Vampires too played out?

Narren · Feb 25, 2015

I'm writing an epistolary novel that follows a troubled detective who stumbles upon some vampires in his city.

They're going to be played down, and more down to earth than what we commonly see in fiction (no bursting into flames during the day, no retractable fangs, no turning into bats, etc) but I'm still worried that just using the word "vampire" may be making people groan these days.

I want whatever he finds (or thinks he finds, he may or may not be losing his grip) to be some kind of supernatural monster that preys upon the living, but I'm not sold on what.

What do you guys think? Are they too played out?

Shadow_Ferret · Feb 25, 2015

I'd search for other European and old world vampire-like legends and call them by that name. I'm always kicked out of a story when a writer uses something familiar but then changes the tropes. "Wait. What? The vampire sparkles?"

Myrealana · Feb 25, 2015

I don't think vampires are over by any means.

Take a new angle. Don't retread old tropes. Find something new to explore about the vampire and use that.

Personally, I don't think you need to worry about which vampires you use. The whole bursting into flames in sunlight thing is a relatively new addition to the lore. Dracula certainly didn't do it. Retractable fangs are an artifact of hot young vampires in movies and TV shows needing to look hot and young, and not monstrous.

Buffy's vampires couldn't turn into bats, wolves or smoke (except the actual Dracula, which we will ignore.)
Supernatural's vampires have mouths full of crazy needle-like teeth when they feed instead of two neat fangs.
The Dresden Files have three different kinds of vampires, some of which don't even drink blood.

Jackx · Feb 25, 2015

Narren said:
What do you guys think? Are they too played out?

Yes.

atombaby · Feb 25, 2015

I believe vampires are much more common in fiction now, but not necessarily played out.

The viciousness and thug-ishness of your vampires should be proportional to the detective's moral code and state of mind.

Calla Lily · Feb 25, 2015

Not played out, but a harder sell.

robjvargas · Feb 25, 2015

Narren said:
What do you guys think? Are they too played out?

Yup.

Everything.

It's been done a 1001 times 1001 different ways, and played out.

Until it isn't.

Until a story comes along that recaptures interest.

Maybe that's your story.

Maybe it's not.

You're only going to know when you write.

Narren · Feb 25, 2015

Thanks. I think I'm going to stick with properties from the older legends, and only call them by name when someone makes a comparison. None of them are actually characters, more like unseen boogie men.

atombaby said:
I believe vampires are much more common in fiction now, but not necessarily played out.

The viciousness and thug-ishness of your vampires should be proportional to the detective's moral code and state of mind.

What do you mean by that exactly?

Ellesi · Feb 25, 2015

I personally never get tired of vampires, but do like to see different twists on the actual lore.

atombaby · Feb 25, 2015

Narren said:
Thanks. I think I'm going to stick with properties from the older legends, and only call them by name when someone makes a comparison. None of them are actually characters, more like unseen boogie men.

What do you mean by that exactly?

I got the impression from your OP that the vampires in your story would be of the Nosferatu kind: the reincarnations of pure evil. Since your MC has possible psychological issues, I would make the particular evils of your vampires psychologically torment the MC, thereby challenging his personal issues.

Is your MC his own worst enemy? Or does his main case job have to do with a specific fiend (not necessarily a vampire) that he must find?

Just be sure of the reason why you're choosing vampires rather than say, a sociopath, a drug gang, etc. Being that this is an epistolary novel, much like Dracula, it would make sense to have that dark supernatural element in order to delve into the psychology of horror. If you want to go with vampires for that specific reason, that is totally fine.

Narren · Feb 25, 2015

atombaby said:
I got the impression from your OP that the vampires in your story would be of the Nosferatu kind: the reincarnations of pure evil. Since your MC has possible psychological issues, I would make the particular evils of your vampires psychologically torment the MC, thereby challenging his personal issues.

Is your MC his own worst enemy? Or does his main case job have to do with a specific fiend (not necessarily a vampire) that he must find?

Just be sure of the reason why you're choosing vampires rather than say, a sociopath, a drug gang, etc. Being that this is an epistolary novel, much like Dracula, it would make sense to have that dark supernatural element in order to delve into the psychology of horror. If you want to go with vampires for that specific reason, that is totally fine.

You've given me a couple more aspects to consider, thank you.

Part of the reason it's a supernatural threat is because the reader doesn't know if this is in his head or if it's real. The world thinks he's crazy, but there is other evidence (police reports, coroner reports, news articles, wiretapped phone call transcripts) that may or may not back up what he's saying.

I've definitely thought of a few angles from just these comments, though. Thanks.

Gargoyle · Feb 26, 2015

I appreciate this thread as the OP realizes that anything related to "Vampires" can be boiled down to two or three camps.

1) Twilight (Teenage angst / meets forbidden love)

2) Dracula (Shape-shifter and soldier of darkness), Lugosi? Oldman? Langella?

3) Nosferatu (The bald-headed, large fanged, razor sharp nails) black and white rendition of what a true vampire was meant to be.

