Getting a character away from home?

[Ireth]

The issue of the day is with my novel Low Road; there's one specific moment I need help cementing. Close to the middle of the story, the main character, the vampire Olan, has long ago left his childhood home and settled into a new one, where he is quite comfortable. But I need a dramatic incident to occur which leads him away from that home so he can meet the villain and the rest of the plot can happen.

In the first draft, what leads Olan away is that his little sister is attacked and nearly raped by an unknown man, whom Olan feels bound to pursue and kill so he won't harm anyone else. The chase leads him to the clutches of another vampire, who steals his kill and then leads him to the underground city of the vampires, where Olan meets the villain and more plot happens.

I've decided against having attempted rape as the dramatic incident, but I still want there to be some malevolent person who does something to inadvertently get Olan chasing after him with intent to kill -- probably something very personal and deserving of that kind of anger. I'd prefer the person to be a human, because I want to keep the kill-stealing in there as well. Any ideas or thoughts?

 

[Ivan]

You don't really explain why the "kill-stealing" is important and as a reader I would want to know why this one guy's dead flesh is vital; even if Olan really hates the guy, why is is so important that he hang on to the stiff?

To answer both questions, why does he kill the guy and why does he want the body, I would make up something about his flesh or, hey, why not blood? There are plenty of reasons from an ancient family feud to the guy drinks a potion that Olan needs or which will, in a living human, make him really powerful or evil or able to kill all vampires. Maybe the guy is already a vampire hunter (or again has some ancient feud with Olan's family), and inflicts a wound that will eventually kill Olan if he does not drink the guy's blood first. Something to keep the connecting thread itself connected.

 

[Ireth]

Olan wants to kill the guy as vengeance for whatever it is the guy is going to do, which is what I need to decide. Being a vampire, he's in it for the blood, not the flesh. He doesn't have plans for the body at all -- doesn't care who the guy is as long as he can kill him. The kill-stealing is important because it keeps Olan from being physically and mentally corrupted by drinking human blood until he actually learns more about what it would do to him; I'm tentatively planning on having him actually drink human blood after he meets the villain, whether intentionally or not. The vampire who steals Olan's kill is a nasty piece of work, and doesn't give a sh*t about stealing the kill as long as he's fed.

 

[Ivan]

OK but again, I would want to know why Olan wants to chase after the body. Is it just to drink blood? But then surely he would just run around drinking everyone's blood, rather than hunting down this one guy's body in particular. Is it because he's angry at the vampire who stole the guy? That works if Olan is the type that is proud or a stickler or holds a grudge, but otherwise I don't see why Olan cares what happens to the body.

 

[Ankari]

Why not have the human a "pet" of the vampire villain? One of those people who would do anything to become a vampire. The vampire villain has a grudge against your hero so sends the pet with the sole intention of smoking out your hero. Perhaps the "pet" is to seduce the sister of your hero and lead her away from his protection.

The hero finds out of the "pet's" intentions and seeks to kill him. The pet escapes, fleeing towards the underground vampire city. The villain does not have to kill the "pet" in this scenario. Instead, he is the barrier to your hero's need for justice.

 

[Ireth]

@Ivan: I think you're misunderstanding things a bit. Here's the order of events:

1) Nasty Person pisses off Olan in some way
2) Olan chases NP down
3) Kill-thief swoops in out of nowhere and kills NP before Olan has the chance to

As I said before, Olan doesn't care about NP's body so long as he gets the blood he wants. Typically he doesn't want to drink human blood at all, but in a moment of justified rage he's likely to forget himself. Even humans sometimes go out for revenge in different ways; as a vampire, Olan's natural method of killing someone would be draining him dry.

@Ankari: The vampire villain (VV) isn't the type to keep "pets"; to him humans are either a) food or b) sex toys, and his "sex toys" are exclusively female. Plus, if the human villain wants to be a vampire so badly, the VV would just turn him into one immediately. The VV has no idea that Olan even exists until Olan actually enters the city and meets him, so the grudge idea doesn't work for that moment; that'll come later when Olan pisses VV off royally while in the underground vampire city.

 

[Ankari]

Alright. If not a rape, what about an attempted mugging? Or maybe the human is a pervert and tries to sneak into the woman's room and cuts her hair? Maybe he's her boss and he is trying to force her to sex in exchange for her job? Just throwing some stuff out there. Anything stick?

 

[dreamer444]

Is Olan's sister a vampire too? If not the person could be threatening to report to whatever authority that she is in order to get revenge for some wrong the person feels the sister had done to them or as a ploy to draw Olan out.

