Diana R. Bascarau | Updates

So, You Want to Become a Vampire’s Familiar?

Diana R. Bascarau — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Congratulations.

You've made an excellent career choice.

Forget the nine-to-five. Forget office politics. Forget answering emails from people who use the phrase "circle back" without irony.

Become a vampire's familiar instead.

You'll have money. You'll have nice clothes. You'll live in a beautiful house. You'll never have to worry about your employer asking you to come into the office at nine in the morning.

Mostly because your employer will be asleep.

There are, however, a few things you should know before accepting the position.

1. Your employer's schedule is now your schedule

Vampires aren't exactly known for being early risers.

Your employer may sleep through the afternoon, wake up at eight in the evening and expect you to have everything ready by the time he opens his eyes.

Curtains opened?

Check.

Whiskey poured?

Check.

Clothes selected?

Check.

Schedule organized?

Check.

Existential dread?

That's your own responsibility.

And don't expect much sympathy if you accidentally schedule something during sleeping hours.

After all, you've been told repeatedly that vampires have been doing things this way for centuries.

You're the one who needs to adapt.

2. You will become very good at cleaning

I'm not talking about dusting.

I'm talking about the sort of cleaning that requires you to know exactly which products remove blood from expensive flooring.

You'll learn which stains disappear quickly, which require patience, and which ones are better dealt with by replacing the entire rug.

You'll also become remarkably comfortable with things that would have once sent you screaming from the room.

This is one of the less glamorous aspects of the job.

But nobody said immortality was going to be tidy.

3. Your employer's problems become your problems

A vampire's familiar is more than a personal assistant.

You're a secretary.

A housekeeper.

A chauffeur.

A social coordinator.

A crisis manager.

Occasionally, you're a detective.

And if your employer happens to find himself accused of murdering another vampire?

Congratulations.

You're now involved in a supernatural murder investigation.

There probably won't be a handbook for that.

Actually, there might.

But let's be honest.

You won't read it until it's too late.

4. Don't expect immortality

This is probably worth mentioning before you sign anything.

Being a vampire's familiar does not automatically mean you'll become a vampire yourself.

You might spend years serving one.

You might sleep in their house.

You might know their habits better than anyone else.

You might be completely indispensable to their day-to-day existence.

And you might still be human.

There is a very important distinction between being useful and being immortal.

It's probably best not to think about that too much.

5. Your relationship with your employer may become... complicated

At first, it's simple.

You have a job.

Your employer pays you.

You do what you're supposed to do.

Everyone understands the arrangement.

But after enough time passes, things can become less straightforward.

You know each other's routines.

You know what annoys them.

You know what they like.

You know when they're lying.

You know when they're angry.

You know when they need something before they ask.

Eventually, it can become difficult to imagine what your life would look like without them.

Which is perfectly normal...probably.

6. Never assume you're special

This is perhaps the most important rule of all.

Vampires have existed for a very long time.

They've had countless relationships, friendships, enemies, servants and familiars.

Humans come and go.

Vampires remain.

So if your employer tells you that you're different...

Well.

Maybe you are.

Or maybe you're simply very good at your job.

There's really no way of knowing.

And it's probably better not to ask.

7. Finally: make sure you're comfortable with murder

Not necessarily committing it.

Just being around it.

Because when you work for a vampire, death isn't exactly an unusual occurrence.

But vampire-on-vampire murder?

That's different.

Vampires have rules.

They have laws.

They have councils.

They have centuries of tradition and enough political baggage to make a normal family dinner look peaceful.

And when one vampire turns up dead, everyone suddenly becomes very interested in following those rules.

Especially when the vampire accused of killing them happens to be your employer.

Then things get complicated.

Very complicated.

So... still interested?

Of course you are.

The salary is excellent.

The accommodation is considerably nicer than anything you could afford yourself.

You get to wear expensive clothes, attend parties full of vampires and occasionally find yourself in situations that would make an excellent story if you weren't busy trying to survive them.

Just remember:

Your employer may be immortal.

You aren't.

And if you're going to spend six years working for a vampire, you might want to make absolutely certain you understand what you signed up for.

Meet Beth Clarke

Beth has spent almost six years as the familiar of Elias von Martyrom, a wealthy 700-year-old vampire living in Los Angeles.

She knows his schedule.

His habits.

His preferences.

His enemies.

And exactly how much blood he needs on an average night.

She's also convinced that her situation is different.

