Hello, everyone!  As I am getting ready to get this vampire story fleshed out, I’ve talked about the protagonist a little, but now I want to look at the antagonist.  I’ve called in a vampire, but that’s only because I want to get myself (or the reader) into a certain mindset about the character.  And what is that mindset you ask?

That this guy is mad, bad and dangerous to know.  Much like Lord Byron.

Earlier on, I explained that I wanted to bring back the menace and danger to vampires.  There is a lot we can still do with this particular archetype that doesn’t have to be limited to just sex (although as Stephen King points out in Danse Macabre — that’s what they’re there for), but it can be for any sort of lust.  Lust for money?  Sure — you ever seen a poor vampire?  Lust for power?  Have you ever seen a vampire worry about his voice not being heard in city hall?  Vampires are the spirits of lust given form and substance.  Sex is picked because it’s the most primal and the one that almost everyone can identify with.

I don’t want to call them vampires, though.  That word still has a lot of baggage to it.  Yeah, i said that I wanted to use the word vampire to put myself in a mindset, but I don’t want that word to be used  in the manuscript.  I don’t want my protagonist to suddenly jump up and yell “BLOODY HELL!  YOU’RE A VAMPIRE!”

That is not going to help matters.

So, I’m going to call them vampires, but I am going to give them a couple of traditional weaknesses so that the reader can begin to pick up on things, but still leave it open to the reader should they choose to not believe that a bloodsucking fiend from hell could be a bit on the ornery side.

Well, I’m starting to feel a little mentally fuzzy, so I am going to make it an early evening here.  When I come back tomorrow, I’ll get back to the character of the antagonist and maybe think of some ways he can be a mentor to the protagonist and some ways he can be a jerk to him.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a good day.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy