vampire transformation

In the world of fiction, it can be anything you want it to be. Some say it's a virus, some say it's a demon that changes form, others say it's a sub species of humans. Others say it's the spawn humans who mated with demons. Magic gone wrong.

Literally any number of things

I like the traditional supernatural legend. They're simply the undead and if they drain your blood and you die, you become one.

I think trying to explain it with science or modern beliefs just messes things up.

All of the above, and then some. I've already posted this link elsewhere, in another vampire-related thread, this past week, but since you're looking for how the turning is handled specifically:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurVampiresAreDifferent

I've seen some stories lately of vampires who are "born," as opposed to changing from human to vampire, which is fun to play with.

Your universe, your rules. Just make sure you're consistent.

Mine are cursed and they pass along their curse to the homeless and the downtrodden in order to strengthen their numbers. They also don't have fangs and can go out in sunlight (covered in rags and discarded clothing, the older the vampire the weaker the sun makes them.).

The vampires in my Dreg City series are their own unique race, unrelated to humans at all. They have certain physical features that mark them as different, but they can still generally pass as human.

If they bite a human and infect them...that's a whole other kind of crazy creature.

A lack of punctuation is the first symptom of vampirism.

The first stage of the transformation is an aversion to punctuation.

ETA: Christ, ninja-posted by Parametric!

I find the only constant in most vampire stories is the drinking of blood. Personally I like the traditional Caine version of things but have enjoyed stories from every different angle.

LOL.

My vampires don't drink blood. Of any kind. Ever.

I think the only constant to a vampire is surviving from another's life, be it blood or energy.. I mean that's the whole point of the word 'vampire'. Life sucking

As I stated in another thread to reply to doomwdfortune, there are no constant anything in fiction. As long as you are skillful enough to convince your readers, you can do whatever you wish.

My vampires don't survive off anyone's life or blood or anything. They are not dead. They don't transform into vampires. They aren't evil or sexily creepy.

You are the author, so you can make totally new rules that are as far removed from everything else as you want. In fact, when I posted in SYW here, the only crit I received was for structural errors and writing issues, which I resolved. Nobody had an issue with non-standard paranormal creatures that had a standard moniker.

Do what you like.

amyashley said:

My vampires don't survive off anyone's life or blood or anything. They are not dead. They don't transform into vampires. They aren't evil or sexily creepy.

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Because I'm curious, now.

So if they don't look like a duck, sound like a duck, act like a duck, walk like a duck, eat like a duck, swim like a duck...how are they still classified as a duck?

Why call them vampires then? Just because you're the author and you can?

bearilou said:

Because I'm curious, now.

So if they don't look like a duck, sound like a duck, act like a duck, walk like a duck, eat like a duck, swim like a duck...how are they still classified as a duck?

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You'll have to read the book, huh?

Mostly it is just genetics. The novel is full of paranormal races who have gotten bad reputations throughout history based on rumors which became very twisted. Sort of like the telephone game on a large scale; you whisper a phrase into somebody's ear, they whisper it to the next person and so on. None of the paranormal races is that different genetically from humans, but humans are a rude and prejudiced lot which explains nasty stories.

None of my paranormals does anything fancy or bad or even really weird. I write comedy.

All of this was just to illustrate that it's entirely possibly to give a completely NEW spin on an old idea instead of a different twist on an old idea, which is what most of the ideas being offered forth here are. Although my general concept (human prejudice, paranormals like humans etc) wasn't totally out of the ballpark, having vampires that weren't dead blood drinkers and werewolves that weren't fuzzy shape shifters WAS a very new idea.

There are always ways to blend in. Being original is what will set you apart.

Shadow_Ferret said:

Why call them vampires then? Just because you're the author and you can?

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I didn't name them. Someone back in 200 BC did or something. Why call us humans, or ferrets, ferrets?

Someone made a mistake about my vampires and now they're stuck with a lame name. But True Blood made it cool to be one, so most of them don't complain.

bearilou said:

So if they don't look like a duck, sound like a duck, act like a duck, walk like a duck, eat like a duck, swim like a duck...how are they still classified as a duck?

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I can think of at least one sort of duck that people wouldn't think is a duck on the surface. The trick is convincing people it is still a duck, even though it doesn't swim, have a duck-like bill or webbed feet.

I think id have problems reading a book about vampires that aren't. Just as I'd have trouble reading a book about humans or ferrets that don't Correspond with what I'm familiar with.

So if vampires aren't dead, don't transform and never drink blood, where did the rumours come from that all of the above are true?

And if all of the above is not true, why don't they just say, "Hey, this isn't true, and here's proof?"

Why let the untruths perpetuate?