That she's not like the other familiars.

That she knows Elias better than anyone else.

And when Elias is arrested for the murder of another vampire, Beth is forced to confront a question she has spent years avoiding:

What happens when the life you've built depends entirely on the person who may have just committed murder?

The Familiar is a darkly funny vampire mystery about obsession, dependency, murder and the things we convince ourselves are perfectly normal.

The Familiar launches 20 October 2026.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0HJ3P9K6N

If you'd like to hear more about Beth, Elias and the rather questionable world they've built together, you can join my newsletter below. (and get my debut novel for FREE as a 'thank you'!)

https://diana-r-bascarau.author-pages.com/landers/free-ebook-offer-the-devil-s-guide-to-managing-hell-the-after-life-duology-book-1

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Why Horror and Comedy Use the Same Mechanics

Diana R. Bascarau — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

One of the strangest things about writing horror comedy is realizing that horror and comedy are basically the same genre wearing different hats.

One wears a clown nose. The other carries an axe.

But underneath, they operate on surprisingly similar principles. They both rely on tension. Both rely on surprise. Both rely on making the audience anticipate one thing before delivering another.

The only real difference is whether the audience laughs afterward. Or screams.

Sometimes both.

Which is honestly the sweet spot.

I think most people view horror and comedy as complete opposites because they focus on the emotional outcome. Comedy makes people feel good. Horror makes people feel bad. Simple enough.

But when you actually examine how these stories work, they start looking suspiciously alike.

Imagine a comedian telling a joke. The setup creates expectation. The audience begins predicting where the story is heading. Then the punchline arrives from an unexpected direction. The gap between expectation and reality creates laughter.

Now imagine a horror scene. A character hears a noise downstairs. The audience starts predicting possibilities. The tension builds. The expectation grows. Then something unexpected happens. The gap between expectation and reality creates fear.

Same machinery. Different emotional destination.

In both cases, the audience is essentially being manipulated.

Which sounds unethical when I phrase it like that. But storytelling is just socially acceptable emotional manipulation. We buy books specifically because we want somebody to mess with our nervous systems for a few hours.

What makes horror and comedy especially interesting is that they both thrive on discomfort.

Good comedy often comes from awkwardness, embarrassment, shame, hypocrisy, or social failure.

Good horror comes from vulnerability, uncertainty, helplessness, or loss of control.

The overlap is obvious once you notice it.

Both genres force characters into situations they desperately want to escape. The only difference is scale.

In a comedy, the protagonist accidentally sends a romantic text to the wrong person.

In horror, they accidentally summon an ancient entity that feeds on human regret.

Emotionally speaking, both situations feel catastrophic to the person experiencing them. And that is what matters: the character’s suffering.

Writers sometimes underestimate how important suffering is to comedy. We like to imagine comedy emerges from cleverness, but most memorable humor comes from people struggling.

Think about your favorite sitcoms. Think about your favorite comedy films. Most of them are built around characters repeatedly making terrible decisions while desperately trying to avoid consequences. That is not far removed from horror.

In fact, many horror protagonists spend entire stories making terrible decisions while desperately trying to avoid consequences.

The genres are cousins.

One family member became a comedian.

The other became a serial killer.

But they still show up to the same emotional reunion.

This similarity becomes even more obvious when you watch audience reactions.

People often laugh during horror movies, not because something is funny, but because tension needs somewhere to go. Laughter and fear are surprisingly close emotional neighbors. Both create physical reactions, both produce anticipation, both disrupt normal thinking, and both remind us that we are not nearly as rational as we pretend to be.

I think that is why dark comedy works so well. Dark comedy refuses to choose between the two experiences. It recognizes that human beings are perfectly capable of laughing at terrible situations while simultaneously being disturbed by them. In fact, that combination often feels more honest than either emotion by itself.

Real life works this way. People make jokes in hospitals. Families laugh during funerals. Friends turn personal disasters into stories. Humor becomes a survival mechanism. A way of staring directly at uncomfortable truths without immediately collapsing under their weight. That is why some of my favorite stories exist in the space between horror and comedy. They understand that fear and laughter come from the same source: uncertainty.

Neither emotion knows what happens next. Both are reactions to the unexpected. Both force us out of our comfort zones. And both remind us that control is mostly an illusion.

The difference is simply what is waiting around the corner…

A punchline…

Or a monster.

And if you’re doing it right, sometimes the monster is the punchline.

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