Fundamentals of Vampire Fiction

[teh603]

So I'm familiar with the basic elements of vampire fiction: make it your own, don't plagarize Vampire the Masquerade (I guess Requiem is too horrible to plagarize), and they have to suck blood.

Optionally: they burn up in sunlight, can produce offsping by raping human women, can't shave because they have no reflection, don't appear in photographs, have superhuman abilities, are hyper-sexy, don't get along with werewolves for some reason, and... I think that's it.

So, time to break down the stereotypes. What would you consider the fundamentals of vampire fiction?

[steven522]

Old school all the way: Stoker's original Dracula.

Sleep in a coffin by day, hunt at night, drink blood, sunlight burns, crucifix and garlic deter, stake through the heart is the only way to be sure.

[flipreads]

Originally Posted by steven522

Old school all the way: Stoker's original Dracula.

Sleep in a coffin by day, hunt at night, drink blood, sunlight burns, crucifix and garlic deter, stake through the heart is the only way to be sure.

Dracula doesn't burn in sunlight. (He just loses his powers.)

That'a a modern interpretation.

[Justin Nemo]

To my mind there is only one 21st century authority on vampires and all things sphincter quivering, and yes, you guessed it, it's the TV show Supernatural.

According to Sam and Dean, the only way to kill a vampire is to cut of its head. That steak in the heart thing is so last year.

[EileenG]

Originally Posted by Justin Nemo

That steak in the heart thing is so last year.

I'd rather have a steak on my plate.

[crich70]

The old original pre-Dracula vampire was much like Max Shreck's vampire in Nosferatu. His teeth didn't make neat little punctures ala hypodermic needle they ripped the throat out of the victim and of course the vampire didn't look particularly pleasing to the eye (it is a re-animated corpse after all). They have to lie on their native soil and can't cross running water either. The host, holy water, the cross are all weapons against them. According to one old story if you spread seeds (I think poppy or some other plant) on the path from the graveyard to the town the vampire must pick them all up before he can get into the town and naturally such takes all night long. There are many beliefs about vampires.

[Justin Nemo]

Twelve things you may not know or may not want to know about vampires.

1. Vampire legends may have been based on Vlad of Walachia, also known as Vlad the Impaler (c. 1431-1476). He had a habit of nailing hats to people’s heads, skinning them alive, and impaling them on upright stakes. He also liked to dip bread into the blood of his enemies and eat it. His name, Vlad, means son of the dragon or Dracula, who has been identified as the historical Dracula. Though Vlad the Impaler was murdered in 1476, his tomb is reported empty.


2. Many scholars argue the word “vampire” is either from the Hungarian vampir or from the Turkish upior, upper, upyr meaning “witch.” Other scholars argue the term derived from the Greek word “to drink” or from the Greek nosophoros meaning “plague carrier.” It may also derive from the Serbian Bamiiup or the Serbo-Crotian pirati. There are many terms for “vampire” found across cultures, suggesting that vampires are embedded in human consciousness.


3. A rare disease called porphyria (also called the "vampire" or "Dracula" disease) causes vampire-like symptoms, such as an extreme sensitivity to sunlight and sometimes hairiness. In extreme cases, teeth might be stained reddish brown, and eventually the patient may go mad.


4. One of the most famous “true vampires” was Countess Elizabeth Bathory (1560-1614) who was accused of biting the flesh of girls while torturing them and bathing in their blood to retain her youthful beauty. She was by all accounts a very attractive woman.


5. The first full work of fiction about a vampire in English was John Polidori’s influential The Vampyre, which was published incorrectly under Lord Byron’s name. Polidori (1795-1821) was Byron’s doctor and based his vampire on Byron.


6. In 2009, a sixteenth-century female skull with a rock wedged in its mouth was found near the remains of plague victims. It was not unusual during that century to shove a rock or brick in the mouth of a suspected vampire to prevent it from feeding on the bodies of other plague victims or attacking the living. Female vampires were also often blamed for spreading the bubonic plague throughout Europe.


