Options for My Pregnant Vampire Story
Posted on 13 April 2008
I’m currently writing a story about a pregnant woman who’s bitten by a desperate vampire. It usually helps me figure out what way I want a story to go if I make lists of some plot options and some background options. Here are some of the weird/gruesome possibilities swimming through my brain right now:
Vampirism is caused by:
- Nanos.
- Virus.
- Magic.
- Other?
Options when a pregnant woman is turned into a vampire:
- She turns into a vampire but loses the baby.
- She turns into a vampire, but her pregnancy proceeds as normal and she delivers a human baby.
- She turns into a vampire, but her baby slowly starves. (Does her body reabsorb and return to non-pregnant shape? Effect on her mentally?)
- She turns into a vampire, but she stays pregnant forever. Her son remains human.
- She turns into a vampire, but she stays pregnant forever. Her son becomes a vampire in her belly. (Do they communicate telepathically?)
- She turns into a vampire and gives birth to a vampire. He eventually grows to adult size and is a vampire too – a totally “normal” vampire. (How long does his childhood last? Breastfeeding – does he bite her AND get milk? Just bite? Is given blood in a bottle? Do children vampires lose their baby fangs?)
- She turns into a vampire and gives birth to a vampire. He stays infant size forever but develops normally mentally.
- She turns into a vampire and gives birth to a vampire. He stays infant size forever but is mentally deformed by this.
- She turns into a vampire, and when the baby turns too he claws his way out of her belly to feed. It kills her.
- She turns into a vampire, and when the baby turns too he claws his way out of her belly to feed. She recovers because of vampires’ recuperative powers.
Reactions of local vampire coven/seethe/nest when they find out what happened:
- They help the woman and the baby.
- They help the woman but kill the baby.
- They kill the woman but help the baby.
- They kill both the woman and the baby.
- Indifference; it’s not their problem.
- Nothing; they never find out.
- Other?
So. What kind of lists, if any, do YOU make when you’re tinkering with your fiction?
Photo credit: Memnoch, some rights reserved.
[tags]making lists, fiction writing, vampires[/tags]
17 responses to Options for My Pregnant Vampire Story
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You can’t pass up all the plot and character twists in a vampire having a human baby. She loves her child and protects it from the others who see it as a tasty snack. Also, she will very much out live her child. That would be hard to live with. Also, how would she fit into the child’s life? Not only does she grow fangs at the worst possible moment but she can’t go out in daylight. There isn’t night school for kids yet. Lots of situations and problems would come up and need to be written about.
I think the virus theory works better than nanos or magic. I think local vampires would be indifferent but hungry.
I like your list. I’ve never done much like listing or planning when I write. It might help.
Laura’s last blog post..Wordless Wednesday: Gnomed
wow.
no, no. that’s just my reaction to the whole pregnant vampire thing – little creepy.
I wrote once about how I wanted to write about fat vampires. (it’s already been done, so I didn’t.)I’d link it, but i can’t remember where it is.
Thanks for being my first comment. very nice of you. I’ll always remember…never mind.
Jay’s last blog post..The ReWrite
Interesting list of ideas. I really like the one about the baby remaining human. It’d be interesting to see the mother struggle with her own desire for a tasty snack, especially when baby starts getting really annoying.
I guess it’d really depend on the tone of the story. I could see the one with the vampire kid (love the idea of them losing baby fangs) working well for a sort of lighthearted vampire comedy, while the one where the baby eats its way out of the mother’s womb is obviously a much darker story.
Adam Kamerer’s last blog post..Chapter 21: Familial Ties
I’m of the same mind as Laura. Turn mom into a vampire, but keep the baby human.
Lot’s of potential there, the child growing up as the only human among a nest of vampires.
The whole protection thing, or maybe even the motherly bond vs. need to feed.
Maybe the child’s blood is of no use to the vampires. The story becomes more a fish out of water tale about a half vampire kid functioning in a normal world.
The vampires using the unwitting child to do their bidding during the day.
Or maybe some issues occur when he brings his friends over for dinner and they don’t come back.
