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Something Evil

So even with all the great advice I've gotten from you guys I still found myself stuck. Here's the situation: the antagonist of the book I'm writing right now is the grandfather of the hero. The premise of the book, which is a prequel to the main series while also being it's own story, is that the hero and his three younger siblings run away from their home in the woods and explore the country of Alfhiem looking for sanctuary. Shenanigans happen and at the end of the book the kids split up and try to make something of themselves. Thing is I need an inciting incident, something evil for the grandfather to do to scare the kids into running away. At this point he's taught the kids Magic, helped bring dinner to the table, and forced the two older kids, our hero Alois and his sister/rival Amelie, to slaughter an entire city full of Vampires plus some bear cubs. Do I need more than that or is the ptsd from massacering(sorry for misspelling that. Spellcheck was being a jerk) a whole city full of undead blood monsters enough? Empathy is hard so I can't quite tell. By the way since this is a prequel these kids are 12. I just feel like I need a little extra push that's all.
 
Several questions:
Is Magic full on Bad in this story?
Is killing off Vampires a good thing? Are they classic sort of vampires or those with souls and so called vegetarian ones that swore off eating humans?
When killing the cubs, how'd they off the mommy? She comes with cubs in general and is all hell to deal with.

Also at twelve I have a hard time seeing them wiping out an entire city of vampires unless Grandpappy taught them a highly upgraded fireball spell. Unless the vampires can normally be defeated by twelve year old kids in your 'verse.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
It will be if it's enough *for them* and if you sell it to us. That is, I'm going to need to see them reacting to that slaughter, going into it reluctantly, reacting with horror. If all they do is say the magic word and poof the city is gone, that's not much. The author has to make it be much.

Questions. I'm having a hard time believing twelve-year-olds can kill a bear, much less a city of vampires. How does that work? Also, if it's a city of vampires, whose blood are they drinking? Also, why does grandpa want the kids to do this? If he's so great a magician, why not do it himself?
 
It will be if it's enough *for them* and if you sell it to us. That is, I'm going to need to see them reacting to that slaughter, going into it reluctantly, reacting with horror. If all they do is say the magic word and poof the city is gone, that's not much. The author has to make it be much.

Questions. I'm having a hard time believing twelve-year-olds can kill a bear, much less a city of vampires. How does that work? Also, if it's a city of vampires, whose blood are they drinking? Also, why does grandpa want the kids to do this? If he's so great a magician, why not do it himself?
.
The grandfather was the one who killed momma bear. As for why, his motivation is that he's basically elven Chuck Norris and wants a successor to his legacy since he's getting fairly old. The Vampires are in an ancient forest, so good blood is hard to come by which means that these Vampires are weaker than the usual. Hope that answers your questions.
 
Several questions:
Is Magic full on Bad in this story?
Is killing off Vampires a good thing? Are they classic sort of vampires or those with souls and so called vegetarian ones that swore off eating humans?
When killing the cubs, how'd they off the mommy? She comes with cubs in general and is all hell to deal with.

Also at twelve I have a hard time seeing them wiping out an entire city of vampires unless Grandpappy taught them a highly upgraded fireball spell. Unless the vampires can normally be defeated by twelve year old kids in your 'verse.
Magic is a tool just like anything else. The only reason the kids won is that the raid was a surprise attack and most of the citizens aren't trained combatants. Vampires in my verse are people who have let themselves be tainted by black magic and become monsters in exchange for pseudo-immortality.
 
He seems really evil to me from your description of his actions, but the thing i think would really sell it is his every day words, his not caring for his children's wants, trying to set them against themselves, and overall just being a jerk. Most people see manipulating people as purely disgusting, so i think that it could help to add him never seeing himself as the problem, saying he's helping when all he's helping is himself, and him believing that their complaints against him are the true problem.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
.
The grandfather was the one who killed momma bear. As for why, his motivation is that he's basically elven Chuck Norris and wants a successor to his legacy since he's getting fairly old. The Vampires are in an ancient forest, so good blood is hard to come by which means that these Vampires are weaker than the usual. Hope that answers your questions.

So, grandpa kills the momma and the kids kill the cubs? I'm confused by the wording of the original post.

".. elven Chuck Norris" doesn't really mean anything to me. Norris as Texas Ranger? Western kung fu dude? Heroic rescuer? None of those images seem to fit an evil grandpa.

So, the vampires are feeding on local wildlife? Also, cities aren't usually in the middle of a forest. They are surrounded by towns and villages and farms. What do these vampires do to support a city? Trade? Administrative center? I'm asking not to criticize but to get a clearer idea of what's actually going on here.

