Problems with introducing supernaturals

[Miskatonic]

I've got a detective novel on the back burner and It had me thinking whether or not too many supernatural creatures can clutter the story and open up the world too much?

Since this question probably makes little sense (I really couldn't figure out a way to write it well ) I'll try and explain.

Say you introduce vampires into your story and the character has a case where that's the main focus. Well once you introduce vampires as being a creature that can exist in this world, it doesn't seem all that easy to just wrap up that story and never focus on them again. The fact that vampires exist could have grave consequences for the world in general. Especially if only the MC and a few others are aware of them.

The story is anything but a vampire hunter story.

 

[Androxine Vortex]

Here's my two cents, i don't particularly like mixing modern culture with fantasy stuff. So things like Percy Jackson, sorry. Harry potter i think is an exception but it's really pushing it for me. I just think having these huge worlds co exist in secret with our modern world just doesn't sit right with me but that's just a personal taste.

Now there are two directions i can see this going. 1) is that your character is a specialist that deals with the supernatural where i think that archetype has been done to death.

2) is that your character is a regular joe that stumbles upon something secret like vampires. I like this approach better but i think it would have stronger impact if it wasn't blatantly obvious that the vampires where behind i all along. I feel like you could successfully hint at something being supernatural without it being too obvious, making the reader still wander in the dark and wonder. When it comes clear that vampires are at work, the reader would either be shocked or say i had a hunch, rather than i knew it. Plus it will make the character feel a sudden sense of reality of what they're dealing with.

 

[Penpilot]

You may never focus on them again, but they should/could be a presence in your stories going forward.

What I mean by that is if your detective gets a case where there are bite marks on the victim's neck, one of the first things that will come to the reader's mind, and should come to the detective mind, is vampire. The monster may turn out to be a chupacabra, but you can't just totally ignore the fact there are vampires in your world. If you don't at least acknowledge the assistance of vampires other stories where they would be suspects, then as I reader, I'd call BS.

This reminds me of an old Star Trek next Gen episode where it was determined that warp travel wore at the fabric of reality and could cause holes in the universe. At the end of the episode, Starfleet restricted warp travel above warp 4 to only emergencies. This fact was, to my memory, only reference in one other episode, but otherwise was ignored, which was a poke in the eye every time they mention travelling above warp 4.

I'd suggest you check out the TV Series Superantural. They have a world that's populated by many-many monsters but still manage to keep it all under control.

 

[Miskatonic]

Here's my two cents, i don't particularly like mixing modern culture with fantasy stuff. So things like Percy Jackson, sorry. Harry potter i think is an exception but it's really pushing it for me. I just think having these huge worlds co exist in secret with our modern world just doesn't sit right with me but that's just a personal taste.

Now there are two directions i can see this going. 1) is that your character is a specialist that deals with the supernatural where i think that archetype has been done to death.

2) is that your character is a regular joe that stumbles upon something secret like vampires. I like this approach better but i think it would have stronger impact if it wasn't blatantly obvious that the vampires where behind i all along. I feel like you could successfully hint at something being supernatural without it being too obvious, making the reader still wander in the dark and wonder. When it comes clear that vampires are at work, the reader would either be shocked or say i had a hunch, rather than i knew it. Plus it will make the character feel a sudden sense of reality of what they're dealing with.

The character is a regular Joe and a slacker, who isn't particularly thrilled that he seems to have a knack for solving crimes involving paranormal events. He's reluctant to get involved and even more so to try and play the hero and risk his own neck. So initially he starts out as a bit of a coward that is put into situations where he has little choice but to suck it up and embrace his gift.

I thought about introducing vampirism and lycanthropy with psychological based origins, as opposed to the real creatures of folklore. This way you never know if they are the real thing or just a regular person with a mental disorder until the story is concluded. Even then the reader might still wonder.

I don't want the vampires to be a focal point at all really, just a one book focus. So I'm wary of introducing them lest the audience wants that story line further expanded and focused on.

 

[spectre]

I think that you can end perils in a story. They don't all have to be apocalyptic. Like in Beowulf. Grendel is a terrible force to be reckoned with but he's the last of his kind. Nature tends to impose limits on it's grandest creations and you can apply that. At the same time the "how" of circumstances determines much of the believability and limitation of you the author. Endings don't have to end with a resolution either. Think AVP or what if in the Abyss that alien globe got em? What would be the future in that? Some problems persist but that creates out of control elements and unforseen ones that can be used to change the path of the story.