7. Before Christianity, methods of repelling vampires included garlic, hawthorn branches, rowan trees (later used to make crosses), scattering of seeds, fire, decapitation with a gravedigger’s spade, salt (associated with preservation and purity), iron, bells, a rooster’s crow, peppermint, running water, and burying a suspected vampire at a crossroads. It was also not unusual for a corpse to be buried face down so it would dig down the wrong way and become lost in the earth.


8. That sunlight can kill vampires seems to be a modern invention, perhaps started by the U.S. government to scare superstitious guerrillas in the Philippines in the 1950s. While sunlight can be used by vampires to kill other vampires, as in Ann Rice’s popular novel Interview with a Vampire, other vampires such as Lord Ruthven and Varney were able to walk in daylight.


9. Hollywood and literary vampires typically deviate from folklore vampires. For example, Hollywood vampires are typically pale, aristocratic, very old, need their native soil, are supernaturally beautiful, and usually need to be bitten to become a vampire. In contrast, folklore vampires (before Bram Stoker) are usually peasants, recently dead, initially appear as shapeless “bags of blood,” do not need their native soil, and are often cremated with or without being staked.


10. In vampire folklore, a vampire initially emerges as a soft blurry shape with no bones. He was “bags of blood” with red, glowing eyes and, instead of a nose, had a sharp snout that he sucked blood with. If he could survive for 40 days, he would then develop bones and a body and become much more dangerous and difficult to kill.


11. Some historians argue that Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, is a direct descendant of the Vlad the Impaler, the son of Vlad Dracula


12. By the end of the twentieth century, over 300 motion pictures were made about vampires, and over 100 of them featured Dracula. Over 1,000 vampire novels were published, most within the past 25 years.

Hope it helps with your research.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by teh603

Optionally: they [...] don't get along with werewolves for some reason, and... I think that's it.

Not necessarily...

I'm not exactly a big fan of vampires, but I really like Syfy's remake of the UK show "Being Human," which features a vampire, a ghost and a werewolf as roommates, because the US actors have been perfectly cast and the writing is even better than the UK show, which has become so bad that it might be mistaken for a spoof of the original show.

I'd love to see a tie-in novel for the Syfy remake of that show.

[Penforhire]

To me the fundamentals are (certainly colored by my own reading) --

1) They are a form of undead, not living in the traditional sense. It is close to required (in my mind) that they have no heartbeat and do not circulate their blood. They are intelligent and communicate (as opposed to, say, zombies).

2) They are have very long 'natural' lives if they are kept fed. They may or may not survive lack of feeding (many authors go one way or the other) and they may or may not have significant vulnerabilities such as garlic, sunlight, religious symbols, or fire. Same maybe/maybe not applies to restrictions such as swimming or crossing moving bodies of water.

I don't like vampires that aren't bothered by sunlight. That is awfully close to a basic property to me because it ties to having to hide, needing underground and/or sleeping in coffins. That hiding, and being shunned by humans who know of them, is a basic trait to me.

3) They take sustenance from human life. That may be blood, spirit, or whatever but it damages or kills the food source. That sustenance may have no more effect on them than simple food does for us or it may be a source of instant power and healing.

4) They can turn a human into a vampire. That doesn't have to happen to anyone they feed from. It can be an involved ritual.

5) They have some superhuman attributes. It can be as simple as seeing in the dark or all the way to super-strength, super-speed, hypnosis, mind-reading, instant healing, invulnerability to ordinary weapons, and transforming into animal or intangible forms.

6) Killing them permanently involves some unusual technique. Could be one or more of a stake in the heart, cutting off the head, burning the heart, etcetera.

[Xanthe]

There's quite a variety of "causes" of vampirism in novels today, depending on whether or not the author is marketing the book as a horror novel or as a romance.

