Shoot me, I've jumped on the vampire bandwagon.

As the title says, It's a vampire book. But before the fad came in I was writing one, and i kind of discarded it when twilight came out in annoyance (I've ranted about it before so I;ll spare everyone that.)

I want it to be different and unquie vampire story. And the points below are what I really hope stands out the most.

• A vampire adopts human children and raises them like she was human as well, it helps both her fill a void, and gives the child a good life. She has never once turned any of her children.
• Her current child was turned without her consent or knowlage and she had spacificly warned other vampires not to do so.
• The child, a girl, is stuggling with vampirehood and out of control attraction powers. (the mail man told her I love you when she opened the door.)
• Vampire hunters, both born hunters and human hunters, hunting vampires and demons for thier own reasons, however and order was formed and it's grown powerful.
• My vampires have evoled to siut the weather, however thier eyes are not inmune and biol out of thier sockets if the sun gets to them.

It's in the first chapters, but I really like the idea. I don't want it to be just another vampire book, I want it different then the vampire guy bites human vigin girl. so, help to make it unquie? Advice?

BLAM

BLAM BLAM

How old is the girl?

HERESY!!!

• BLAM*

Or, if you prefer, No. Just... No.

Firstly: would have recommended introducing your plan with a bit more confidence than your current title. Eh, c'est la vie. Second, why vampires? You don't have to answer the question in this forum, but if you know why you chose to write about that particular creature, it will help influence your writing for the better. If the answer you came up with is "vampires are cool," look deeper and answer where that logic came from.

BLAM BLAM BLAM

I agree with the above poster - why does it need to be vampires, as opposed to literally anything else that isn't horribly overused right now?

The story concept could still work if it were any creature that were immortal (or generally ages much more slowly) and unable to have kids naturally I'd assume? If it ruins your story too much than don't change it, but just as a suggestion.

Some things to consider: 1. At what age does the woman tell her adopted children about the fact that she's a vampire? Are they left to figure it out by themselves? If they know at a very young age, what's keeping them from accidentally blurting out the secret?

2. Do they notice her inhuman behaviors such as the fact that she doesn't age, drinks blood and presumably has some other weaknesses, like the eye boiling you mentioned?

3. Do they have to move around a lot in order to hide the fact that she's not aging? Does the family have to take on new identities when they do so?

4. How do other vampires feel about her family? You mentioned the fact that one of the children was changed, what besides that? Do they think it's a ridiculous idea to get so attached to something that will end up dying? Urge her to change them? Wonder why she doesn't just stick with loyal minions/followers?

5. Would she change one of her children if they asked her to?

edited 18th Jun '11 1:40:05 PM by Hermiethefrog

Can't say this is completely original . . .

Shot a total of six times, yet i'm still moving.

Everyone: Thanks for the insight, I would rather them immortals, but they have to be dangerous enough to have a hunter order formed against them, and immortal usually means they can't be killed, and I’m rather fond of killing characters for drama.

Killer Clown: A number of reasons I wanted vampires, the danger they impose to humans, the Hunter conflict, the morality of draining life of other people. And the long life, not immortality. Vampire do not live forever, but they also don't die peacefully in their sleep.

To Herimethefrog: 1) The kids now that their mother is a vampire by the time they came walk and talk, by the time they go to school they know that telling people mother's a vampire would mean moving (continents away) and having hunters on their tale so they have to lay low. Yes, the kids sometimes tell others, it extremely hard to cover it back up again.

2) People do notice odd things about her, some hand wave it, others get snoopy. She had developed away to store blood for a long period of time, so she doesn't have to visit the Vampire Black market every few weeks. She hides the blood in wine bottles in the celler.

3) They rarely have to move because Mother became a vampire in her prime, all she does to show ageing is put on a bit of makeup. It’s harder for preteens and teenagers to be vampires, they have to move around more since if they stay in one spot for an extended period of over 2 years people will notice they aren’t growing at all.

4) That is actually touched on and part of major plot points. Hunters are always calling BS on Mother's behaviour for raising human children. Her behaviour comes from the fact that she is very old, even by vampire standards. She's not thinking like a normal person. She has come to grips that they will eventually die, but only after living long, eventual, happy lives she provides them. Other Vampires disapprove of her raising human children, because they CAN comprise the masquerade, and Mother had been treading on thin ice for years, so she stays away from other vampires most of the time.

5) I think I'll retract one of my statements saying she has never changed one of her kids. It depends on her mood, their reasoning and the age. Early on with one of her first children she had changed them, they reasoned so she wouldn't be lonely. They were killed shortly after for going into a feeding frenzy. She has always said no after that incident.

Zolnier: Do you think I'm an idiotic 12 year old that sleeps with twilight under their pillow? I'm 16, and I've been writing since I was 7. Supernatural fiction is one of my many fields of writing, and also happens to be my favourite, and vampires have always interested me and I didn't want to act like a child because there are already vampire books written. Even if it doesn't get published, I just want to write it. (or are you just annoyed about the spelling? my finger memory screws up the later it gets, and it was 1 am my time when I posted, stupid I know.)

feotakahari" I'll have a look so I don't make my book to close to it. Thanks for the link.

So how old is she? I wasn't insulting you or anything I just wanted to know.

