Writing Challenges
This week's writing challenge from More Odds than Ends was from 'nother Mike: "It was a perfectly ordinary wedding, until they asked if anyone objected to this marriage. That’s when the vampire stood up…"
Except there are so many different kinds of vampires. You've got your traditional vampires, damned souls in reanimated bodies -- but why would one show up at a wedding? Unless the wedding were in the evening, it would be endangering its own corporeal existence, and even at a night wedding, exposing its nature in a crowd would be a good way to end up permanently dead (although it might depend on where the story is taking place -- it might have a better chance of taking prey in Boston than Houston. Don't mess with Texas).
Or you could go with a paranormal romance vampire, although then you've got to do something that isn't blatantly a ripoff of Twilight, which already has plenty of imitators. The "vampires" that are really sparkly emo pixies who happen to drink blood are really over-done, thank you very much.
Then there are the science fiction vampires, like the luren in Jacqueline Lichtenberg's Those of My Blood, aliens who can only metabolize blood and who have psychic powers which define a fascinating society that explain so many legends about vampires. Peter Watts also had vampires in Blindsight, but they were a close cousin to humanity that has been de-extincted in order to develop hibernation for long-duration space voyages. John Ringo even had a vampire appear in his Legacy of the Aldenata universe, although in Eye of the Storm it was strongly suggested that this entity was a previously undiscovered form of the Himmit. However, if your vampire is a member of another species, what objection would he have to a human wedding?
Sometimes an idea founders because there just isn't much of anywhere you can take it (although sometimes putting together two or more such ideas can get you unstuck). But sometimes they founder because there are just too many possible ways to go, and either you can't settle on one of them, or they have all been done so well or so badly that you can't figure out anything new to add to the literary conversation.
Still, it's an interesting idea that I wouldn't mind tucking away for future reference, preferably after I've gotten things settled on the home repair front, and after I've finished and published a reasonable number of projects in my existing universes and have something resembling a fan base.
If you're interested in participating in next week's Odd Prompts challenge, just send your prompt to oddprompts@gmail.com. It can be a snippet of prose or verse, an image, a song, a video, just make it evocative.
At least I had better luck with the Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Writing Challenge. My effort is a bit post-apocalyptic, but within 250 words there's not a lot of room to develop background and have a story. I may expand it for publication in a collection or on a website.
There's still a little time to participate, since it closes at 5PM Pacific Time. The polls will open tomorrow to vote on the readers' choice.
Except there are so many different kinds of vampires. You've got your traditional vampires, damned souls in reanimated bodies -- but why would one show up at a wedding? Unless the wedding were in the evening, it would be endangering its own corporeal existence, and even at a night wedding, exposing its nature in a crowd would be a good way to end up permanently dead (although it might depend on where the story is taking place -- it might have a better chance of taking prey in Boston than Houston. Don't mess with Texas).
Or you could go with a paranormal romance vampire, although then you've got to do something that isn't blatantly a ripoff of Twilight, which already has plenty of imitators. The "vampires" that are really sparkly emo pixies who happen to drink blood are really over-done, thank you very much.
Then there are the science fiction vampires, like the luren in Jacqueline Lichtenberg's Those of My Blood, aliens who can only metabolize blood and who have psychic powers which define a fascinating society that explain so many legends about vampires. Peter Watts also had vampires in Blindsight, but they were a close cousin to humanity that has been de-extincted in order to develop hibernation for long-duration space voyages. John Ringo even had a vampire appear in his Legacy of the Aldenata universe, although in Eye of the Storm it was strongly suggested that this entity was a previously undiscovered form of the Himmit. However, if your vampire is a member of another species, what objection would he have to a human wedding?
Sometimes an idea founders because there just isn't much of anywhere you can take it (although sometimes putting together two or more such ideas can get you unstuck). But sometimes they founder because there are just too many possible ways to go, and either you can't settle on one of them, or they have all been done so well or so badly that you can't figure out anything new to add to the literary conversation.
Still, it's an interesting idea that I wouldn't mind tucking away for future reference, preferably after I've gotten things settled on the home repair front, and after I've finished and published a reasonable number of projects in my existing universes and have something resembling a fan base.
If you're interested in participating in next week's Odd Prompts challenge, just send your prompt to oddprompts@gmail.com. It can be a snippet of prose or verse, an image, a song, a video, just make it evocative.
At least I had better luck with the Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Writing Challenge. My effort is a bit post-apocalyptic, but within 250 words there's not a lot of room to develop background and have a story. I may expand it for publication in a collection or on a website.
There's still a little time to participate, since it closes at 5PM Pacific Time. The polls will open tomorrow to vote on the readers' choice.