How To Become A Vampire:

a) Be cursed on someone's dying breath or by a gypsy. Vamps who have this happen to them have usually been around since the 1600-1700's.

b) Be bitten by another vampire, either as part of vicious attack (e.g. a pack of rogue vampires) or in attempt to save a dying person (e.g. the vampire's "true love")

c) Be infected by a genetic virus that mimics the standard symptoms of vampirism (allergy to sunlight, nutrients in human blood needed to either support the virus or control it). Not technically the undead, they can procreate.

d) Be infected with nanites initially designed to cure illnesses, but whose programming mistakenly viewed the normal aging process as "illness" thus keeping the host young. Because of the constant cellular repair, the host does not provide enough nutrition through its own blood, so human blood must be consumed to supplement its body's own process. Atlanteans are favorites for this method. Ditto retention of the ability to procreate.

e) Be cursed by a god or a goddess causing resurrection as a vampire after death. Usually happened to ancient Greeks, Persians and Egyptians.

f) Became a vampire as a deliberate choice.


Modern Day Vampires:

a) Either sleep like the dead during the day or else are able to stay awake but must be careful of the sun. They use a high SPF sunblock, hats, sunglasses and long duster-type coats when going outdoors. They drive in cars with specially-treated windows.

b) Can see their reflections.

c) Unless they became a vampire due to a curse, they usually retain whatever faith they started out with and can enter churches, hold crosses, etc. The exception are those vampires who had to die first to become a vampire - they usually can't go onto land or into places that are specifically consecrated against the undead.

d) Unless they are rogues or traditionalists, they usually get their blood supply from blood banks (which they or their Council usually owns). Bags of blood are popped into the microwave to warm up.

e) The undead type of vampires need fresh blood to create blood pressure in order to get an erection; not enough blood, no boner.

f) Holy articles and things like garlic have no effect on them.

g) They must be invited into a private home; they can enter public buildings without an invitation.

h) The virus-or-nanite infected vampires can eat and drink just like regular folks; body functions are about the same.

g) While werewolves tend to operate within a pack structure, vampires usually have a Council made up of really old, old vampires. Sometimes there is one over-arching Council, other times there are multiple Councils (North American, European, Asian, etc.). Vampires who don't obey the laws of their respective Council are usually deemed rogue.

h) Most vampire Councils have some sort of enforcer branch to eliminate rogue vampires or any vampire that is drawing too much attention from the human population.

g) They don't change into bats. Sometimes they have the ability to fly but the physics explanation usually involves "magic" in some way.

h) They are usually stronger, faster and have sharper senses than humans. Their ability to "disappear" is usually due to their super-fast movements.

i) They consider themselves the top predator on the supernatural food chain. Humble is not a word in their lexicon.


As you can tell, I read way too much of this crap.

[efindel]

Honestly, if you're going to write vampire books, I'd suggest going out and reading some good non-fiction references, to get some ideas about different forms of the vampire myth throughout the world. Anthony Masters' A Natural History of the Vampire is a good one, as is Paul Barber's Vampires, Burial, and Death.

I see a few people have noted that vampires being destroyed sunlight is a modern invention (specifically, it first appears in the original film of Nosferatu). Vampires needing to sleep in/on "native earth" is a modern invention as well, created by Stoker for Dracula.

On the fiction side of things, I highly, highly recommend that anyone writing a vampire novel read Stephen Brust's Agyar. It's a wonderful, wonderful vampire novel that never once mentions the word "vampire".

[Freeshadow]

In Sapkowskis witcher a vampire drinks blood in because it makes him...


drunk

[orlok]

There is some credence that the vampire mythology originated in Africa, and there are interesting references to vampire-like creatures and totems in local mythology. I wrote an article for "For The Blood Is The Life" some years ago, which I include below for interest, and maybe to spark some ideas.

Spoiler:

Southern African tribal folklore abounds with mythological creatures and demons. Probably the most popular evil spirit is the 'Tokoloshe Man', who is only about a foot tall, and enters the bedroom of its sleeping victim to drain his spirit (psychic vampirism?) and sometimes kills. He is the reason why many Africans sleep in beds that are raised from the floor on bricks, so that he cannot reach them. The phenomenon of the vampire as perceived by us in the western world is not one that appears often in local legend, which is more frequently based on animal totems of one form or another.