SP, try googling plagues and vampires. This is a good start.

I'm not going to go on and on about MY book (which I am done writing) in this thread because that isn't really what the OP intended, and I was just trying to make a point. If anyone is truly curious–like super, super burning curiosity–maybe I can temporarily post a 500 word excerpt or something. It's not a vampire book, there is a lot of other stuff in it.

Whether or not anyone might have a problem with it would depend on the book, my skill, etc. etc.

All of this is always relative. What it's intended to say is that you can bend a tremendous amount of rules as an author if you use your imagination.

In my stories, the original source of vampirism is elf blood. Among elves, sharing blood is a kind of emergency first aid that can keep a dying comrade alive long enough to get real medical care. Elf blood, when given to a dying human, kills the human. But the magic in the elf blood also brings them back to life.

amyashley said:

Someone made a mistake about my vampires and now they're stuck with a lame name. But True Blood made it cool to be one, so most of them don't complain.

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I do a similar thing with demons in my books. My demons are various species of sentient beings from other worlds. They look scary and some do bad things. On the whole, however, they aren't inherently any more evil than humans. Demon, the human word, is the generic moniker that is used for any being who isn't an elf or a vampire.

amyashley said:

SP, try googling plagues and vampires. This is a good start.

I'm not going to go on and on about MY book (which I am done writing) in this thread because that isn't really what the OP intended, and I was just trying to make a point. If anyone is truly curious–like super, super burning curiosity–maybe I can temporarily post a 500 word excerpt or something. It's not a vampire book, there is a lot of other stuff in it.

Whether or not anyone might have a problem with it would depend on the book, my skill, etc. etc.

All of this is always relative. What it's intended to say is that you can bend a tremendous amount of rules as an author if you use your imagination.

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I believe the OP are just looking for a basic why. Why did the rumors start and all of the fairy-tale nonsense get created if they were just simply people with a slight deformity? It's certainly not a derailment of any kind to provide this simple answer and if anything will give credit to your opinion that we seem to be having trouble grasping.

You can bend any rule as long as your book has internal integrity. If it throws up more questions than it answers, well...

There are many questions here, so I will try to break this down to basics.

My vampires (all my paranormals in this book) are essentially human with the addition of some genetically amplified senses. Vampires specifically have their vision boosted. This has resulted in the ability to see ripples in the patterns light makes, which for some of them makes them a little psychic (they can see auras) and for some they have a little low-level ESP. This goes into future incidents making changes in the pattern of light, but I don't get into a lot of detail about that in the book. This likely made them a bit -odd- in comparison to regular sorts of people. Humans don't like anyone different as we've so beautifully displayed over our history. It doesn't take very much for us to point fingers and call names. Or more.
In addition to their not so amazing abilities, some of which DO tie into vampire folklore, they are also EXTREMELY sensitive to sunlight. This is kind of a big obvious one since they have that whole extended vision spectrum thing going on. Being out in the daylight very long gives them severe migraines. Exposure to strong lights of any kind does much the same. Most of the light sensitivity starts showing as their eyes really begin to develop, anywhere from birth to five or so. Some of them (in modern times) manage it with medications and other therapies, but most of them just find night jobs. They also have some weird food allergies, which is likely tied into odd genetics. I didn't go into that in this book, but if I expand the series, I'll explore it.
If you do a little researching on vampires you run across some interesting theories about how stories about them began.
During times of plague, fingers were pointed at some particularly unpopular people. Sometimes not so dead bodies were buried. There is more stuff out there, but it made me think quite a bit, and if it made me think, and with hints I dropped in my book, it could make anyone think.

If you had someone living next door to you that never ate any of your fabulous cooking (claiming food allergies) and was weirdly pale, had very odd hours, and was just plain an odd sort of person who was always giving you bizarre warnings about Joe the mailman, or the pizza delivery guy overcharging you, or telling you your hubby was cheating, (or other tweaky and nosey things) then suddenly dead bodies started popping up, who would you blame?
I'm sure you THINK you'd have an open mind. I'm sure you'd try to be kind and neighborly, but wouldn't you wonder?

As far as why they have allowed the rumors to continue, in the beginning it was due to habit, then fear of how humans would react (they are the minority and not at all powerful or magical), and when my story occurs they are mainly at a point where they are all sort of sick of the situation but not sure how to go about coming out of the closet.

For the term vampire, that IS what they are. It is what they were named. Forgive me for using an unsavory example here, but consider the word nigger. People of color did not chose that term. It's absolutely a slur. However even today as many people of all colors try to eliminate it from our vocabularies, African Americans everywhere use it as part of their everyday language in reference to themselves. Is what I have done such a stretch?

If there are any questions I have missed, let me know.