 

[Ireth]

Alright. If not a rape, what about an attempted mugging? Or maybe the human is a pervert and tries to sneak into the woman's room and cuts her hair? Maybe he's her boss and he is trying to force her to sex in exchange for her job? Just throwing some stuff out there. Anything stick?

A mugging could work, though is that a serious enough crime to warrant such bloody vengeance? Olan's family isn't exactly filthy rich, so I doubt they'd have much gold or silver to steal (assuming I'm still going with Olan's sister as the victim). I'm not sure I want the human villain to be sexually perverted, which is why I decided against using attempted rape/sexual assault as the incident. The VV is enough of a perv for *everyone* in the story.

Another issue is getting the victim (whether it's Olan's sister or not) in the right place to interact with Olan and be saved by him. In the first draft, Olan meets and rescues his sister while out hunting for game to feed from; that is probably part of why he was out for the bad guy's blood, because he hadn't yet slaked his thirst, and here was a human he wouldn't really regret killing.

I still want to use the hunt for an excuse to get Olan far away from his home so he can encounter the villain and victim, but getting them out into the wilderness is a problem. Olan's family lives on the other side of the country from where he is now (they're in Edinburgh, he's in Eilean Donan castle), so how would his sister just *happen* to be in the vicinity of Olan's home at *just* the right time to be saved? It was a huge plothole in the original draft, which I'm seeking to correct this time around.

Is Olan's sister a vampire too? If not the person could be threatening to report to whatever authority that she is in order to get revenge for some wrong the person feels the sister had done to them or as a ploy to draw Olan out.

Olan's sister is a human, as is the rest of their family. Their parents come into the story later on at varying points, but their current positions are all but irrelevant. Suffice to say they're too far away from the action to be of any help whatsoever.

 

[Saigonnus]

Maybe the "temporary villain" is also a vampire and tries to feed on his sister for some percieved slight.

 

[Ireth]

That would nullify the desire Olan would feel for drinking the villain's blood, though, which could very well turn out to be a defining moment in Olan's character. I'm not sure what would happen if a vampire drank another vampire's blood, but I don't imagine it would be pleasant.

 

[Ankari]

A mugging could work, especially if Olen is drawn to the mugging by the sound and arrives just as the villain is about to flee. He sees a human with bloody knuckles standing over his abused sister who may have suffered serious injury, that will get the rage juices going.

 

[Queshire]

Maybe a con-man "boyfriend" just dating his sister for money or something? Then breaks her heart and runs away. "I told you if you hurt her, I'll hurt you, and, well, I'm a man of my word, so....."

 

[Leif GS Notae]

I think the real thing we're missing here is what is his desire to leave? What is the inciting incident here to make him change? Is there a change he is going through? What did you begin your story with and where are your road markers to this change?

Overall, I think it is a bit complicated for what you are setting up. I think this human is simply the villains thrall and is dominated to do things like force unaffiliated vampires into joining their society. A bully, even an immortal one, is always a bully.

If that is your idiom for this character, then it could fit well. However, I think we are missing that information on what his idiom is so we can plug that in and get a bigger view of the story picture.

 

[Penpilot]

I think anything nasty happening to his sister is a reason for Olan to pissed off at a person, but not necessarily a reason for him to pursue them. A reason to make him pursue this nasty person could be the threat of him returning an hurting his sister/family again.

Who is is this nasty person? Are they a person of high rank or just a common thug? Each brings different sorts of threats that they could use. A person of high rank could threaten to take away their home, bring shame to Olan's family, or just make life generally hard. A common thug can threaten pure physical violence of his gang or what ever.

Also does the nasty person find out Olan's a vampire when he saves his sister? If he does, he is a threat to expose Olan and indirectly bring problems on to his family for harboring a vampire. So the only way to guarantee the nasty guy's silence is to kill him.

A few things to play with and think about. Hope this helps.

Edit: PS. You could have this play out something like this. Olan is out in the forest hunting for game. His sister follows him secretly. After he makes the kill, he sees his sister and leaves the kill to go after her. The sister circles around to take a closer look at the kill and is confronted with the nasty man. The nasty man could be a game warden or noble who has been trying to locate a poacher killing all the game on his land. With the sister standing over a fresh kill he thinks it's her and thrashes her. Olan returns in time to save her, but exposes himself as a vampire. The noble escapes and after bringing his sister home to safety, he goes after the noble and must chase him across country to preserve his secret. Now Olan has two reason for pursuing the nasty guy, one the threat of harm to his family and himself, and two the guilt of his sister getting hurt because of him.

