Vampires, Werewolves, and Zombies. discussion

What things do you know about monsters and horrifying creatures ?.I know very,very,very much about monsters. do you ?.

When I wrote my book I tried to break all traditional rules. I try to read as much as I can on the basic three, vampires, werewolves, and zombies.

I have recently been helping a friend with old traditional rules of vampires. He has decided to write a book sticking to old customs. I informed him to do a lot of research. He was unaware that they used to stuff roses in the dead persons mouth and all around there bodies to keep them from rising from the dead. Also they nailed the corpse through the arms and legs to keep them from rising and beheaded them before burial.

A lot of these traditions were the same for people that were believed to rise as lycanthrope. And some countries they believed that the were-creatures and vampires were one in the same.

I used to have book about demons but don't know much about them. I'm always up for discussion.

C.V. wrote: "When I wrote my book I tried to break all traditional rules. I try to read as much as I can on the basic three, vampires, werewolves, and zombies.

I have recently been helping a friend with old t..."
i like to do research on many different types of monsters.because i use the research to explain to people about these monsters.other people unlike us monster enthusiasts do not know much about these creatures,common people just know movie monsters.but i think our job as monster enthusiasts is to introduce the world to the mysterious,evil and ugly creatures known as monsters.by,the way i learned how people used to make mummies in egypt and how the jackal headed god anubis judged the heart of dead people.if the heart was lighter or balanced to the feather.the soul of that dead person would go to heaven.if the heart was heavier the body of the dead people were eaten by a monster that was crocodile-hippo-lion

I think the best acadmic book about the history of vampires is by Bruce McClelland, "Slayers and their vampires" (http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetai...). I think it sprang from his PhD thesis at UVA on Balkan folklore.

From the first mention of vampire in the margin of an orthodox bible through the buffy times.

I will have to pick that one up and add it to my collection.

Right now I mainly use The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead for vampires and The Werewolf in Lore and Legend for werewolves. I found another book good for just general creatures to be The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures and Fabulous Creatures and Magical Beings (which has no author, I picked up used, and I've never been able to find it anywhere else)

Then there is the internet.

Richard wrote: "I think the best acadmic book about the history of vampires is by Bruce McClelland, "Slayers and their vampires" (http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetai...). I think it sprang from his..."
By the way... I really like your take on angels and demons. I'm right in the middle of Succumbing to Gravity, and I love it. You do really well with the inner struggle when writing first person and I think that is what draws me to your writing. Keep up the good work and I look forward to any new books that you put out.

Legacy puts a small spot light on angels and demons, but I think yours are killer. :)

Thanks Carrie,

I didn't want a typical catholic angel/demon thing, (Because angels really aren't catholic)that you see a lot in contemporary fallen angel stories, so I used the book of Enoch (apocryphal) as a starting point.

Old Judaism and early Christianity had a much more mystical element and I wanted my angels to capture that 'pre-connonization' vibe, without being too inconsistent with the readers preconceptions.

My favorite line to write was when asked what 'religion' he was and Greg (MC) say's, "...atheist. He stopped believeing in me, so I stopped believing in him."

Richard,

I absolutely loved it. I have posted the review on my blog and here on Goodreads. I'm headed over to Amazon right now to get it up. Here it is

http://authorcvhunt.blogspot.com/2011...

And I thought I would share something with you. Some people know that I have quite a collection of skin ink, but few get to see my back piece, here is a link to my tattoo photos, and I believe my back piece is the first one. I much prefer your description of what damnation looks like though. I look forward to read more from you.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?se...

Carrie,
I am deleriously happy you liked STG!

A lot of people gave me 'hell' over the ending, didn't leave room for a sequel, why didn't you do it this way. Glad you got it.

And, a big OMG shout-out on those tats, seriously brave, and now I know why it's scary carrie (the back made me cry for you). I think my favorite is the Tlingit (?) wolf (maybe wolverine- but I think wolf) but that is wikedly dark (and must hurt like an emefer).

I can honestly say that it was one of the best books that I have read. I thought the ending was perfect because it was unexpected and it leaves you wondering. It's sort of a cliff hanger that will never end and I like that.

Yes, the tattoos are one of the reasons that people call me Scary Carrie. Ha ha.

I can't believe you nailed the Twilight tattoo. Even the artist that was doing it, about half way through it, said: "Wait a minute, is this a Twilight tattoo?"

