Adding to Characters from Literature

Lately, I've been re-writing my short story Dark Carpentry. In it, I wrote a character who was Dracula's brother. I'm definitely taking a liberty by giving Dracula a brother. I thought about the pros and cons using Dracula himself in the story but decided against it since he's such a well known literary character. I didn't really want to carry the burdin of  responsibility getting his character right. Now, I've been discovering what a story goldmine this actually is! Maybe the brother (Drago) was always jealous of his older sibling? Maybe not? 

Since the events took place after Dracula maybe his little brother is mourning his death? Think of the story potential when both Dracula and his brother were both human. Did they dream of ruling the land together or did one brother secretly mean to kill the other one off given the chance?

     The more I think about the story where two major characters are brothers the more I think my subconcious did it for a reason. Family themes can run deep in stories and villainous family fueds are not exempt.

      I guess what I'm suggesting is that sometimes adding to a well known literary character for your own story can have its creative possibilities if you want to take the risk of scrutany.