did not work hard at my writing in the next two years. Rather, I took inspiration from better writers than me and read constantly. It didn't matter from which source — queer fanfiction, 1940s novels, poems by my brother, song lyrics (Mitski and Marika Hackman are key), Greek mythology and most importantly, real life.

My opinion is that as long as you expose yourself to as many sources of art as possible and that you enjoy, your writing will have more flavour and life. Otherwise you're at the risk of your work being incestuously similar to others, who in turn, only take inspiration from a singular source — other Wattpad writers.

I honestly hope you've enjoyed my story and if you think it's shit, let me know how to make it better by commenting. Anyway, have fun reading and writing! 祝你好运! วัสดีทุกคน!

Also check out my Spotify playlist 'dark vampiric sapphic aesthetic'! I swear to god it's all bops.