It's my guilty pleasure. I did enjoy her rendition of the vampire/werewolf. So much so that I made the voyage to Forks. I know, I know. But when I got there, I feel in love with La Push. The Quileute tribe are extremely nice, and I can't believe how small their reservation is. A local artist drew the wolf in their traditional tribal and the word is the correct pronunciation of language for "wolf", and sadly most of the tribe do not know how to speak. The town has actually taken to labeling items with the language in hopes to encourage the tribe to lean it. It's one of five languages in the world that contain no nasal sounds, no "m" or "n". O.k. enough with the history lessons.

I have the word "werewolf" tattoo on the inside of my fingers, opposite of the "vampires" too. And, oh yes, the tattoos hurt like hell. You really have to appreciate the art of it to sit through them, and have a sense of humor about it all. I love it when I've been sitting in the chair for five hours and a customer comes in and watches. They stand there for a second in a daze, then ask: "Doesn't that hurt?" I usually reply, "No, it tickles like hell." Even in pain I can't shake the smartass.

Please pardon my lurking. Loved the tats and the history lesson.

No problem Doug. I know it's a little off subject, but you can tell I'm a bit of a monster collector by my tattoos I guess. I have plans for another tattoo, but like you stated in your book, they do cost money.

I want to pay tribute to a true monster attack, on my neck. I have several medical pictures of the way the muscles are laid out under the skin of the neck. I'm sure that it will look pretty gruesome when I get around to getting it. I was waiting for my hair to get long. There are times, as covered as I am, that I don't want people to see them. Having long hair should take care of this.

Thread Renewification alert:

The 'traditional monsters' we see in stories in large part come from folklore, ancient religions, early christianity, etc. The film Industry started to poularize them eighty years ago and now they are part of our collective zeitgeist.

So when writing a short story for the anthology 'Abominations' the idea was to come up with something new. I turned to urban myths and settled on one called black eyed kids, or BEKs.

You don't see much about them, but there are some hints in forums, blogs, etc. I like to have a unifying theme, in Bouda it was PTSD/lycanthropy, in STG it was despair/addiciton, in BEKs it was kids (BEKs)/the war on drugs. (The 27 people that read the anthology seemed to like it okay).

One thing I find about writing is that in order to respect your reader you have to have an internal consistency to your work- if you change the 'rules' to fit the plot it's disresepctful (like not giving all the clues in a who done it). And this is a real challenge when writing about traditional monsters as everyone has an opinion.

SO, my point is, where do you look for inspirations for monsters? How do you feel about changing the rules when you write about traditional monsters?

I think it's fine to change the rules, within the work, as long as, within that same work, you stay consistent to the new rules you established. Disease doesn't effect every patient the same way, why should a curse, venom or tradition necessarily effect the sufferer (soon to be the monster) the same?
As an example, two twists on the same rule from film. The rule, "Vampires cannot abide the cross." In Fright Night, the vampire is unaffected because the cross bearer doesn't believe it'll work. In Dance of the Vampires, the vampire is unaffected because he's Jewish. But both remain consistent with the new rules they established.
In my The Devil's Bed, the vampiric Templars WEAR crosses on their tunics, but a crucifix (specifically signifying Christ's blood) hits them like a blow torch. (And Holy Water, let me warn you, will not put out a burning vampire!)
So I say, change the rules, but keep them consistent within the world you create. Don't cheat when it suits.

My basic thought process when I was writing, was to break all the rules. I believe that you have to keep the basic fundamentals of the monster. Example: Vampires drink blood, werewolves shape shift, Demons produce evil, ect. But the rest of the rules are guidelines, or they were built from repetition through authors. One author wrote that vampires could not tolerate the sunlight, then another, and another...

My inspiration is deep rooted in the traditional monsters. Everything that I have put into my writing, has come from me, for people like me, that want something new. That might be damning for the likability of my stories, but I know that I like to read something that hasn't been written a hundred times before.

I recently came across traditional monsters vs. rewritten rules. I love this show on Spike TV called Deadliest Warriors. If you haven't seen it, the rules are simple. They take two warriors, experts on the warriors and their weapons, and pit them against each other in a simulated battle to see who wins. The finale for this season: Vampires vs. Zombies

They threw traditions out the window with both, and went with the more modern monsters. I can appreciate that.