Tam’s last blog post..Saturday Sink – 004
Hi, Laura! I know what you mean. The vamp mommy/human baby would be a great series character, wouldn’t she! I’m still working out how the “turning” will affect the baby. Will she give birth instantly? Because if I go with the traditional model of vampires as the undead, then the blood won’t be circulating anymore, and the babe would die quickly. So if she’s going to survive, she’s probably going to be turning vampire AND giving birth all at once.
Of course, in the meantime, my brain has gone catting off in a hundred other different directions for my vampire universe, such as, “Do vampires poop?” (According to a nurse I asked, a human who ate/drank only blood would poop a “gelatin-like substance.” EWW! This doesn’t make me think of the Anne Rice elegant vampires. They would poop chocolate souffle.)
Anyway — still brainstorming the creepy and cool stuff. Hope you’re having luck if you’ve tried the list making. Let me know how it’s going!
Hi, Jay,
Yeah, I know what you mean about creepy. I keep thinking of the mom changing into a vampire while her baby dies inside her … and then is rapidly absorbed by her body because her body’s treating it like an unwelcome parasite.
WAAAAAY too much imagination.
I was at a MidSouthCon a few years ago when an author did a reading from his book about a fat, slovenly vampire who grooved on drinking the blood of people who’ve been eating that luscious, artery-clogging New Orleans food. I was impressed as a writer AND hungry when he finished. Wish I could remember the name of the book or the author, darn it.
See you again in the blogsphere. I subscribed to your blog in Bloglines.
)
Hi, Adam,
Baby fangs! I still love that notion. I’m still trying to figure out what a vampy teething ring would be like. But both the dark and the light options appeal to me. Maybe I’ll do a couple of stories, where someone is turning pregnant women, and it works differently for different ones.
I’m one of those who has trouble writing the fiction until I’ve got the science behind it rationalized, at least roughly. Just have to keep a balance so I don’t spend all my time noodling with the idea instead of writing the darned thing. Do you ever do that?
Best wishes to you with your writing — what’s on your computer screen lately?
Hi, Tam!
Thanks for commenting on my baby vampire post. I’m still flip-flopping on which way to go. I may just have to eeny-meeny-miney-moe it if I don’t decide soon.
)
The idea of a mom and child torn apart by something as fundamental as mom turning into a different species is pretty cool, though. I wonder how she’d be able to resist turning him too, just for selfish reasons of wanting him around forever. Maybe the local vampire council would forbid it and be constantly trying to kill him to prevent that. Hmm. New angle …
Maybe I’ll be writing this one several different ways. Writing exercise, waste of time, or fun … not sure which predominates, but I’m going to write at least ONE version, and maybe more.
Do you feel torn like this when thinking about plots?
Sometimes. Depends on what I’m writing. For my current project, Gloria Fidelis: A Steampunk Fantasy, I haven’t fleshed out the mechanics of things quite as much as I should have.
On the other hand, I’ve been known to spend months building worlds for stories that I intended to write, but never got around to. I think eventually you just have to strike a sort of balance: enough details to make your world stand out from the rest (especially important in the vampire genre–if you want to stand out among all the other vampire novels, you need to have a unique take on things) but not so much that it bogs down your writing.
Adam Kamerer’s last blog post..Chapter 22: Chrysanthemum
She turns into a vampire, but she stays pregnant forever. Her son becomes a vampire in her belly. (Do they communicate telepathically?)
I think this is the most original (and wonderfully so) option. Difficult to work with, perhaps, but that’s good in my book.
I do make lists in my head, taking any ideas I have and twisting them as far as I possibly can in an unnatural direction. And then twisting them again.
As well, I turn my attention to the whys as much as possible. Why did this happen? Why does she want this? Why did he do that? More lists, or rather, free thinking while I’m commuting or in the shower.
I compose my characters as well. I’ve learned that I work best with characters who seem alive to me before the story starts. That’s not so much a list as much as a tree of options for history, etc.
Whatever’s most twisted, interesting (and makes sense….) gets written down as notes. And then I write.