Another possibility would be simply to have the grandpa be abusive. He's powerful, but he's grown old and isolated and bitter about not gaining the honors he had expected. He got saddled with these kids--the parents were stupid, got involved in a plot, and got their fool selves executed--and he has alternated between teaching them great secrets (because he's lost all other acolytes) and berating and even beating them for being less than brilliant. IOW, no need for vampire cities in the forest or for killing off bears. Just good kids in a bad situation. And when they run off, they maybe take some items with them, more valuable than they'd imagined, so of course grandpa is going to hunt them down.
 
OberonLordofSylva ....hmmm...
Killing off a village of vampires? I suppose there's a way in the world to justify vampire genocide.

But there is something you could weave in: sadism. Yes, vampires might need to be killed. You can be proficient at it. But to take pleasure in it? To ensure unnecessary suffering? Torture? Maybe not necessary concepts...

And then, for kids to feel like they've had to senselessly kill innocent animals? That could have been an attempt at a desensitizing exercise for the children that goes horribly wrong.

If you're training young killers, slayers, etc. it's much easier to convince someone of a threat when the thing you're targeting is legitimately threatening. Blood sucking vampires creeping around, gotta take them out. You might have mixed feelings about it, but in the greater scheme the picture is pretty crystal clear.

If the vampires suddenly started raided villages, the Grandfather might decide enough is enough and take action. And for whatever reason takes his grandchildren on a killing spree. I can see them serving as back up for the Grandfather, sort of like the tommahawk ambush scene from the movie "the Patriot".

Seeing an otherwise kind, gentle and loving person you've known your whole life suddenly transform in realtime to a cold, robotic f#%king killing machine might be traumatizing, without any hints of sadism at all.

But part of being an assassin/slayer is to not let your personal doubts and misgivings get in the way of the objective. Kill the "innocent" bears. You don't need the fresh meat, they're a hundred feet away and not going to hurt you, never were a direct threat to you. You think they are harmless creatures, minding their own damn business. You're going to kill them, even though you have convinced yourself they should be spared. And, you'll kill innocent creatures, and feel bad about it, but the real crime is to let them rot and not be utilized. Maybe he tells the grandkids after they have killed the bears that he's going to now preserve all the meat and make coats for them. Hunting is still killing innocent creatures, right? But hunting only feels truly justified when you truly *need* to kill them.

Just like slaying gives you doubts when assessing danger, you have to push through them. Slaying is killing for a moral / physical threat cause, hunting is for a material/ sustenance cause. Both scenarios still require bringing death.

Because... what happens to you when you confront an evil or a monster who tries to convince you it's innocent and should be spared? It's not an imminent threat to you? When you feel like you don't really need to kill something, it makes you vulenerable. You hesitate, you drop your guard, you doubt yourself, and it kills you. You spare it, and it lives on to hurt others.

I don't think you need to have Grandpa go all the way to the darkside or have a safistic streak, but with some serious ambiguouty, pithy ambivalence and a lot of room for misunderstanding/ misinterpretation, I could see children flipping out and running away without the Grandpa being legit hardcore evil.
 
A lot depend on their prior relationship to their grandfather. How long do they live with their grandfather. If they have lived there all their lives it will take an awful lot before they leave. After all, even 12 year old kids will assume their parents know best in life changing situations. If they have only recently moved in (after their parents died for instance) then it will take very little, especially with teenagers.

I would personally search for the inciting incident not in some plot action, but in the interaction between the grandfather and the kids. Everyone is the hero of their own story, so the grandfather will believe he's doing the right thing, and he will explain this to the kids (in one form or another). So slaughtering a village of vampires sounds like something fairly reasonable actually, assuming there is an in-world reason to do so. The kids would seek any failure to do the right thing here or about their feelings about it with themselves, not with their grandfather. So I don't see it much as a reason to run away (especially not permanently).

If however, the grandfather yells at them for failing to complete some task, does something which their parents vocally disapproved off and mistreats them because of this, then they would possibly run. They need to see the grandfather as a threat to them personally, not to the outside world.
 
So, grandpa kills the momma and the kids kill the cubs? I'm confused by the wording of the original post.

".. elven Chuck Norris" doesn't really mean anything to me. Norris as Texas Ranger? Western kung fu dude? Heroic rescuer? None of those images seem to fit an evil grandpa.

So, the vampires are feeding on local wildlife? Also, cities aren't usually in the middle of a forest. They are surrounded by towns and villages and farms. What do these vampires do to support a city? Trade? Administrative center? I'm asking not to criticize but to get a clearer idea of what's actually going on here.