Just recently I've hastily typed out the first chapter of a zombie book. I don't think that it will do well with the zombie crowd as I went extremely traditional: West African Vodun.

It wasn't until 68' when George Romero released Night of the Living Dead that zombies became the mindless, flesh-eating, apocalyptic monsters that they are today. And that is what people love about them.

Even though I took my story back to it's roots, I'm still bending the rules. I think that it's a good way to reinvent what has been scaring the hell out of people years.

I say it's time to rewrite the rules, or invent some new monsters.

Whether monsters or anything else, most of the time folks don't even know why 'the rules' are the rules. Dracula clearly walks in the sunlight on three separate occasions in the novel Dracula. And Superman couldn't fly until Dave Fleischer animated him for the motion picture cartoon series (leaping tall buildings in a single bound apparently looked silly). Yeah, write your own rules - just stay true to the reality you create.

Doug and Carrie, I both agree and disagree.

If you make your own monsters you clearly get a blank slate. No question. I think you need to have rules in your stories that are followed. I call this being respectful of your reader. No question if you change the rules part way through the story it just isn't fair. Revealing things that have been foreshadowed is perfectly okay. Inventing new things as you go along, not so much.

But with 'traditional monsters' I hesitate. You pick up a book about zombies, vampires, fallen angels, etc, you have a certain expectation. I guess this also depends on how rabid the following is. There are a slew of (as carrie says) post-apocolyptic zombie books. When King wrote 'Cell' I hought it was a master redefining or reinforcing the genre. Then the zombies start turning into a collective telecommunications metaphor...he lost me. I had trouble finishing the book.

Yes, I would have to agree with you. You can't pull the rug out from the reader halfway through the story.

When I starting writing the Endlessly trilogy, my biggest fear was being inconstant, so I waited util all three were written before I published the first one. I didn't want the reader to bump into something and say, "Oh, no. You can't add that now, it wasn't there before."

It was challenging due to Ashley's character just being born, and she was learning. I didn't want to cram everything that she was capable of into the first book (I thought it would boring and pointless to the story line), and I didn't want the reader to call shenanigans later. There are things revealed to the reader over the course of the books because they are discovered over time. Like a painter not knowing that they could sculpt, until they placed their hands in the clay.

With Ash's character, she was a hybrid, so the rules were up in the air. But with Verloren, he was a vampire, and he did what vampires do: kill and drink blood. He capable of a few extra things, but his rules are set in stone.

I recently finished a fiction book based on an incubus. In the story, the characters mention looking for more information on fighting the demon, and they are unable to find anything on the net.

So, I had to look. Yes, you can find information on them, and how they are to blame for infidelity, but nothing on how to fight them off since they are considered a mythical creature.

There is plenty of info on other notorious creatures. Does anyone have anything about incubus and succubus, other than old folklore legends?

Most monsters in my Diary of the Displaced universe are either a hybrid or an altered version of some sort. I also sometimes break rules of consistency when creating an individual of that race. For example DogThing is a Maw (a race of werewolf "ish" creatures), yet he is very different to the others of that race (he faster, smaller, and is the only known telepath)

Vampires (yes they exist in DoD) - there is one known vampire in the universe who follows a set of "traditional" rules, and a race of them that doesn't. Vampires haven't reared their heads much in the series yet, though.

I have dozens of different zombie types, including the traditional diseased bitey bitey type.

Broken Lands introduces a brief glimpse of what maybe classed as a dragon, and again this is a very different creature to tradition in that they are the most peaceful natured creatures in existence. The problem being that they aren't even aware of other creatures, so if they land (a never recorded event) and squash one they wouldn't even know about it and certainly wouldn't do it intentionally (A DoD dragon wouldn't even stand on a blade of grass).

I like to mix things up quite a lot.

The word "cryptids" caught my eye here. I know a little on several but bigfoot in particular. I spoke with a number of feild researchers a few years back that ended up as the basis for a series of short stories I wrote.

I did a lot of research for "Legend of the Mystic Knights" and included many different monsters, and "cryptids" in that novel. I tried to make sure I included as much detail about medieval monsters as I could find. Also, some of the "myths", such as, being in Switzerland, I included the Tazlewurm. A creature seen in the alps, front appears like a cat, with a lizard body.