Oh! (Blushes like an idiot,) Mother is 37, Talia, the main protaganist, is 15. (Sorry...) As I said above being stuck a teenager will be difficult for her.

Wow that's gotta suck for her.

That's the plan.

Twlight is when vampires became no longer cool. Then again I've never read teh books or seen teh movies but everyone who has except a few people told me it's terrible one dimensional writing and just, just plain bad.

Now sometimes I am afraid to admit I am a fan of Buffy the Vampire slayer because people may think I'm gay because vampires are gay now.

I'd argue that vampires became lame with Buffy season 3+ and Blade, when they went from being scary and became mooks for a badass hero to kill off before the real threat arrives.

Or when Anne Rice made them into Byronic heroes.

For me, Mahou Sensei Negima made vampires cool again, considering the damn near absolute strongest character in that series is a vampire.

Then again, I'm generally completely out of touch with what other people like or think is cool, so... yeah.

Vampires are all about power at any price - you can be powerful, long lived, and beauty, but you have to give up your soul in the process, becoming a predator and a blight upon your fellow man. Once you give up that aspect, all the meaning of vampirism kind of goes out the window.

Then again...

Power at a Price is more a Lich sort of deal. Vampires are best for either sex or addiction. (I'd say the latter is more relevant to the OP—think like this.)

edited 19th Jun '11 11:14:52 PM by feotakahari

I always found the sex and addition metaphors to kind of fail without the power at any price motif - due to the predatory aspect of vampires, the sex metaphor is actually a rape metaphor, and for addiction, well, they come off as violent murderers looking for their next fix.

Also, liches just tend to cross the line once in modern depictions and just go away to their castle keep and plot. Vampires are constantly feeding off of people. It's a better metaphor for the exploiters in society.

Maybe the concept of the lich has changed - I mean, the concept was only really solidified for D&D - but the oldest lich story I can think of is Koschei the Deathless, and he just put his soul in a pin inside of an egg inside of a chicken on an island that only exists on one day a year. He didn't do anything bad during that event - he was just a dick for no reason.

edited 20th Jun '11 7:49:26 AM by MatthewTheRaven

I don't think the fact that others have done vampires badly is any reason to be hesitant to write about vampires yourself. Just do them well!

One thing I'm confused about, though, is why she wouldn't want the kids turned. Maybe not in childhood, but I could easily see her wanting to turn them on their 21st birthday or something. After all, otherwise she'd going to watch them grow old and die, and outliving your child is (from what I've heard) one of the most devastating things that can happen to a mother. I suppose she could be feeling less like they're her children and more like they're beloved pets or something, in which case their deaths wouldn't hit her as hard. (I was sad when my cat died, but I got over it fairly easily, and not because I didn't love him.)

Or you could go the route of 'immortality sucks', which I think is really overdone and doesn't make much sense. I'd love to live forever! (Society as we know it would collapse if everyone lived forever, but a select few living forever would be so cool.) Or claim that being a vampire sucks, in which case you'd better make sure it actually does. So far, your vampires don't seem to have anything all that unpleasant about them. If they had to kill to survive (as in Saga Of The Noble Dead), that would work, but make your character less sympathetic. Or you could have her be wrong about claiming that being a vampire sucks, and play it like a gay person who's in the closet. Maybe she realizes her view of herself is making it harder for her daughter to adjust to what happened to her.

I have no problem with vampire stories, what I have a problem with is manipulating vampires too much to suit your story rather than manipulating the story to suit the vampires. Instead of writing a story around the unique limitations of vampires, people (like She Who Will Not Be Named And Must Die For Her Crimes Against Literature) leave out the limitations they don't like out of laziness and add in ones they like better. Difficult things to write around like not being able to go out in sunlight or not killing their victims are substituted for sexual powers (and f*cking sparkles). And this is extremely common these days. Writers cripple their vampires with humanity while still trying to pretend they are monsters and then it just isn't believable.

It's your story, you can write it how you want of course, but advice? If you REALLY want to make a fresh feeling 'vampire' story, no sexual powers, no excuses for their mobility (NO sunlight at all) or their eating habits (Don't drink vat blood or raid blood banks) and minimal romanticizing (very limited sympathy and humanity, and no playing them for humor). A vampire is a frightening thing. If you aren't going to use it for that purpose then it might as well be any old humanoid. You can make up any creature to your specifications, slap a cool sounding name on it and have it work if that's the vase. If it's going to be a vampire, make it a vampire, make it a frightening and scary monster you don't want for a neighbor, not the friendly neighborhood vampire whose just misunderstood.

edited 20th Jun '11 9:24:25 PM by NoirGrimoir

^ . . .

That's like saying orcs have to be evil or Lovecraftian abominations have to be incomprehensible. Don't limit yourself or others like that.

Seriously — vampires aren't real, so writers can do with them as they please, as far as I'm concerned. I'll admit that I tend to roll my eyes and put the book down when Sexy Brooding Vampire Romance seems to be happening, but there have been authors who've done unorthodox things with vampires that I've really liked.

Also, while Twilight is terrible, I feel that Stephenie Meyer gets a disproportionate amount of blame for the "sexy angsty vampire" thing. That was going on for a long time before her (hello Anne Rice, hello LJ Smith). She's just the most popular current example.