Vampires

I hate vampires.

Sure, I went through my Anne Rice phase when I was fourteen, and I've read (almost) everything Amelia Atwater-Rhodes has ever written, but by the time the Twilight thing came around I was well over them.  Then, well, the Twilight thing came around, and that killed vampires for good.

Or so I thought.

It was the show "True Blood" that brought them back to me.  Yes, I know they're based on novels, and no, I haven't read any but the first one because I want to keep my respect for the show.  Then there was last summer's collaborative Writing Project of Doom, which involved vampires.  Sexy sexy gay vampires.  Well, all vampires are gay, really.  Seriously, the Meyer woman's attempt at making vampires less gay was to have them sparkle.

Because the Writing Project was Of Doom, my collaborator and I made a pact for this summer:  No vampires.  And what do I do?  I get all excited about a Big Gay Writing Contest, stare at a blank page for a few hours, then jot down the first promising sentence that pops into my head, which happens to be:  After my brother was turned into a vampire, my coming out was almost a relief to my parents.

Oops.

Like a magician with a string of flags, I managed to pull a story out of that first line.  As you may have picked up from my last post, the story needs work (understatement).  The scenes without vampires are all good, and can be worked into the new fabric when I have one.  The vampires will need to be completely, if you'll pardon the pun, revamped.

What I did, as the Nostalgia Chick would say, is create a story from hate.  I hate sparklevamps.  I hate the fact that when I walk into a Barnes and Noble, there is a section just for "Paranormal Romance."  (At least there is one for "Fantasy Adventure" as well.)  I hate how a bloodsucking fiend has had its fangs trimmed, turned into a prettyboy badboy for pathetic teengirls to swoon over.  Vampires.  Are not.  Teenagers.

Thus, in my story, I worked to make my vampires as repulsive as possible and ended up with a sort of AIDS/gangs/drugs screwed up mixed metaphor.  As my beta pointed out, I could replace the vampire with any one of those without changing the story a bit.  Furthermore, I hated the vampires.  They weren't any fun.

I don't hate all vampires.  I like sexy Erik Northman, the sexy badass in charge.  I like Atwater-Rhodes, though her vamps are some of her less compelling characters (I may revise that opinion once I get around to All Just Glass).  To be honest, I never really "got" Rice's vamps.  They were just kind of emo and weird.

What I was going for was a similar vein to Holly Black's "The Coldest Girl in Coldtown," a suberversion of all the prettyfication vampires have recently undergone. Which is a stupid thing to do, because she already wrote that story, so I should write a different one.  In fact, I should get started on that right now, because this whole post is simply procrastination.  I just need to lay down some ground rules for vampires first.  Not just for my story, but for any story I will ever write, read, or respect.

Rules for being a vampire:

1.  You are not a teenager.  Even if you were one physically when you were changed, you are an immortal bloodsucking monster.  You will use your apparent adolescence to your advantage and to manipulate your vicitms.

2.  You will not fall in love with a human.  Humans are food.  If you find one especially pleasing, you may turn it and keep it around as an immortal companion until you tire of it and kill it, or it tires of you and kills you.

3. You will be sexy.  Bonus points for bisexuality.

4.  You will be powerful, dangerous, ruthless, and badass.  No one wants to hear you whine.

5.  You will not be psycho.  Crazies are boring.

6.  You will not be stupid.

7. You will be selfish, and above all, inhuman.  But inhuman in a sexy unattainable way.  Eating people who love you is good.

8.  You cannot be "vegetarian."  No "I only eat animals" or "I never kill my victims."  The latter is acceptable only if your reason is that you do not like to clean up bodies.  Any attempt to make you more benign so that the poor teenage sop thinks she has a chance with you is cheating.

So perhaps instead of angsty teenage delinquents, we have a not-friendly neighborhood vampire slowly taking over a town.  Kind of like 'Salems Lot, only...not.  Hm.  Needs more thought, still.