Hey guys, I'm really working hard on getting ideas for my werewolf novel and I would love all the help I can get. The main plot would first start during around ww1-ww2 era where an allied hero and his allied team come across POW and concentration camp victims used as experiments by the nazis. Our hero rescues a young girl that was experimented on but realizes she's a werewolf now. From there it would go through a time line like the cold war, Vietnam, Desert Storm, all the way to modern and so on. I want to have it so my hero soldier and the little girl spawn a generation of my other protagonists decendents into the future time line. Question is how do I make this into a good werewolf story? The soldier from ww1 ww2 would be too old in the future so would he have to die? How do I make the girl become a werewolf spy when she's older and have her future kid and her kids future kids born with a werewolf gene? I appreciate whatever help you guys can advise me.
When I have characters whose stories expand decades, in fact I have a few immortal characters who spend centuries, I usually write a brief concept of their own personal life story. from Origin to death (if applicable). just hitting on basic points about them, limiting it to data that only I will read at the end of the day. As for my Immortals, they each have their own origins, serve a specific purpose and later in the future, team up.
I actually plan on adding other characters that would later all team up. Cool idea, but how could the werewolf girl have a kid and grandkids in the future if she stays too young and never grows older? And I planned on having the soldier get older in the future into a old badass. How could they be immortal?
I would start by deciding which World War you're going to start with. They were fairly different in terms of technology, and you've got a generation between them. If you're going for concentration camps, then you're definitely thinking WWII. An easy way to get the girl into spy work would be a simple storyline something like this: When the camp is liberated, she runs away and follows the troop that the soldier belongs to. She tracks them using werewolf powers to keep her distance and stay alive, but she has trouble controlling her abilities. Eventually she can't keep it up and is found by the troop. She hasn't been able to consciously use her powers, so she doesn't know what her abilities are yet, so she doesn't tell them anything (or she's too afraid to speak up) but something triggers an involuntary morph (attack? full moon?). The troop decides to trust her and they adopt her as an honorary member. They bring her home at the end of the war, where her abilities attract attention in the military. She becomes a state secret, receiving military and spy training while they research her powers. Here she either strikes out on her own and becomes a solo worker, teams up with the soldier, or perhaps even works with the whole team that brought her home since they've got a field-tested ability to work together. Eventually she marries the soldier (or not!) and their child grows up surrounded by covert operatives and government agents. When it becomes clear that the child has inherited their mother's powers, the mother starts to train her child in control, and eventually the child becomes the next generation of werewolf soldier. If this stuff doesn't fit with what you've got planned, scrap it! This is just a basic tried-and-true superhero-style origin story, easily modified. There's lots of room to play with supporting characters, brash personalities, occult research... mix and match! I think killing off your original hero gives it an interesting twist. The generational inheritance could even include a codename, title, or other designation. For a really fun twist in earlier generations (if you feel comfortable consulting with others on this project) you could have the girl speak little English at the beginning and have to learn. You will have to place your concentration camp somewhere, so you can either choose a real one or invent one and place it in a believable location. Either way the girl will doubtless know the local language (which could very well be Polish and not German) and if she's Jewish she may speak Yiddish. (You don't have to go this far – I just like novels with a Bilingual Bonus.) This idea really sounds like fun! If you feel like it, you can do a pretty serious war novel with werewolves, or you can go a little more lighthearted. I can't wait to see what you come up with, and I hope you post some chapters in the Writing Workshop so I can read them!
Hey thanks that helps alot! I can have her speak little English. I'd probably have her native language in Polish? German? Russian? French? I'm gonna have to research more about prison camp victims. Could she be Jewish if she's blonde haired with greenish eyes? I plan to make it a fictional concentration camp in a realistic location. Even if I have her and the WW2 soldier create their own werewolf child offspring and have the child continue the legacy, how do I make it believable that the WW2 soldier and werewolf girl would still be fighting through the time lines by their age? By then the girl and WW2 soldier would be fairly older by the 60s and 70s decades. Do werewolves have immortal powers or age slower? How can I make the WW2 soldier still be able to fight all these years later and physical top shape? He'd be human afterall unlike the girl whos not. I'll let you know when I'm done so you can read my chapters. I'll have lots of stories to put together soon, thanks!