Another possibility would be simply to have the grandpa be abusive. He's powerful, but he's grown old and isolated and bitter about not gaining the honors he had expected. He got saddled with these kids--the parents were stupid, got involved in a plot, and got their fool selves executed--and he has alternated between teaching them great secrets (because he's lost all other acolytes) and berating and even beating them for being less than brilliant. IOW, no need for vampire cities in the forest or for killing off bears. Just good kids in a bad situation. And when they run off, they maybe take some items with them, more valuable than they'd imagined, so of course grandpa is going to hunt them down.
Thanks for the writing prompt and I'm sorry I keep confusing you. I swear I'm a better writer on the manuscript. Vampire Cities are all underground, hidden away in dark isolated recesses if the world. They're connected by a network of tunnels kind of like the Underdark in DND. The cave that leads to this particular city just so happens to be in the forest where the "heroes" are.
 
A lot depend on their prior relationship to their grandfather. How long do they live with their grandfather. If they have lived there all their lives it will take an awful lot before they leave. After all, even 12 year old kids will assume their parents know best in life changing situations. If they have only recently moved in (after their parents died for instance) then it will take very little, especially with teenagers.

I would personally search for the inciting incident not in some plot action, but in the interaction between the grandfather and the kids. Everyone is the hero of their own story, so the grandfather will believe he's doing the right thing, and he will explain this to the kids (in one form or another). So slaughtering a village of vampires sounds like something fairly reasonable actually, assuming there is an in-world reason to do so. The kids would seek any failure to do the right thing here or about their feelings about it with themselves, not with their grandfather. So I don't see it much as a reason to run away (especially not permanently).

If however, the grandfather yells at them for failing to complete some task, does something which their parents vocally disapproved off and mistreats them because of this, then they would possibly run. They need to see the grandfather as a threat to them personally, not to the outside world.
Thanks for the input! I'm gathering from these more recent posts that I need to make it more psychological. I'll try making some edits to the massacre scene and some earlier moments and see what I can do. Either that or make it a slow burn type of deal, I'm not quite sure yet.
 
He seems really evil to me from your description of his actions, but the thing i think would really sell it is his every day words, his not caring for his children's wants, trying to set them against themselves, and overall just being a jerk. Most people see manipulating people as purely disgusting, so i think that it could help to add him never seeing himself as the problem, saying he's helping when all he's helping is himself, and him believing that their complaints against him are the true problem.
Another great prompt! This one deals more into the antagonist's mindset, which I like to see in stories that I read or watch. The book is in first person so I can't do much but I'm short on dialogue as is so why not?
 

A. E. Lowan

Forum Mom
Leadership
I agree with some of the guys. What if he's just abusive, and the kids can't take it anymore? What if he prides himself on never using his magic to hurt his grandchildren, but they don't dare have pets or close friends? Banal evil is still evil, sometimes the worst kind, because instead of loving these children like he should he controls and terrorizes them. It's intimate.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
So...some parents teach their kids to swim by throwing them in a lake. What if he teaches them to kill vampires, by leaving them alone with them? Might that not cause one to think that GrandPa is nuts, and if something does not change, is going to get them killed? They leave for their own self preservation.
 
So...some parents teach their kids to swim by throwing them in a lake. What if he teaches them to kill vampires, by leaving them alone with them? Might that not cause one to think that GrandPa is nuts, and if something does not change, is going to get them killed? They leave for their own self preservation.

^This. All of this.
 
Hi,

I think you're problem is that these acts like destroying the vampire village may be good or bad, it sort of depends, but these kids are twelve. It's not whether the acts are good or bad, it's how they affect them personally. I mean they're vampires, right? Do twelve year old kids care if they kill them? Probably not. I mean we may see the acts as evil, the grampa as evil. But that's us as adults, looking on from afar. What do the kids see?

Get into the head of the kids, and ask - what's going to scare them? Making the kids stand toe to toe with the vamps when they're terrified and vamps are big and scary? Yeah that'll scare them. And if they get hurt. If maybe one of them - a fourth one - dies? That'll make them run. If they get told by gramps that they're going to have to battle vamps and monsters again and again? And they're scared? They'll run.

Make the evil and the pain and fear, personal to the kids. That's how you get them to flee.

Cheers, Greg.
 
I'd like to thank everyone for helping out with this. It means so much to me that I'm able to get good advice when it comes to my writing. That said, I'm going to start re-writing a couple scenes in accordance with the advice you've given me as soon as my computer is back online.
 
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