The able vampire…

I wrote a few days ago about vampire weaknesses and trying to find a balance for my vampires while still remaining true to their creature type. It wasn’t terribly difficult to come up with weaknesses, the difficulty came when I tried to apply only a few of them to my vampires. Weakness in moderation. If they’re too weak, after all, they’re useless. Trying to strike a balance with vampire power was far more difficult. It’s easy to get carried away and make uber-vamps that can obliterate anything in their way. This is not what I was going for, I’m going for monster-lite, tortured-lite, humanesque. Yes, they’re monsters, but I think the ability to defy age is a pretty awesome power all by itself.

But, simply the ability to live and live isn’t enough for fiction. Vampires have to be super human and mine are no exception. They have powers, I spent days researching and thinking and making notes. I made sure my vamps had powers. My biggest challenge was deciding how the powers would be divided, how did some have certain powers and others others. Once I got that solved, I had to decide what abilities my main character had, what could I give her to make sure she’s not immortal, even though she’s ever living. No one wants a protagonist that can’t suffer a little, that can’t fail. A brick house isn’t interesting to read about.

Strike a balance, that’s what I did. I think I have it worked out, now I just have to make sure I can work it all in. After all, powers are useless if you can’t use them, right? Right. I also have to work to make sure my character isn’t too human, which is something I consciously work at because to me, she always feels a little too human to be a vampire. I’m working on it but it’s not easy. Then again, anything short of ripping out the throat of enemies and eating it will feel a bit too human for me, I’m desensitized.

Then there’s the considerations about how far the character is willing to go with her abilities. Can she kill? Will she if she can? Well, yes, she is a vampire after all. All vampires seem to be able to whoop ass, though I question that, to be honest. Not every human knows how to use a gun, so why should every vampire be able to skillfully execute kung fu or whatever? Not very realistic is it? I mean, a vampire probably has the cold compulsion to kill, they are predators, but that doesn’t mean they’re automatically possessed of the ability, does it? So yeah, there are a lot of considerations. My book will probably have a few vamps who can’t fight, they can feed, but that’s hardly the same thing.

In the end it comes down to the ability to what needs to be done to carry out the plot. Characters have to be given the tools to proceed without being too powerful and overthrowing the plot. It’s certainly a balancing act but not impossible by any means. Make your characters able, my vamps certainly are!

Kristyn

A weakness for vampires…

I spent several days just preparing to write. New writing projects are a complete clean slate, so for me, prep is always a must. This book/series, however, required more preparation and thought than usual. Why? Because I had to decide how my vamps would work. Every fiction writer that writes anything supernatural goes through this. What sorts of abilities will my monsters have? In my case, vamps are difficult because they’re very done. Lots of writers write vamps so it’s particularly important to be original without veering too far away from what makes a vampire a vampire. Which got me thinking… with the changing characteristics and multitude of different vampire archetypes out there these days, what makes a vampire a vampire anymore? Particularly, what weaknesses should a vampire have that hearkens back to their vampire roots?

The only common threads I could come up with were the need for blood as sustenance and the “allergy” to sunlight. I know, it’s not so much an allergy as a anathema that will burn them to a crisp, but allergy seems suitable. Everything else, all the vampire powers and weaknesses seem to differ. Some authors are more traditional in giving their vampires weaknesses like the inability to cast reflection or shadow, the inability to cross running water, repulsion to garlic and the fear of holy items and hallowed ground. Most authors, though, take the time to variate these weaknesses and give them flavor. The vamps in Laurell K. Hamilton’s stories, for example, are affected by crosses only when using vampire powers on the crosses wearer and the older vamps are less affected than the lower power vamps, which just makes sense.

The common and traditional vampire weaknesses are fairly abundant, and after some research, I learned there are a lot more of them than I had originally believed. Repulsion not only by garlic, but also by mustard seed, ash, wild rose, and hawthorn, is one example. Most of the others are fairly standard, including those I mentioned above, crosses, holy items, hallowed ground, running water, mirrors and shadows. In some cases, and I know it generally applies to lycanthropes only, but I’ve seen vampires who are vulnerable to silver. Personally, I like this one. If your vamps are going to be able to shape shift, like a lycanthrope, then why not a weakness to silver? Makes sense to me, but it is certainly one of the least conventional weaknesses, right up there with the very rare inability to drink the blood of the dead, which again makes sense but is very untraditional.

So, when I was trying to determine the dynamics of my vampires, I had a lot of considerations to make, both to weaknesses and powers. Weakness are harder than they sound. Do I make up new ones? Do I stick to the traditional weaknesses? Do I use all of them, or just some? How many weaknesses is too many? How many is not enough? How do I know? How will it affect the power dynamic of my characters? Ultimately, I decided to give them just a few of the traditional weaknesses, you know, the inability to enter into sunlight/fire (with one exception), the inability to cast, not reflection, but shadow, reliance on blood/energy transference for survival, and there was one other that I can’t quite come up with off the top of my head.

I spent a lot of time on abilities too, but that’s an entry for another day, when I have a bit more time, weaknesses were much easier than abilities. My vampires are a bit untraditional, while remaining true to what they are, vampires. As someone who has a great deal of reverence and respect for vampire myth and legend, I took a great deal of care in making my vampires original while paying homage to their historical vampire roots.

All this talk about vampires has inspired me to get writing!

Kristyn

About Legend & Lore

My name is Kristyn and I’m a vampire fanatic! There, now that we’ve gotten that out, we can move on, all on the same page. I’m a writer, a student, and a wife to a really sweet, encouraging guy. The only part that’s truly important to this blog is the writer part. Today, April 1, 2008, I started a writing project, a vampire book to begin a series (I hope) of vampire books, and I am simply thrilled! Yes, yes, there are already several vampire series out there, but there’s always room for another. I’m a fan of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake and Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse. I love series’s, I love vampires, it was only natural that I should begin this a series about vampires.

Much research has brought me to this point. Much delving into the myth and legend behind the worlds oldest and most controversial monster has inspired me to begin this blog where I can write about vampires and vampire myths, as well as the writing process, my research into the history of the undead, as well as the occassional random bit about whatever strikes my fancy.

This is not my first blog, it’s not even my second, you can also find me at ya don’t say…, where I write about, well, whatever the heck I want, really! ya don’t say… is my personal blog, my very first blog ever, actually. It’s been at blogger and wordpress.com before finally finding it’s way to it’s own domain. Maybe, someday, this blog, too will find it’s own home out there somewhere. I’ve been blogging for five years (in 9 days)!!

So there you have it, a blog with a purpose.

Kristyn