I see, but then how could I have her become a covert spy later on in the story years after she was saved during WW2? That means she'd barely make it past the Korean War and wouldn't even be alive during the height of the cold war due to her short life span. Wouldn't that also lesson the lives of her child and her child's future children? Is it known that werewolves live less than normal humans? Cause I was under the impression they live longer like vampires. Maybe I could have her kept cryogenically frozen somehow so she can live throughout the other generations. Maybe she was experimented on by the nazis giving her expanded life? Or her werewolf abilities descended from a long line of a powerful mythological clan that have long lives? What do I choose? Btw, I decided to go with making her Polish since it will fit her story well.
To be sure, Sphinx, you are the boss of the werewolves in your story. Don't feel like you have to follow in line with anything that's already been written. If you want werewolves to be long-lived (many fictional werewolves have some kind of regenerative powers, so longer lifespan is not too great a stretch), then you make them long-lived. The key thing is to have the powers of a werewolf all planned out in advance (so you don't manifest new powers at the speed of plot), and then be consistent when you deal with the protagonist's progeny.
Thanks, I got it now. Only problem I have is figuring out how she became a werewolf in the first place. I have a few choices and I'd like if any of you guys want to give me some input to which would be the best and the least overdone idea. 1) The girl was born with a werewolf gene due to her families lineage and never knew about it? 2) She was either cursed, scratched or bitten by a werewolf before being put in the concentration camp? 3) The nazis did some sort of experiment on her (either by mistake or on purpose) Changing her dna to a wolves? Any help is definitely appreciated.
Kind of. I've been playing around with all the different ideas. It's just that thinking of a reason as to why the nazis would put in all the effort to experimenting and creating a concentration camp victim into a powerful, shapeshifting, killing machine makes it seem like they want to help her become strong so she can defeat them. It's just not something the nazis would do. They'd more likely of done horrible experiments on prison camp victims then dispose of them quickly.
It's a widely accepted rumour that Hitler was interested in the occult (the Thule Society and apparently a hollow Earth belief), and it's certainly been broached in various movies, not the least of which are the Indiana Jones movies. With that in mind, what you have here is the Nazis, armed with some kind of occult book or technology, are experimenting on concentration camps as trial runs, to see what they can come up with. You wouldn't test your magical experiments on useful Nazi soldiers when you have a camp full of experiment subjects. Given how real-life Nazis were not at all hesitant to commit terrible atrocities on the Jews with whatever they had on hand, it's not hard to believe they would do just the same with any experimental genetic manipulation or magical spellbooks.
As far as killing of the hero, consider having one of the werewolf offspring accidentally harm or kill the father. That event could then spark the biological evolution in the offspring's siblings which awakens the gene. Just an idea.
This would actually be a great backstory for me to use, thanks! Like a ritual experiment from a book gone wrong? You know funny thing is I had an idea like this planned as a reason for the next legecy, werewolf MC to be the next hero, so I like where this is going. Now all I need to do is figure out the age and generation thing. Here's where I need the most help with creating the lineage down the line. I got my WW2 hero soldier and my prison camp female werewolf victim in the first chapter. 1. I was thinking right after WW2 ends, they fall in love and have a boy. 2. That boy grows up with the werewolf gene. 3. He becomes a soldier like his dad and fights in the military through the 50s then eventually becomes a spy like his mom was. 4. Fights as a secret agent in the cold war early 60s . So by now he'd be about 20 I guess?? Might be a little too young for a spy agent maybe? 5. Then the agent son meets a girl in the early 60s and he passes the werewolf gene to the next generation newly born son. 6. That new son grows up carrying the gene and he fights throughout the next wars and missions, maybe he meets a girl by the 80s or 90s?? Then that new son would be the next fighter carrying the gene. 7. And finally this next new son would meet a girl, (probably by the 2000s) and they would have two siblings and those two siblings would be the ones carrying the most recent werewolf genes. Is this family tree way too big?!? I'd really appreciate any feedback from anybody, cause I need help with the age and timeline plot, thank you.
