 Fantasy: June 26, 2013 Issue [#5748] |
  Fantasy
This week: Tired of Vampires Edited by: Satuawany  
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| For two years, I've been an editor for this newsletter. It's taught me a lot, and I hope it's taught a few others something, too. Talking about vampires, my way, has been a topic I've sat on for some time, waiting for it to fully form how I wanted. Well, it's now or never, ay? |
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Oh, I hear the groans now: Do we really have to talk about vampires?
I hear, too, the proclamation: Hey, I’ve been writing about vampires for years. I know all about them.
If either of those reactions are yours, then we really need to talk about vampires.
Once a stereotype gets established, it’s time to get in there and break it---or exploit it. The word “vampire” doesn’t have to mean “Dracula” or “Edward Cullen” wannabe. Writing about vampires doesn’t mean trying to be Anne Rice or Charlaine Harris. Like with any story, write the one only you can write.
Writers skilled in the fantasy genre should have some great ideas about this. You should be students of creation myth and alternate worlds. One way to get into a different kind of vampire myth is to play with the creation myth. Just where did vampires come from---how and why? Was there a first vampire, and what made that person a vampire?
Or maybe the first vampire (or any vampires in your world) were created from human stock. They could be fae or alien creatures who’ve always been how they are, and have no way of converting humans. Or maybe they convert humans as a side-effect of a kind of feeding they do, but the conversion doesn’t make them the pure kind of vampire that your alien, fae, or otherwise non-human creature is.
Another way to get at a new way of looking at vampires is the alternate world route. Writers like Charlaine Harris have an alternate timeline thing working in her series that went on to inspire the HBO series TrueBlood. In that world, everyone knows vampires exist, but man, there are only little glimpses of what that would really mean---and there’re more of them in the HBO series than the books. Even so, there are wide-open spaces to explore in a world where everyone knows vampires exist.
Take Robin McKinley’s Sunshine, where we’re in a world recognizably like our own, but off enough to have magic and know vampires are real. (Really and truly, I can’t recommend this book enough to anyone, no matter what you think of the vampire genre.) There’s this same premise of vampires in the world, but a completely different approach.
That’s the way you have to think when breaking down a stereotype---that angle only you can see, that direction only you know. And when you break a stereotype, people recommend your work to one another as this example of a broken stereotype. I can’t count house many book discussions I’ve read through or participated in where the main recommendations were tagged with a line about how it’s “not what you’d expect from a [genre] book.”
Breaking the stereotype makes the genre accessible to even those who don’t usually get into that genre. And that’s a beautiful thing.
Here’s a simple exercise for someone who’d like to try their hand at reinventing the vampire genre:
Take one of what you consider your most well developed characters---someone who is vibrant and alive to you. Now, write a bit about what it’d be like if that person were a vampire. That could mean following them around through a day and a night, through just a few moments, or it could mean just letting them talk about it for a few hundred words.
Even if it doesn’t make you want to get in on wrenching the vampire genre away from the usual players, it can still teach you about your character’s world. You might find out they have something very similar to a vampire in stories---or in reality. You’ll have an opportunity, then, to find out more about it, and maybe even spin yourself off into needing to tell a story of those creatures. And then the character you used for the exercise can happily go back to the story from which you plucked them.
As writers, we need to be wary when we dismiss a genre or element out of hand. We need to be wary, too, when we automatically like a genre or element, no matter the actual story. Both reactions make it easy to miss out on opportunities, and ignore possibilities and the chance for growth. So whether you love or hate vampires, try looking at them from a different angle. There’s no telling what you might see.
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I'm currently wrapping up a contest where my co-judge and I announced what genre the contestants would be writing in only after they signed up. The genre? Vampires. We had a lot of writers who had never written about vampires before, and had never wanted to. They came up with some good stories, especially considering each was written within a week.
Some of my favorites are behind the first link. You have to follow the link to get to them because a couple of them are rated GC, and we're not allowed to have anything rated above 18+ in our Editor's Picks section.
It's safe to click this link; all the text within the forum post leads to is E-rated, including the titles and short descriptions of the GC-rated items.
"Invalid Post"
Twelve vampire stories, each written within a week.
Here's a long-time favorite of mine, where charactization and emotion set it apart from your usual vampire story:
And this is a good list if you ever find yourself a member of the fanged undead. It pokes fun at some of the stereoptypes in the best way---with humor. Or humour, if you prefer:
Ah, the vampire children's story---always fun:
How about a religious twist?
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And this, which I don't want to give away:
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Feedback from "Ain't Nothin' Like the Real Thing" by Lynn McKenzie  :
asymmetrical writes:
Great newsletter, Lynn! Real-world fantasy is my thing too. I'm also interested in stories that take place in a setting half in, half out of the real world, like some of the urban fantasy I've read.
Thanks, asymmetrical! Urban fantasy is certainly another fruitful subcategory of real-world fantasy.
ember_rain writes:
Isn't fantasy itself paranormal? Witches and Wizards are paranormal. Harry potter is a paranormal story just as much as Twilight. Stories about mythical creatures and gods, are paranormal stories. Stories about goblins on the wings of planes are paranormal. If it is fantasy, it is paranormal.
I think that's putting slightly too broad a definition on paranormal fantasy. If a story is set entirely in a different world, then by that world's definition, everything that happens is perfectly normal. You might check Lonewolf  's recent Fantasy NL of June 12th, 2013, for a more detailed discussion of paranormal fiction.
BIG BAD WOLF is Howling  writes:
Have to wonder about the future.
Yes indeed! I think real-world fantasy has a place in the future. Of course, time travel, although usually thought of as science fiction, can also be a component of the genre.
Mark Allen Mc Lemore writes:
I am using my characters Parallel L and Graham in this world, but they come from the "World Beneath Our Feet", they are here to save humanity from what really lies inside the Earth. I am also using my characters in an active way to show effects of things we are doing to this planet, deforesting and draining it of its resources, even a few political ideas but nothing concrete yet.
Great article.
Thank you! Those sound like interesting ideas.
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