Vampire Schmampire

okay. I have always loved vampires. Always wanted to write a book or short story about them. But here's the deal...that genre is so freakin exhausted. I love what Chris did in his two vampire books, it was pretty unique as far as the genre goes. But I think I got something here. I will try to make it a fairly quick synopsis. MY vampire guy lives in a rustic cabin in Colorado and hunts bears for blood. He was made by a secret (of course) government vampire. He is a reluctant vampire, and tries to keep appearances as a normal guy. He leaves a "gone fishin'" sign on his door during the day while he slumbers below, then goes out at dusk with a gun to hunt deer. He brings his kills back home and strings them up so they LOOK like he's gutting them, but they really attract the bears. He prefers the bear blood because it's a predator. oh yeah...also these vampires are made differently. there's surgery involved. not as much magic stuff. No flying, shape-shifting, crucifixes, garlic, etc. none of that stuff. it's cool and all, but I want to do something different. I thought it would be cool if vampires were made by killing someone, taking out all the organs but their heart, reconnecting the esophagus to one of the aorta, use some special magic stuff somewhwere in there...and TADA!! well...of course there would be more involved. OH YEAH!! also....this guy smells real bad. because the by-product of ingesting so much blood is that it secretes through the pores in a fine mist. I was thinking, in all the vampire books, movies, comics I have seen, I don't think I have ever understood what happens to the blood that goes INTO a vampire. I mean, it has to go somewhere, right? do vampires take bloody poops? or piss blood? sorry. really long post. oh yeah, don't steal my idea, or my bear-suckin vampire friend will find you.

vamps

I'm calling this my "vampire summer" because I've read three vampire series books and I've never really considered myself into the genre.

What struck me as different about your vampire was that he smelled bad, which seems quite contradictory to the vampire genre in which they are extremely attractive to humans, which is what makes them such a perfect predator.

Have you considered making your vampire unique to other vampires. Perhaps a strange accident makes this guy a Frankenvampire. Maybe a vampire gets totally smashed in an accident and he is unable to recover enough, so that a surgeon takes the heart as a donor, since no human could survive such injuries. This heart is placed inside your character and "ta-dah" he becomes a strange, mutant Frankenvamp that smells bad, ostrasized by other vamps and must hunt bears to survive. He also can't hunt humans because they are usually repulsed by his repugnant smell, so he is forced to live as a "wild Frankenvamp"

Hey, where is he going to live to find enough bear blood? Alaska? How will he interact with other characters if he is isolated enough to be hunting bear?

One other thing, the bear hunting idea is already in the book, "Twilight" by Stephanie Meyer. It isn't really detailed, just mentioned. Sorry.
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Is that Cheeto Spore?

I love the idea of him smelling bad! I've always had issues with it myself, how perfect they are.

I like the idea of this book, kinda like if the government got their hands on some vampire "technology" what would they do with it? But, how would he have come to live in a cabin, if it were that way?

I like the idea of a more "realistic" vampire book.
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I will gladly ravage you Tuesday for a ravaging today...

There has been a lot of really bad vampire books lately. I think You Suck is the closest thing to a traditional, decent vampire tale there has been in a while. The whole Twilight series is terrible. (Just an opinion, don't kill me!) The vampires don't act like vampires. They act like neo-goth pansies. Is it just me, or aren't vampires supposed to act like menacing creatures of the night and not pansy-ass "oh, I'm so beautiful yet so tragic" wusses? I grew up with vampires like Dracula and Dracula knockoffs. The traditional "Halloween Vampires," I guess is the right way to put it. Nobody is going to dress up like Edward Cullen for Halloween, unless your plan to scare somebody is to jump out from behind the bushes and they think you are going to bore them to death.

So in conclusion, we need more Draculas and less Edwards. End rant. Thanks for your time.
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Scruffy|SRD Books

actually what i had in my head was that vampires aren't just made from a vampire killing you, then you turn in to one. more like some weird ritual where organs are taken out, cause what use would one have for lungs, stomache, pancreas, etc.?and im sick of vampires being all sexual and attractive, and brooding. i want one that just wants to seperate himself from humans. i was thinking about the interaction with other people, too, cause it would be really boring if you were stuck with this guy in a cabin. even if you're really isolated, there's still some podunk town somewhere close by, right? and yeah...i would estimate he would only need to kill 2-3 bears a month to sustain himself. i remember reading some vampire book (one of anne rice's) where i think it was lestat's mother(???) that was living wild in the congo or something. i liked that idea. i guess what i really want is an outcast, plotting revenge on his makers, getting super strong drinking bear blood. i dont know. seems like the genre is exhausted. it's defidently true that vampires are more victim to stereotype than any other race. i just really want it to be kind of plausible. has anyone read "haunted" by chuck pahlaniuk? there was this part in there about how werewolves and bigfoot were the same thing and it was a natural life-cycle of an indian tribe where they mutate and go out in the woods and eat skunks and rut? that really caught in my head because it was somewhat believable. that's why i like chris's books cause he injects quasi-science into ridiculous scenarios and straight-up science-fiction. i'm putting more thought into the mechanics and "science" behind this vampire, and starting off with a representative from a logging company visiting his cabin in....alaska?? sounds good. ill have to read that kesey book "sailor song" again. i think it was the first book i read set entirely in alaska. hmmm. thanks for the feedback.

