Writer's Block: The Eternal Nocturnal Struggle

[author_by_night]

[Error: unknown template qotd]I'm inclined to choose werewolves, of course. Two words - Remus Lupin. ;) But vampires are kind of cool too.

I'm writing both a vampire and a werewolf, and it's interesting. Both are good, but the vampire always has that inner demon that sometimes comes out. My werewolf is a good person, but once a month he's a monster - and he will kill you.

Modern fantasy/sci fi seems to want to redeem both - I mean, you go from Dracula and The Wolfman to Buffy and Harry Potter, which have vampires and werewolves that are not inherently evil. In Buffy you have Angel and Oz, and in Harry Potter you have Remus, and there's a scene in one of the books where a vampire is at a Christmas party - and seems fairly harmless, although at one point they mention him looking hungry. And of course Twilight... I wouldn't call Twilight my favorite book series, but it does show werewolves and vampires as redeemable.

I do wonder how that came about - when the "monster" suddenly grew a human being's face. When the "monster" became okay. I suppose even in Dracula, there's some of that - not the redemption, but the implication that vampires can still think like human beings. Evil, sick and twisted human beings, but human beings. He plans how exactly he is going to kill his victims, rather than randomly chase them in a dark forest at night.

This could be an interesting thing to research, actually. Anyone have their own input?

Comments

[psychic-serpent.livejournal.com]

I've decided not to choose, since the novel I'm finishing editing right now is werewolf-centric and one of the next projects I plan to work on (never write the sequel to a novel while you're trying to sell it!) is about vampires, including one who's struggling with not being like other vampires. (The werewolf is also trying not to hurt people.)

I do wonder how that came about - when the "monster" suddenly grew a human being's face. When the "monster" became okay.

I think that happened fairly early on, not with a vampire or werewolf but with Dr. Frankenstein, who was depicted as far more of a monster (he had the hubris to play at being God) than the "monster" he created, who was depicted as much more sympathetic and not to blame for anything he did, much like Adam and Eve before the fall. I've got a little bit of that in my werewolf book, in which I have a couple of characters discuss the origins of werewolves (in my universe). I haven't decided on all of my vampire mythology yet, for that book, but it's a bit closer to Supernatural than Buffy. (I won't say close to Twilight, since I haven't read that and my vampires are decidedly of the non-sparkly variety. :D)

I think, though, that all of the monsters in question are generally used as metaphors for normal human beings attempting to find ways to exist in the world without letting their baser instincts rule them and turn them into monsters, of a sort, so giving a character an extra challenge that sets him apart and also isolates him even within a group in which he should be an insider adds dramatic tension and sets him up to go on a heroic journey in the story; the fantasy elements of magic and/or creatures with special abilities allows the author to make it even more challenging for the protagonist and takes the reader out of an everyday world where those things don't exist.

You also see this trope a lot in non-fantasy with people in groups that are supposedly dreadful: super-rich people, famous people, politicians, stock brokers, grifters, hookers (this is where the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold cliche comes from), convicts, etc. It's fairly standard: person in maligned group decides he isn't going to be like the others with whom he's lumped on a regular basis and basically sets out to prove to the world that he isn't like the others, despite the prejudice he is bound to encounter and the tempation to succumb to being like the people he despises, who tend to take advantage of people not in that group in some way and are justifiably (in the story) hated. The protagonist is practically REQUIRED to have a love interest in the chief group usually targeted by the group he is from, to give the romantic subplot that Romeo & Juliet quality.