Hi, I'm just a writing Newbie here… I've come up with a basic fantasy story (haven't done much world building yet, I'm still working on it) inspired by Role playing games both Japanese (Final Fantasy) and Western (DnD for example) It features 3 travelling characters with flawed personalities and backgrounds. I've also come up with a group of villains all based on animal motifs The first one I thought up in detail is a vampire sorceress with a bat motif. I've been trying to break away from the typical vampire clichés by making her a mage who got possessed by an evil ancient force/ dark entity summoned by someone else that later did some forbidden magic to turn the mage (it's vessel) Lady into an undead vampire with shadow powers and use her as it’s puppet for over 2 centuries She's supposed to have some personality traits inspired by bats and is also unpredictable and chaotic since the entity has goals beyond mortal comprehension I was thinking the heroes accidentally free her human essence from centuries of imprisonment and torment by the entity, while still physically remaining a shadow vampire and she starts working alongside the 3 characters or against the other villains instead I feel like if I go down this route, I'm basically copying too much of Angel's character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, only difference being my character mostly uses elemental spells, wards and evasion tactics instead of physical vampiric attributes unless they're in full bloodlust or survival mode. Vampire mage with a reawakened soul always wrestles with trying to avoid draining human beings Or shall I just keep her as a scary chaotic monstrous villain that eventually gets wrecked by the heroes? Any advice is appreciated
Don't skip the world building. With out a solid world for the character to function in, you lose possiblities for conflict, and drama.
As far as I can tell, you are asking how to make characters interesting. The general advice is this: give them goals, give them obstacles, create conflict. And in all that, make them relatable. Give them personality and depth. Give each character their own voice. Make them come alive.
I would suggest forgetting everything from Buffy/ Angel. The soul/ soulless distinction that the series leans so heavily on is nonsensical and contradictory even if we accept the show's implicit equation of "soul" with "conscience". Speaking more broadly/ philosophically, a being without a soul is, by definition, inanimate. A being without a conscience cannot be "evil" and has no more moral culpability than a lightning bolt or avalanche. Overall I'm opposed to the taming and bowdlerization of the vampire, or the attempt to fabricate drama with empty moral workarounds and gimmicks, such as saying the vampire is a demon that supplants the human soul. The vampire is a person that now needs and craves human blood. Nothing else will do. They understand and feel the horror of their existence and still persist in it. Imagine that Carmilla is perfectly sincere when she says to Laura, Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die—die, sweetly die—into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love; so, for a while, seek to know no more of me and mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit. How beautiful and terrible that kind of love must be, and how much more interesting than what passes for romance in the current crop of pop vampires. A drive toward simple moral demarcations saps the vampire of its allurements that drew us to this figure in the first place. Looking further afield, see Melmoth the Wanderer or Elric of Melnibone, antiheroes who commit monstrous acts but are not demons incarnate.
The stories we write belong to the characters we create. I would think about what sort of story you are trying to create via your vampire. You mention copying a character from a tv show. Don't do that. I bet you're a lot more creative than that. Go ahead and be inspired, but when it comes to your character put them in a unique situation and run with it. I believe that writers can produce original characters from the situations we put them in. Good luck!
Yeah that's something I've thought about for a while. Just not sure where to start with the worldbuiling, what would you suggest?
