The story I'm working on has a MC who was consentually turned into a vampyre (b. 1958, turned in 1990. Story takes place in multiple points in time) by a Vampyre Elder. She still has human family remaining, specifically a father who is dying of terminal cancer. She's expressed to her brother that she wants to turn him to cure his illness, but her family opposes it. They don't wish him to become a monster, and he'd never be able to explore his hobby of fishing and seafood ever again. I want to emphasize her struggle with retaining her humanity while also not taking away from the fact that she's a powerful vampyre who skulks around at night, drinks blood to maintain vitality and can fight multiple werewolves head on with mild difficulty. How would I pull this off? The story is mainly horror, but I don't want it to be one-dimensional, either.
One of the best ways to show one's humanity is to present them with a conflict or scenario that their powers cannot solve. Romance, friendship or acceptance from others. These things cannot be achieved through sheer force or violence and must be done through diplomacy instead. Perhaps showing their relationship will help empathize her humanity, to show how she struggles to think like her family but wants the best for them as well.
yeah, ok. That's actually a great suggestion, I was thinking something along that line as well, especially with conversations with her brother, nieces and nephews. She has no real desire to feed on them for obvious reasons, so the dialogue can mostly focus on their disagreements about what to do with their father. He doesn't know what she's become, because he's too ill to directly communicate at this stage in his illness. Not sure how to incorporate the mother character, though.