The denial of the V word actually makes me think of those guys who get all kinds of busy with other guys, yet insist that they are heterosexual.
I think I understand a bit more where you're coming from now: your MC's internal struggle to accept what he is, told in first person, whilst the reader knows exactly what he is. Just a small point, as my wife is Czech - it was Czechoslovakia during WWII. I forget the exact date (don't let my wife know!) when they separated into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but is was a while back. Also, the Czech lands are part of Moravia and Bohemia, which I think are great sounding names for a 'vampire' book.
Yeah I've done a bit of research on that...just need to remember to refer to it as such when I'm writing as the MC! Thanks @Midge23
Hi I'm new here and this is my first post. Personally I'd leave out the fangs because it seems a little cartoonish, although I'm not sure what kind of tone you are going for in the story. If you want to stay serious and keep it genuinely unnerving, I'd get rid of pretty much everything altogether except the thirst for blood and maybe violent thoughts and sociopathy. This way it could pass for some kind of rare disease not yet identified in science. If your book is more of a casual parody of other vampire stories then by all means go for the fangs and bat transformations and the rest, ha. That's just my opinion though, good luck with it.
There's a real disease exactly like that called porphyria. There's several variations of it, and it's believed that several members of royalty, including King George III suffered from it. There's also Ectodermal Dysplasia which does give the whole fang thing. Actor Micheal Berryman suffers from that disease. Well, a variation of it.
@Kallisto - I was aware of Porphyria but not Ectodermal Dysplasia, just googled it and some of the pictures of teeth that came up were astonishing. @Magpie - The idea behind the fangs in this case is that my virus is kind of trying to make it easier to spread itself around, kind of like how rabid animals bite other animals and spread the disease that way. I'm not going for cartoonish here but I am trying to create something a little bit different. I like the idea of him outstaying his welcome a bit on planet earth and thats why I've made him unable to die (at least naturally). There's no bats/castles/coffins/garlic/counts/disappearing reflections etc so I'm not trying to go down the parody route. I just wanted to give them fangs for the reason I mentioned and plus I just like the way they look...a bit scary
Genetics is something we're still bumbling around in. I mean myself for example - I am going prematurely grey, I have a white strip in my bangs and into the temple area [above the right ear] that against dark hair stands out like a sore thumb. My father went prematurely grey, my uncle (when he doesn't dye his hair) went grey later in life but still earlier than what is considered normal by most standards - their father kept his dark hair for a long while, to about three years before he died. In comparison to me my fractional twin brother has hair that is such a pitch black color it looks like he dyes it. Premature greying, given a post I followed on a gene site a few months ago, is likely genetically connected. I wasn't going to mention either ectodermal dysplasia or porphyria as I wasn't sure if you were going for a more alien / abnormal virus than anything. The thing about ectodermal dysplasia is that most of the people do stand out. Sharp fang-teeth aren't the only sign of ED. So if you are wanting Mr. Vamp to live a "normal" life, it can't be anything like ED unless it's a lesser version of it. Porphyria likewise gives odd side-effects apparently: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/porphyria/basics/symptoms/con-20028849 I like the rabies idea actually. Being on a farm, it's common knowledge for me but one thing about rabies is sensitivity to light, sometimes extreme. And rabies does "attack" the brain. I think if you researched rabies you could warp it enough to be a likely cause. Ps. Does Mr. Vamp use an oversized chew for his guinea pig teeth by chance. Cause I can see a rather comical scene where he's trying to file them down in the bathroom - part of "doing his teeth" [like flossing] and someone either walks in or walks by so catching the reflection.
Whilst it is a 'serious' story and it will be quite dark in places I wanted to add scenes like the onr you mentioned @ aire for a bit of comic relief. I really did want to go with the warped version of rabies as thats the best thing I could come up with for a 'scientific' version of vampirism.
If you want to keep the scientific angle, you'll have to bury yourself in books about virology, epidemiology, genetics... I know you're not going to want to do an infodump, but things are still going to have to happen in a way which is backed up by science.
Yeah I understand that. I am able to cheat a bit in that my character ia not a geneticist or a virologist so he has as much understanding about the condition as I do. But I have done a little bit of study on DNA and disease at university so I can use that as a basis for it.