There are beings that on closer examination bear a striking resemblance to the vampire as we know it, however, though sometimes these can be traced to 'imported' folklore. One such creature is the "Dijn Wife". She can be traced to the Cape Malays who came to Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries as slaves or political prisoners, and now mostly live in Cape Town in South Africa. The Dijn Wife comes from the following story: a good Malay man had an attractive but disliked wife, who was cold and distant in manner. This was because she was really a dijn, or evil spirit. She would never eat with her husband, pleading a poor appetite. He at last began to suspect that she received food elsewhere. Each night she placed a magic poultice on his chest to ensure that he slept like the dead, and sneaked out of the house. One evening, he pretended to be asleep, scraped the poultice off his chest, and followed her. Trailing her through the dark midnight streets, his blood chilled to find her entering a cemetery. Going to a fresh grave, she dug into the earth and uncovered the corpse. Driving her long nails into it, she ate avidly. Her husband fled in terror, and lay quaking until morning. At their next meal, however, he had recovered enough to accuse her of what he now knew, and realising that she had been discovered, she transformed him into a dog. This story is interesting in that it contains several of the elements of the western vampire, namely lack of appetite, hunting victims at night, albeit already dead, and shape changing, although in this case transmuting someone else.

The Hottentots, a race that originated in the horn of Africa, believed in 'naglopers', or night walkers, who were of both sexes and travelled only at night. Interestingly, they were believed to have control over animals, particularly the owl and baboon, and often betrayed themselves by trying to save one from being killed. The nagloper would strip themselves of all clothing, and adorn their heads with finger and toe bones, and lookouts would have to be posted at the graves of the newly dead to stop the naglopers from digging them up. At night they would visit huts, and the occupants, including dogs, would fall into a deep stupor so that they could carry out 'wicked deeds' undisturbed, which included having their way with the opposite sex. The result was that the sleepers would awake in the morning feeling weak and powerless in body and limb. Many people would also succumb to foul diseases. It was thought that the way to catch the night walker was to place a doctored kerrie (stick) at the entrance of the hut. Should the nagloper step over the kerrie, it would hold him fast until sunrise, when he could be dealt with.

The Venda, occupants of the South African homeland of Vendaland, tell of the 'muloi', or sorcerer, who again have domain over animals - owls, snakes, hyenas, baboons and stoats - and travel vast distances only at night with these familiars. They appear as shadowy forms, stark naked and of either sex, thought usually female, with eyes bright and shining like hot coals. They can induce heavy sleep in their victims, and can also inhabit their bodies and take control of their actions. Sometimes several may meet, and feast on human flesh. A muloi is also believed to act exactly like a vampire, moving from hut to hut, sucking the blood of its victims and leaving them emaciated and anaemic. The nganga, or witch doctor, is often called out to despatch the muloi, as the Venda firmly believe in these creatures, and greatly fear them. They also believe that the spirit after death hovers forever around its grave and its former home, and because it is unhappy that it can no longer return, usually seeks to bring harm to the living. The Venda look upon the soul as a combination of breath and a moving shadow, both of which leave the body at death, and for this reason believe a corpse throws no shadow.

It is clear that there actually are strong indications of vampirism within African folklore, and it has even been suggested as possible (by John L. Vellutini in the 'Journal of Vampirology') that "the belief in both witchcraft and vampirism first arose in Africa, now considered the cradle of mankind, and diffused northward into Europe and elsewhere", which means that tales like that of the Dijn Wife may actually have been re-imported from original African legend.

[Penforhire]

If we're going to pull in mythology then also take a look at the Norse draugr (there are several English spellings).

[Kemp]

There's also the oft-mentioned idea of souls along with living/dead vampires.

A living vampire has the curse/virus/whatever and displays many of the prominent traits but isn't as bothered by consecrated ground, sunlight, or other things. They still crave blood but don't necessarily need it (depending upon the interpretation). They feature enhanced strength and speed but lack the crazy mind-powers of their elder brethren.

When they die, they become the undead version, losing their souls and becoming a bit more like the classic ideas. No souls generally implies no conscience, which makes most vampires more selfish and sadistic.