Where did we get the idea for Stoker's Wilde?
I had read an article that Bram Stoker's inspiration for Dracula was his boss, the actor and Lyceum Theatre owner Henry Irving. He worked nights, was larger than life and a bit creepy. I thought it would make a great short story if Henry Irving was actually a vampire. Having to hunt and kill Irving would give Stoker the inspiration for "Dracula."
But then, as I was doing research for the story, I found out that Bram had stolen Oscar Wilde's fiancée, in Dublin, and after a scandalously short courtship, whisked her off to London where he was just hired as the Lyceum Theatre's manager. I thought it would be funny to have Oscar and Bram be forced to team up to hunt vampires. I turned to my screenwriting partner to co-write and 100,000 words and four re-writes later we had a novel. What luck to find they had both moved to London the same year and their paths often crossed in the small world of the London Theatre.