 

[Helen]

I've got a detective novel on the back burner and It had me thinking whether or not too many supernatural creatures can clutter the story and open up the world too much?

Since this question probably makes little sense (I really couldn't figure out a way to write it well ) I'll try and explain.

Say you introduce vampires into your story and the character has a case where that's the main focus. Well once you introduce vampires as being a creature that can exist in this world, it doesn't seem all that easy to just wrap up that story and never focus on them again. The fact that vampires exist could have grave consequences for the world in general. Especially if only the MC and a few others are aware of them.

The story is anything but a vampire hunter story.

I don't think it matters, if each one has a relevant role to play.

It's like studying at Hogwarts, you'll have a roll call of tutors and monsters, but each plays a specific role.

 

[Miskatonic]

I don't think it matters, if each one has a relevant role to play.

It's like studying at Hogwarts, you'll have a roll call of tutors and monsters, but each plays a specific role.

True. A vampire case that has a satisfying resolution should be enough.

 

[Heliotrope]

I'm not sure if I quite understand what you are saying… but I'll hazard a guess

I'm thinking, since you said 'vampirism with psychological based origins' that you mean cases like this one:

Real-Life 'Vampire' Addicted to Blood, Doctors Claim

I think this could be really interesting… is it real? Is it not real? How much of it can be attributed to a very-rare psychological disorder, and how much can be attributed to an actual cult of real vampires among us? I think playing it up like that might be very cool.

If that were the case, I do not think you would have to go crazy with including them in other books. You would solve this case. It would be a singular case, and then you could move on to other creatures later…You could leave it open to interpretation (like to said). Leave the reader wondering… are there more out there? But because it is so rare it does not apparently impact the world of the story too much. You could move on to other cases. A man who has excessive hair growth and roams the streets howling at night? On it. A small child who appears to have wings sprouting from her back and claims to be a thousand years old. On it…. etc etc etc.

In that case it could be mystery series.

Detective Joe and the case of the Vampire Man
Detictive Joe and the case of the Immortal Fairy
Detective Joe and the case of the Werewolf

Sort of like Indiana Jones but with creatures instead of artifacts.

 

[spectre]

?:' i'll be honest this post blindsided me. It's like your worried the world will get overcrowded but there's no calamity because lingering ghouls can provide one action scene at least. Provide resolutions is all that's needed. It's not a question of introduction. Here's a prime example. I live in an apartment on the Northside of Chicago presently infested with bedbugs and cockroaches and other smaller species of roachinius. They're here terrorizing the place by night and I get just a long enough glimpse of them to kill a few. But I don't know where they go when they take off like domesticated ninjas once they're duty to hoplite through my kitchen is a mission complete. And me, I'm repulsed. I've sprayed, fogged, cleaned and complained and my darling friend says baby it'll be ok. So already without knowing the origins or permanent whereabouts of these prehistoric nuissances I have action, mystery, horror, and love. Good old nature.

Sent from my LGMS345 using Tapatalk

 

[Miskatonic]

I'm not sure if I quite understand what you are saying… but I'll hazard a guess

I'm thinking, since you said 'vampirism with psychological based origins' that you mean cases like this one:

Real-Life 'Vampire' Addicted to Blood, Doctors Claim

I think this could be really interesting… is it real? Is it not real? How much of it can be attributed to a very-rare psychological disorder, and how much can be attributed to an actual cult of real vampires among us? I think playing it up like that might be very cool.

If that were the case, I do not think you would have to go crazy with including them in other books. You would solve this case. It would be a singular case, and then you could move on to other creatures later…You could leave it open to interpretation (like to said). Leave the reader wondering… are there more out there? But because it is so rare it does not apparently impact the world of the story too much. You could move on to other cases. A man who has excessive hair growth and roams the streets howling at night? On it. A small child who appears to have wings sprouting from her back and claims to be a thousand years old. On it…. etc etc etc.

In that case it could be mystery series.

Detective Joe and the case of the Vampire Man
Detictive Joe and the case of the Immortal Fairy
Detective Joe and the case of the Werewolf

Sort of like Indiana Jones but with creatures instead of artifacts.