 

[coolstoneman]

I am not sure what direction you want to go with your story, but I had an idea. Maybe Olan somehow finds out that this bad guy killed Olan's relative and then stole their family artifact, like a necklace, ring, or something. Olan might not know about it until he sees the bad guy wearing it.

 

[Ireth]

Ankari: That could work, but if it's the sister's blood on the mugger's knuckles, that might have the opposite of the desired effect on Olan. He could be tempted to drink from his sister rather than the mugger after smelling her blood and realizing how tempting it is.

Queshire: Possibly, though it might be difficult to set up earlier on in the story, as the narrative follows Olan when he travels away from his family in the first chapter, and the sister is only in a short scene at the very beginning prior to her appearance here. I don't want to have to explain too much second-hand; I'll have enough of that to deal with when Olan meets the villain and more plot happens.

Leif: I'm not sure I follow what you're trying to say. Could you clarify for me a bit? Which changes are you referring to, and what do you mean by the "idiom" of the character (I assume you mean the human)?

Penpilot: I was thinking that the nasty person was just a common thug. Having a noble involved would be complicated, as Olan is in a place where few people if any would know him or his family, so threatening shame or eviction or what have you might not work out. The nasty person does find out Olan is a vampire. I really like the scenario you put forth; I'll try it out and see how it works.

coolstoneman: That's another possibility, but the trouble is Olan doesn't have too many relatives who could be killed. His parents show up later on, so it can't be either of them, and it would feel cheap to kill his little sister when her character is barely developed. I also doubt his grandparents are still around, and I have no clue about cousins, aunts, uncles or the like.

Olan's immediate family is very isolated, due in part to a physical deformity Olan's mother carries (and passed down to Olan and his sister), which I imagine would mark them out as blighted or cursed by the superstitious; and also due to the family clinging to the old Celtic gods and goddesses while everyone around them is Christian. They'd be seen as shameful pagans, I'd imagine, and be largely shunned by those who don't want to try and convert them.

 

[Butterfly]

Your villain could be a stalker about to turn violent or kidnap her after following her for sometime. It's still danger, the threat of rape without it going that far. Perhaps it could become a case of her witnessing the kill steal while hiding, and Olan going along to keep her out of the vampire conflict thing. Her revealed presence there would create even further danger, and he won't want her following him where he is going. But - do you want her to know the truth about what her brother is and keep it from her paretns?

 

[Ireth]

Your villain could be a stalker about to turn violent or kidnap her after following her for sometime. It's still danger, the threat of rape without it going that far. Perhaps it could become a case of her witnessing the kill steal while hiding, and Olan going along to keep her out of the vampire conflict thing. Her revealed presence there would create even further danger, and he won't want her following him where he is going. But - do you want her to know the truth about what her brother is and keep it from her paretns?

I'm still not sure I want to go with the stalker/rapist idea. I didn't have the guy succeed in violating Olan's sister in the first draft either, but I still felt the need to not go that route. And it'll be impossible for her to witness the kill-steal; she's already been rescued long since and taken to safety by the time it happens. Their parents already know the truth, so whether the sister tells them or not is irrelevant. She's the only one currently in the dark about what Olan is; all she knows is that he was killed. She has no idea he rose from the grave, or that her parents know about him being a vampire. I imagine seeing Olan again will give her quite a shock, especially since two years will have passed between the beginning of the story and the rescue scene.

Seems to me that right now I need to focus on the reasons that Olan's sister is anywhere close to Olan's hunting grounds at the time he finds her. As I've mentioned in previous posts, Olan lives on the other side of the country (Scotland) from his family, since he left for their safety shortly after becoming a vampire. What reason would a fifteen-year-old girl from Edinburgh have to travel into the vicinity of Eilean Donan castle, where absolutely no one knows her and she doesn't know them? (I don't count Olan, as she has no idea that he still exists.) Olan at least had the excuse that he was looking for an isolated place to live where he could be a vampire and not be found out, but his sister, being human, has no such excuse.

 

[ThinkerX]

To me, the glaringly obvious option would be the NP discovers what your MC really is, and devises some scheme to kill, control, or expose him - a scheme that results in the death of somebody your MC cares about. So when your MC takes off after NP, he's got two goals - 1) revenge for the death of whoever he cares about; and 2) to keep NP from sneaking back someday with another scheme to kill or control him.

NP's scheme need not be workable, only appear so, at least to him. MC's reaction might be along the lines of 'what an idiot if he really thinks this would work.' Or maybe NP's scheme is workable, just lacking something.