4) I almost forgot Lestat de Lioncourt (Interview with a Vampire)

There was an interview on Youtube with Stephen King when asked if he'd ever write about Vampires ('Salems Lot) he groaned. I think this pretty much is how I feel. Unless the arc is extremely compelling and adds a new twist to the mythos, it's been tragically hashed out to its end. But there is always one novel that can pull it off.

Good luck with your writing....

Jamesaritchie · Feb 26, 2015

Shadow_Ferret said:
I'd search for other European and old world vampire-like legends and call them by that name. I'm always kicked out of a story when a writer uses something familiar but then changes the tropes. "Wait. What? The vampire sparkles?"

You may be kicked out, but millions of others are brought in. Those sparkly vampires attracted a massive readership. And a massive viewership.

Jamesaritchie · Feb 26, 2015

The openly thing that ever gets played out is second rate, same old, same old. One writer comes up with something incredibly good, or something millions want, and a bunch of second rate writer flood the market with pale imitations. This causes supersaturation, and the market dies.

Until another writer comes up with something that's incredibly good, or simply something that millions want.

Nothing ever gets played out except pale imitation, and lack or good writing and originality. People seem to forget that vampires were "played out" many times. They were played out before Stephen King, they were completely played out before Anna Rice, and no one thought we'd ever see another one before Stephanie Meyer.

There were other times, several of them, and this doesn't even count all the times vampires were "played out" in the movies.

If you can write well enough, and if you can show some good originality, then there is no such thing as "played out". If there were, every genre out there would have been played out forever ago.

onesecondglance · Feb 26, 2015

Narren said:
... I'm still worried that just using the word "vampire" may be making people groan these days.

If it's set in a contemporary world, then it has to be that word. Because what word would you use if you heard about something that drank blood?

Call it what it is. It doesn't matter if it doesn't tick all the typical boxes, if your characters would recognise it as a vampire, they'd call it that. Don't make up jargon just for the sake of trying to avoid the word.

Gargoyle said:
3) Nosferatu (The bald-headed, large fanged, razor sharp nails) black and white rendition of what a true vampire was meant to be.

Given vampire-analogues exist in many different cultural traditions in many different forms, it's not really fair to say any form is "truer" than another.

Tinman · Feb 26, 2015

I'd happily buy a good vampire novel, or read a good vampire short, as long as it was horror and not sparkly vampires -- but that's just me.

I read the first Twilight novel; I didn't care for it, but I knew I wouldn't. I only read it because it was popular and I wanted to see what the draw was.

I agree with Jamesaritchie.

Jamesaritchie said:
The openly thing that ever gets played out is second rate, same old, same old. One writer comes up with something incredibly good, or something millions want, and a bunch of second rate writer flood the market with pale imitations. This causes supersaturation, and the market dies.

Until another writer comes up with something that's incredibly good, or simply something that millions want.

Nothing ever gets played out except pale imitation, and lack or good writing and originality. People seem to forget that vampires were "played out" many times. They were played out before Stephen King, they were completely played out before Anna Rice, and no one thought we'd ever see another one before Stephanie Meyer.

Good Luck!!!

Narren · Feb 28, 2015

I'm having some visions with this project that I'm thinking may not be realistic. As I said, it's epistolary. I'm open to quite a bit of criticism and revision, but I'm not really wanting to change that part. I want to tell a story through his journal entries (department psychiatrist mandated), police reports and supplements, coroners reports, newspaper clippings, therapy progress reports (I'm making that up, is that a thing?), e-mails, transcribed wiretaps, etc. I'm actually a police detective, so I have a pretty good bead on how to write most of those. Stringing them together into a coherent and compelling story is another thing, but I'll worry about that after I've gotten more words on paper.

However, I keep going to back to the idea of....illustrations? I want an image of a newspaper clipping, with seemingly unrelated news stories next to the plot driven ones. I want his kid's show and tell report to have crayon drawings in them. I'd love to throw in a crime scene photo or two. Am I getting a little too ambitious here? I've never been published outside of academia, so I know little about the commercial publishing industry outside of what I've read online. I don't see a lot of novels with illustrations that progress the story, so I'm guessing that it'd be a pretty tough pitch when it comes time to look for an agent and/or publisher.

Rhoda Nightingale · Mar 2, 2015

It can work, but it is, as you say, ambitious. The only (adult) author I can think of who's been successful weaving multimedia imagery into novels is Mark Danielewski. Another horror writer, very experimental, and pretty awesome. But I have no idea how you would pitch that.

Vampires too played out?

Narren

Shadow_Ferret

Court Jester

Myrealana

I aim to misbehave

Jackx

atombaby

nice & cynical

Calla Lily

On hiatus

robjvargas

Narren

Ellesi

atombaby

nice & cynical

Narren

Gargoyle

Working on plot and structure!

Jamesaritchie

Jamesaritchie

onesecondglance

pretending to be awake

Tinman

Narren

Rhoda Nightingale

Vampire Junkie