Vampires

[Headhunter]

In my bid to take a break from fantasy for a while, I decided to try and tackle a story featuring vampires that takes place during modern times. I've had a setting and characters for years, but looking back at the old stories I've done, I'm not really all that happy with what I have and pretty much want to reinvent everything and start from scratch.

I post this here particularly because I'd like some insight as to what are some vampire conventions and that you think are overdone/cliched/should be avoided. I've been pondering various rules by which the vampires in my stories would operate by, but the only two things that are going to be definite are blood drinking and Sun/UV exposure leading to instant death. Since these are largely action stries, vampires will likely have some sort of super-human abilities as well, but I'm not sure yet.

What do you all think?  

[Sheboygan Milad]

Some things to consider would be:

Why/how are they vampires?

A common and by now possibly over-used explanation is that a vampire is somehow in league with the Christian version of evil/demons/Satan himself. This is why they have an aversion to crosses. This is a bit 'old hat' as far as vampire stories go, but could be interesting if done well. Any further comments I would have on this aspect might stem from the fact that I myself am not a Christian, and therefore view vampire stories containing this element as being (at least on some level) stories about Christian mythology.

Richard Matheson's vampires were victims of a plague that radically altered the biology of its victims, giving them an aversion to sunlight and a thirst for blood. This was a new take on vampires, especially when it was written, and I personally found it very interesting. Part of what made the story so good was Matheson's style and structure, and the way the protagonist grapples with the myth versus the reality.

Are they similar to humans in terms of morality, motivation, and character?

Vampires and humans are fundamentally motivated by similar needs, but what about their wants?

Needs include food (blood,) the need for shelter (coffin, lair, hole in the ground, or somewhere else they'll be safe from the light, etc.,) and whatever else they may require to survive.

Wants may include social interaction, sexual interaction, general fun (drag racing, going to the movies, hunting...) If these vampires are, as most are, going to be former humans, it might make sense that they would have at least some similar desires and possibly similar morality, although you really can't assign any specific sense of morality to all of humankind. Everybody operates by their own sets of rules. Vampires in stories often feel superior to humans, sometimes because they have superior physical abilities, including strength and speed, and also because they feed on the blood of humans.

The evil vampire that feels totally superior to humans and does nothing but drink blood and bare their teeth and kill people tends to be a little overdone and one-dimensional. It could be done well, it could be interesting, it could be very entertaining, but most of the time when I see characters like that (like the leader of the vampires in the movie version of 30 Days of Night) I lose interest, because there's nothing to relate to and nothing to fear. The heroes are being chased by a paper doll, and it weakens the surrounding characters and story as well. There's no reason an action story/movie has to have one-dimensional characters.

Another convention that I actually don't see used very much anymore is the lack of reflection when a vampire is in front of a mirror. Yes, I know that most vampire stories are in the realm of the supernatural, but I was never quite able to buy this. Why don't they have reflections? One explanation is that they have no souls. This never made sense to me, because, well, soul or not, it's light that's reflected from a mirror, not the soul. The table or the wall or the curtain may have no more soul than a busted shoe, but whether they do or not, you can see them in a mirror.

I know I can be a bit long-winded, and if you've read this entire post, I appreciate it. I could say more on the subject, but I'll leave it as is for now. These are just my opinions, too, so feel free to ignore them and do whatever you want.  

[AntoniaMerEnfant]

I think the over arching concept of Vampire-ism is that it is a state that redefines life and death- though in a more sophisticated manner than Zombie-ism. The Vampire is intellect and flesh continuing on after what is considered a natural death/life. There is a sense of quasi-immortality, to live forever and yet they are still guarded by certain restrictions just like mortals (as Sheboyan mentioned, food, shelter, etc).

One cliche you might want to avoid is the horny vamp. Maybe because I used to text rp, I can't stand the horny vamp. All the gosh darned vamps in Yahoo's Eden RP circle (and Ayenee too) were horny little casanova pricks. They all seemed to be excuses to cyber covering it up as legitimate RP. To be honest we've all seen the charismatic, suave, and over-sexed vamp. I actually wanted to write a story with a horrendously nerdy vamp. I ask you, where are the nerdy vampires? Dracula wasn't wearing a Star Wars shirt. Lestat certainly doesn't own D & D dice. And did anybody in the entirety of Underworld say, "Hey look, Babylon 5 marathon! But wait, Inu Yasha's on Cartoon Network AND there are classic Star Trek on G4... oooh pooh XFiles re-runs on FX, so torn!!! so torn!!! Somebody make a random # generator to pick what to watch".

And no one, no one in Queen of the Damned was going to stop the action to play Warhammer. No one.

Perhaps Vampires don't like Geek blood. Or when one is turned into a vamp do they automatically transform into some designer-label-wearing playboy/girl European aristocrat with so much sex appeal that Hugh Hefner weeps with envy? If you make a nerdy or geeky vamp, you will officially be my hero.  

[Sheboygan Milad]

I have to second that! We've seen everything from the rat-like count in Nosferatu to Anne Rice's ultra suave brooding brood, and I'm even getting ready to read a book called Fat White Vampire Blues, about a vampire cab driver, but I can't think of a single vampire nerd.

Wow, that was a run-on sentence.  

[Headhunter]

Thanks for the input.

I've started outlining the story and made the decision to have the main character be a human. The vampire lead comes in later and will likely play a supporting role more than anything.

Vampirism is caused by a biological change in this story, as opposed to a supernatural one, but it's not something I plan on going into great detail about at this time because the main character will have a hard enough time coping with that fact that vampires actually exist that she won't really have time to worry about what it is that makes them tick.

Horny vampires are one thing I'm definitely avoiding as I was never an Anne Rice fan to begin with. I want to have my vampires behave more or less as humans would, save for their need to drink blood. I'm not sure how many vampires will appear in this story (the outline isn't too far along and so far I only have three vamps appearing) but they'll be varied as far motivations and personalities go.

For instance, the first two vampires that appear in the story were a pair of recklessly violent, drug addicted hoods when they were human and as vampires, they still are. The only real difference being that their transformation has made them more violent and unpredictable because they've realized they're semi-immortal now.

The other vamp (this guy is the lead vamp) is sort of a jaded guy whose only really spurred in to any kind of action when personally threatened or he stands to gain something. He believes, in his 600 years, that's he's seen it all and that mortals and non-mortals (vampires aren't the only creatures running about in the world) in general are equally repulsive as a collective. So he lives by an apathetic "Whatever. Just go with it" philosophy.

I'm trying to keep things simple as afar as character count goes because I don't plan on this story being very long.