Tag: How to Write a Good Vampire Book

How to Write a Good Vampire Book – 6. Editing

At last your manuscript about Vampires Rudolph and Santa is complete and has gone to your beta readers for one round of testing. What next?

This is where the hard work begins. Most writers don’t enjoy it, but editing is the stage that will lift your work from just a rough story to a world-class bestseller. Well, okay, we hope it will. Seriously though, without good editing, you book will not stand a chance in an increasingly competitive market.

If you can possibly afford the cost, I recommend you get another writer or professional editor to do the final edit on your work. You can always swap books for editing with other readers, if you are short of money. Why do I tell you this? A writer reads what he thought he wrote, not what he actually wrote, when he reads it back. He or she will read the same paragraph 20 times and not see the typo. It has happened to me in a very embarrassing situation; a submission to a pubisher had an error in the first line of the query letter. Two other people close to me checked it and didn’t spot it. I read it at least 20 times and missed it. Once the tension of submission was over and I received their rejection, I saw the error and it was blindingly obvious!

Continue reading “How to Write a Good Vampire Book – 6. Editing” →

How to Write a Good Vampire Book – 5. Varying Pace

pen5 So you have your plot of Vampire Rudolph’s adventures all worked out and you know where the climax and twist will be. Now you are considering writing the climax and want to know how to show tension when Rudolph can’t get the tractor down a narrow alleyway, or gets stuck in a snowdrift. So how do you show the tension?

It’s not as easy as you might think!

Action Words and Expletives

The first rule is to use more action words when you are writing action sequences. These are words like ‘ripped,’ ‘spun,’ ‘yelled,’ ‘wrenched,’ and ‘panted.’ Continue reading “How to Write a Good Vampire Book – 5. Varying Pace” →

How to Write a Good Vampire Book – 4. Structure

pen4 So Vampire Rudolph is desperate to guide the tractor on Christmas eve, but his nose won’t glow properly. Erma makes him an enormous apple pie to make him happy and promises him a good night in bed afterwards. She wants that new TV!

How do you you get the structure of your story right?

First Draft

For your first draft, don’t worry about structure. Just get the story down. It will come out chronologically, that is, with the events in the order in which they happen. They may not stay this way, but that’s fine for now. Too many writers worry about writing a blockbuster with their first draft. You won’t. All writers have to write a second draft, so don’t try and avoid it. Continue reading “How to Write a Good Vampire Book – 4. Structure” →

How to Write a Good Vampire Book 3. – Characterisation

Basic Rules of Characterisation

So, in our story about Vampire Santa’s sleigh problems, we have Santa, Vampire Rudolph, and Rudolph’s wife, Erma!

Now how do you create characters for them? There are no hard and fast rules, but be wary of simply writing the story as it comes into your head without setting the characters. If you do this, the most likely outcome is that all the characters will sound like the same person, or sub-personalities of the same person. For instance:

“Wow! I got an egg for my birthday. Thanks Erma. I really love you. It’s exactly what a male reindeer wants!”
“It’s okay Rudolph. Wow! I really love you too. I’m glad it’s what you wanted.” Continue reading “How to Write a Good Vampire Book 3. – Characterisation” →

How to Write a Good Vampire Book – 2. Developing Themes

Now I will talk about themes, the threads that bind a story together.

As I mentioned in part 1, no single idea will make a complete book. If it’s a good idea, it will spawn more ideas. Let’s assume you have your ten ideas as well as your main idea:

Main idea: Santa’s sleigh breaks down on Christmas Eve Continue reading “How to Write a Good Vampire Book – 2. Developing Themes” →

How to Write a Good Vampire Book – 1. The Idea

Rachael Tyrell from Blade RunnerRachaell Tyrell from Blade Runner. Who hasn't been inspired by this marvelous film or book? — Rachael Tyrell from Blade Runner. Who hasn’t been inspired by this marvelous film or book?

This will be the first post detailing what I have learned about: How to write a Good Vampire Book. Note, I am not saying a great book. I don’t feel I have written a great book yet, and by that I mean something like Lord of the Rings, A Tale of Two Cities, Wuthering Heights, Far from the Madding Crowd or Silas Marner. When I do write such a book, I will be sure to update the title of this post.
Writing about Vampires?
Vampire Santa is a bit of fun, but the rules here apply to all books. My only advice specific to writing about vampires, werewolves or other shifters is not to use common English names; it’s hard to believe in a vampire called John Smith. On the other hand, posh English names including titles such as Lord can work well.

I will make permanent pages for the general techniques (without vampires) so that they are always available as pages in the menu at the top. So let’s gets started. Continue reading “How to Write a Good Vampire Book – 1. The Idea” →