Yeah that's what I'm leaning towards. Leaving it open to interpretation. I think this will be increased 100 fold because there is actual occult magic happening the world, but it's not like superhuman or anything, so not really fantasy magic or sorcery. However there may be actual supernatural events, like experiences with alternate dimensions, or at least glimpses of them.

I just don't want to set rules and break them for the sake of how much I like a certain case.

I appreciate your suggestions. It gives me a lot to think about and I'm strongly leading towards ambiguity.

I can always write a vampires series if I want to have that as the main focus.

 

[Miskatonic]

?:' i'll be honest this post blindsided me. It's like your worried the world will get overcrowded but there's no calamity because lingering ghouls can provide one action scene at least. Provide resolutions is all that's needed. It's not a question of introduction. Here's a prime example. I live in an apartment on the Northside of Chicago presently infested with bedbugs and cockroaches and other smaller species of roachinius. They're here terrorizing the place by night and I get just a long enough glimpse of them to kill a few. But I don't know where they go when they take off like domesticated ninjas once they're duty to hoplite through my kitchen is a mission complete. And me, I'm repulsed. I've sprayed, fogged, cleaned and complained and my darling friend says baby it'll be ok. So already without knowing the origins or permanent whereabouts of these prehistoric nuissances I have action, mystery, horror, and love. Good old nature.

Sent from my LGMS345 using Tapatalk

The original two Fright Night movies give a decent example of low key vampires in our world. They take extreme measures to not reveal themselves, aren't going around leaving victims in their wake and blend in well with humans society. Even if there may be more out there they aren't a menace so great that they can't be ignored. Not to mention they can be killed the old fashioned way via the classic vampire weaknesses. So they are vulnerable, even against the most unlikely foe.

 

[Heliotrope]

Yeah, if you went that route you could do it either sort of serious or sort of funny. I think I would have the MC be a newbie to the precinct. A rookie, and they give him all the weird cases just to bug him. There are maybe two guys who get the top priority/high profile cases and he gets thrown the 'vampire guy'. The guys around the office tease him and prank him about it, but then he ends up being super good at what he does… (and maybe even vampire guy ties into the high profile case somehow and without him they wouldn't have been able to crack it…)

 

[Miskatonic]

The MC is basically a pseudo private detective; he crosses paths with the police force from time to time and they warn him to not interfere. The somewhat typical type of detective/police relationship we find in literature.

He's an unambitious, unemployed, slacker who lucked out in that his deceased grandfather was the owner of one of the nicest hotels in the city. So he stays on the very top floor suite for free, as per his grandfather's will, and the current owner and GM of the hotel absolutely hate this because of the money they could get from renting it. They never miss a chance to remind him of it either. Needless to say his home is a complete mess.

He's an average Joe that is extremely reluctant to acknowledge and embrace the gifts he's been given. He's initially a bit of a coward, as well as squeamish; so there's a comical element to him as well.

I wanted to avoid the alpha male type hero with this story and make him the last person that anyone who knows him would think could achieve any type of greatness.

He'd rather sit around his condo in his robe and slippers and read comic books or play video games, etc.. But once he gets a hunch about something his mind locks in on it, even if he still moans and groans about it. It's like "dammit, not again". Then it's time to hit the streets and follow the trail.

 

[Heliotrope]

I like this. I think this could be pretty cool.

 

[Miskatonic]

I like this. I think this could be pretty cool.

Thanks.

I have another character that is part of this particular universe but he's back in 1920's Boston and is more of an old school detective that works for the police department. H.P. Lovecraft's The Horror at Redhook gave me the inspiration but I want to take it in a different direction obviously.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I think the only limitation is that once vampires are "real" nothing else can be dismissed out of hand. Vampires may never come up again, but if the character later sees a werewolf, they probably shouldn't dismiss that as impossible. Unless of course its a running gag from story to story that they run into something supernatural and refuse to believe its possible, over and over.

MC: Werewolves are figments, my good sir. Pure poppycock!

Sidekick: 'Scuse me m'lady, but we killed a vampire just last week, and good ol' Reg was eaten by a mummy not more than a month ago. So seems right likely to me we meet a werewolf.

MC eyes her sidekick dismissively.

MC: Pah! I refuse to live in your fantasy world, Donald. Recent events notwithstanding, we live in a world of bad men: drug dealers and thieves, smugglers and murderers, not ghosts and goblins, why I won't believe in werewolves until one...