Arachne Jericho’s last blog post..Blogging for Writers: Bring Focus to Your Blog by Discovering the Your Inner Authority
Hi, Arachne,
I’m so torn! I’ve written the scene up to where she gets attacked and haven’t taken it further. (I tend to start out writing something chronologically, and then play with moving it around.) I think just the idea of saddling that poor woman with a literal eternity of swollen ankles, aching low back, and the constant need to go pee is discouraging me.
)
But I just MIGHT be brutal enough to write that one!
You know what would be fun? To have a bunch of different people write a story about what happens when a pregnant woman is turned into a vampire. I’d love to see the variety. Would you be up for it?
I’m glad to hear from another “why-why-why” person too. It has to make sense for me to make use of something. Thanks for popping in!
Well, if she’s been pregnant long enough, her super vampire strength should help mitigate some of the effect. Where “long” is “after about 20-some years of this”.
Her vampire sistah, if she has one, would say “No sweat, 20 years will go by just like that. It’s not even a century.” Thereby earning herself one serious clawing, probably.
The Pregnant Vampire Chronicles? Sounds amusing to me. It would be funny if we all timed our submissions together….
I might be up for it.
It would be a good addition to my upcoming little fiction site.
A story is the answer to a why… which is why “what if?” is not enough. You also need “what then?” which only comes about sanely as a result of answering the question “why?”
Why why why why why why
Arachne Jericho’s last blog post..Blogging for Writers: Bring Focus to Your Blog by Discovering the Your Inner Authority
Actually, I’m more interested in how you came about the idea of writing about vampires. What about our culture drives our fascination with vampires? There are at least 1, if not 2, new prime time dramas about a vampire, who is the good guy; “Buffy” and “Angel” are still airing as reruns; and you can catch any of the “Blade” movies on cable at least once a month. Is it the immortality, the drinking of the blood or the evil that attracts us? Don’t get me wrong, I love a good vampire movie; I stop the clicker whenever “Interview” or the “Dracula” (Winona Ryder) are on the tv. Just curious, it’s not as though this is a new story, not to discourage your pursuit, but why write about vampires?
I’m with Laura on the vampire mom, human baby twist. Love that!
And Mom versus the local community to protect the baby is my vote for plot.
Chris Brogan…’s last blog post..On Managing A Community
I like the idea of a pregnant vampire. It would be neat to explore the problems of having to hunt for food while continuously tired, sore, and off-balance. Would pregnant vampires have morning sickness? Would the mother feel protective over her unborn child, or just want to get rid of it once and for all? Maybe she would be unable to do so without dying due to a symbiotic relationship with the baby?
Would the baby remain a fetus intellectually, or grow in intelligence over the years? When your only sensory input is sound and shifting light, how much could you learn? There would be a stunted intelligence there, but maybe a deeper wisdom gained over millenia. The baby’s mind would be one big Id, with little to no Ego or Superego.
Telepathic communication between mother and child would be a given, but what would be sent? I doubt it would be conversations in English. Perhaps images of light and sound, or shared bits of emotions, like fear or contentment? What if the baby has stronger psionic skills due to lack of bodily functions? The baby might send glimpses of the future or of far-away places. It could provide a “spider-sense” to the mother.
There are endless possibilities here. I’m surprised that no one has gone down this path before. Do you think that there might be a market for a story like this?
Michael
http://www.michaelandchrissy.com
Michael’s last blog post..Playing With Graphic Settings In Crysis
To me it sounds as if your kind of copying the blade film, as that blades mother was bitten when she was pregnant with him and he came out as a day walker. i have a idea of what you could change it to if you want to- let the woman give birth to her child and give it about a week after the birth, then the vampire goes after the baby because children have purer blood then adult’s. then while the mother is proctecting her baby but the vampire finally gets it’s fangs in the baby then goes after the mother then kidnaps the baby and raises the baby up. just a idea, but hope it helps you.
Hi, Kate,
I know — I was so chagrined when someone mentioned the Blade premise back when I first started thinking of this plot point, because I’ve never seen any of those movies and didn’t know the Blade mythos. Darn! But I decided not to worry about it because there are so many variables that would make this story fresh. Your idea is yet another different turn the story could take.
I’m actually thinking about gathering some prizes and doing a writing contest just for fun on this topic to see what everyone comes up with. Maybe later this summer.
)
Thanks for visiting!