Dude, I totally dig your idea. A mountain-man vamp, awesome. I'd read that shizz. WRITE IT, WRITE IT NOW!!!!!
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<=== Dressing in dismal chic and maintaining her detached aura of aristocratic chill since 1985.
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"You can't wipe your ass with empty promises." - thread title, by walk

write it

I agree! Just write it. Don't write worrying about getting published. Write because you are compelled to tell this story. Just write it.
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Is that Cheeto Spore?

this is great, i mean you have dabbled with something special!! It sounds great actually! Just write it, dont worry just write. I dabbled with vampires myself and breaking off is good, i completly threw away the usual
vampiring formula so I am sure you can as your idea is 10 times better
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"Those are dead people laughing, you know that, those people are dead! "~Andy Kaufman

A hermit vampire? Hmmmm...

One of my soaps used to have vampires on it-
no, not that one, although I was named after a character on DS...

PC had a thing where they couldn't bite their relatives-
being a soap, you can guess where that led...

not all vampire myths have good-smell, good-looking vampires. Vampire: the Masquerade has Nosferatu as a particularly ugly type of vampire. They're so ugly other vampires can barely stand to look at them. Plus, you can take on a curse of the "death smell" or something so that you actually smell dead. Then you get to use those points to get a cool vampire power like "walks through walls" or w/e.
Anyway, I like the idea of a beer-hunting vampire.
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"Um...is that PMS on your face?"
"Whatever. Don't be jealous."

- Bryce

Last edited by tirusthevirus on Sun Aug 03, 2008 6:18 pm; edited 1 time in total

tirus

Quote:

Anyway, I like the idea of a beer-hunting vampire

He could cruise the 7-11 stores!
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Is that Cheeto Spore?

lol. that was a typo. I meant bear. But I do like the idea of a beer-hunting vampire. 7-11's in Canada don't sell beer, so i was a little confused by the reply, to say the least.
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"Um...is that PMS on your face?"
"Whatever. Don't be jealous."

- Bryce

I find that generally its not the vampire that makes the more interesting vampire books and movies good, its what happens around the vampire. The story and how it is written plays a huge part in the best vampire stories, some of the best and most interesting vampire stories don't do much different from the normal formula. For example, The book Let the right one in by John Ajvide Lindqvist uses most of the classic vampire formulas that work well, what makes the book special is that the vampire is a 12 year old girl who has a relationship with a 12 year old boy. Its never really sexual, though there are various sexual parts in the book and some really weird parts too, but the mix of the more typical vampire horror when she kills people to stay alive yet her relationship with the boy is one of innocent childlike nature.
If you can find it I recommend reading it. Though the film is better overall, the book is still one of the best vampire books I have ever read. Another example is the book I am legend by Richard Matheson. Those vampires are nothing special, its the isolation of the main character living in a world where he is the last human that makes that book so unique. Don't try to make your vampires too complex, stick to what works and build an interesting story around that. You have an interesting story and background already, so think more about that than the vampire aspect. I am writing a vampire story right now, but I find it interesting because rather than being about vampires hunting and killing people it focuses more on the fact that they can live forever. Instead of them doing all the hunting, they are the ones being hunted by humans who want to live forever. The twist I put on the typical story is that humans are the ones who seem almost more obsessed with blood than the vampires are, but they don't need it they just want it. I'm not going to make the vampires too different though, at first I was gonna make a twist on the sunlight thing by having them be less visible during the day and strong, but make them weak at night. Then I realized that would be pretty stupid because they are not really threatened by anything.

I would only advise that you not get too technical on the mechanics of how you "make" your vampires. Better that they don't know. When you get specific, you'll immediately be non-credible. (As opposed to incredible-- although technically, they mean the same thing.) So don't explain your aorta esophagus thing. You lost me immediately with that. You really have to make a decision, magic or science. Either way, you can't really explain it. And don't worry about explaining it. There's not a single credible superhero, but people still love to read them and watch them. You just have to be internally consistent in your story.

And you're going to need to learn something about bears. There aren't that many, and they require a pretty big territory. If your guy eats bears, then he better not eat many. The bear thing could be cool, but if your going for the "because it's a predator" thing, then you're outside of science and into magic. Again, that's fine, don't worry about making sense of the science.

Oh, and the vampires smelling bad isn't a new idea. In Dracula they talk about the odor of rotting meat around him.