MC SCREAMS.

Sidekick: Well there you go, mum, one just bit you.

MC rubs her gluteus maximus.

MC: By God, Donald! Fetch me my silver bullets, the hunt is on.

 

[ThinkerX]

And there you have the reason I am leery of 'urban fantasy,' especially once critters like vampires and werewolves get involved. It becomes...ok...if these creatures number more than a literal 1 in a million, then how do they keep their presences secret? Some Urban Fantasy books have a sort of 'secret at all costs' directive or enforcement group - then turn right around and have significant numbers of these creatures all but showing off. Then there is the historical aspect. Yes, vampires and werewolf stories go back centuries - even millennia - but the abilities/attributes ascribed to those beings then vary considerably from what is applied to the ones in present day fantasy.

I could only see two solutions here.

The first is, these supernatural beings really are a 1 in a million - at most. Isolated freaks, to be blunt. At most maybe a few very tiny packs or associations, eight or ten members tops, that impose draconian self discipline. Probably no more than a few such groups in all of north America.

The second is the 'resurgence,' or 'advance guard.' The first situation applied for a long time. But now a portal or crack is open somewhere, and these beings are starting to sneak through from somewhere else.

Now that I think about it, a third possibility does present itself: some super naturals originated as the result of secret research - efforts to create a 'super soldier' or genetic tests of some sort. I suppose that could tie in with either of the above possibilities.

 

[Devor]

Some people think more into this stuff than others. But I'm kind of with ThinkerX in feeling that it's very easy to put too much fantasy in a modern story, to the point that it breaks immersion and has readers going, "Yeah, right." Even Harry Potter kept it up by making it a joke whenever the muggles come up. But playing it serious? It's a hard sell, for me.

The problem is that each piece of fantasy - werewolves, vampires, fairies, whatever - comes with its own history. Where have all the vampires been? Ohh, eradicated in the 1800s, except for one small group that was trapped in their coffins until now. Where have the werewolves been? And the fairies? Just about the same story? And they're all coming up now? It's a challenge.

It doesn't help that the smartphone camera has raised the bar and just about killed UFO stories. It's hard to think that a whole world of fantasy could just slip by.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Part of the trouble is the writers and their approach. I will spare the world of my opinions of Harry Potter and the shimmering vampire chronicles, but the problem with these stories (if there is one, after all, lots of people love them for some unknown reason) as being described is the notion of there being whole cultures of vampires, werewolves, spell-casters, or whatever. This is where the suspension of disbelief gets stretched.

If one were to go deeper into werewolf lore (not the silver bullet and pop horror fiction) and approach it seriously from that perspective, a "serious" book could be made from the lore in modern times. I once researched just that for a screenplay, but never got around to writing that. Not really my thing, but it was interesting research. But that isn't what pop culture is all about.

In a sense, vampires and werewolves live among us now, much like killer clowns, and even without super powers they're danged hard to ferret out. LOL. There are whole worlds we don't know about. Recently I had a conversation with an older gent, and mentioned a mob style hit back in the 70's on a guy I had met as a kid. This lead him into a conversation about how seedy Omaha Nebraska once was, how mobsters moved through from Chicago, Vegas and elsewhere, and how Omaha was considered a "safe-town", meaning no hits. Anyhow, whole worlds do exist under our noses... but I've digressed and babbled enough, LOL.

 

[FifthView]

I somewhat agree with those who have suggested limiting the number of any given type of supernatural creature. To do so would probably require rethinking how those creature operate, their limitations and so forth.

While reading this thread, I kept thinking about the Sith in Star Wars: At any given time, there are only two, a master and an apprentice. Something like that might work for vampires, but they'd need to be reimagined so that they don't follow the current pop trend and to explain why they haven't proliferated over time. Perhaps compatibility is required for a master to create an apprentice, some sort of specific genetic preexisting condition that is exceptionally rare. You could add "nurture" dynamics to that genetic requirement; e.g., anyone with that rare genetic configuration must be "turned" sometime between their twentieth and thirtieth year, and they must be willing to allow the transformation because some antiviral medication and other treatment in our modern world can interfere with it. And maybe they must not have a host of other genetic features (hemophilia? sickle-cell anemia? etc.) You could also add some other weaknesses that prevent any living master from traveling widely and often in search of an apprentice/companion.