workshop this plot with me? serial killer picks the wrong girl

[joy_of_cooking]

I have this idea I've been struggling with for a while now.

FMC is a vampire who's figured out that the way to go undetected in the modern day is to keep a low profile. No castles, no thralls. Work a minimum-wage night job, hang out in seedy bars, go home with the kind of guy who won't be surprised to wake up weak and dizzy the next morning with a new needle mark in his arm and no memory of how it got there. Every now and then, she'll treat herself to a rapist or mugger or some other lowlife nobody's gonna miss. It's almost virtuous.

Problem is, it's March 2020 and nobody wants to hang out in bars anymore. The only people she meets are the kind she's decided are off-limits: a sad old man looking for his daughter who's turning tricks to fund her probably-already-fatal drug habit, a little old lady working at a takeout joint who gives her some food and a pair of shoes, a homeless guy who's just trying to stay out of the shelters. There's some kind of plague ripping through those places.

And then, lo and behold, she gets picked up by a sleazy guy. He offers her a ridiculous amount of money for the night, the kind of money that gets you the classy outcall girls if you actually mean to pay it out. She's delighted. It's been ages since she's had a serial killer!

He takes her to a cabin upstate. He has some unsurprisingly serious-looking bondage gear. He ties her up, has his way with her, then confesses that he may have omitted a few pertinent details when he promised to drop her off back in Queens by morning. Having now confirmed that he's fair game, she makes short work of him.

And then his corpse sits up. Someone---something---starts talking to her through his mouth. It thanks her for playing along with its little game. By staying true to her principles despite the temptations it has dangled before her tonight, she has won it a great deal of whatever passes for money among its kind. As a token of its gratitude, it will grant her a boon.

She's terrified. There are far more frightening things in our world than mere vampires, and you do not want any of them doing you favors. She loves her life, she assures it. It's absolutely perfect in every way. She wouldn't change a thing.

Well, all right, it says. How about a little tip? This reverse pickup artist thing she's got going on? There's a better way. Find a girl. Drink her menses. It'll last you a whole month, just like if you killed a guy. (And then we're off to the next part of my series, where she starts trying to pick up chicks.)

Okay, so here's the problem: I cannot for the life of me write the one scene with the serial killer.

I tried to make it scary but there's no tension there. She knows she can take him.

I tried to make it sexy but it's kind of hard to pull off the transition from "I'm desperately hungry" to "never mind, horny now!"

I tried to hop from her point of view to his, but...I don't know, I'm bad at writing serial killers, I guess. He was cartoonish, or boring, or just kind of unrealistic.

I'm starting to wonder if I've made a mistake in trying to use her as the viewpoint character. She's Hong from Vampires Don't Wait Tables, and I think she works better when seen from another character's eyes. We get the slow reveal of her true nature.

But in this episode she's the only character present in all the scenes.

Maybe I could do a series of vignettes from the perspective of each person she meets? But then I don't know how to do the last scene. I don't want to tell that one from the scarier-than-vampires thing's perspective. That one needs to remain mysterious to have the intended impact.

Maybe third person limited, but not close? So not from any character's perspective, just a kind of floating eye seeing things. Is that a thing?

Anyway, I'm at wit's end. Say wise and encouraging things.

 

[NuclearFairy]

You could have him keep almost doing things that would actually trap or harm a vampire, that would bring back some of the tension of her being with a killer.

Hmm, only time I've had anyone go from starving to horny there was a bit of a fight in the middle that made him forget his hunger. And then he ran out of energy and remembered that he was starving, but then he drank some blood and remembered that he was horny. It's rather confusing when written out like that.

 

[ThatNewGuy]

Anyway, I'm at wit's end. Say wise and encouraging things.

I'm too spent from work to offer any workshopping advice tonight, wise or otherwise, but I can do encouraging. I loved "Vampires Don't Wait Tables." Hong is a great character and I'd read more about her in an instant. Keep the faith. You'll find the right approach.

 

[AlexBailey]

it sounds like you need another element to the serial killer.

Make him a failed phlebotomist who likes to drain enough blood from his victims to keep them barely alive. He’s got a place where he takes his victims and keeps them for a while. The serial killer has become known as The Vampire and the FMC takes personal exception to him.

Your FMC vampire has shown empathy, so maybe she’s interested in finding him and rescuing a victim or two. She’s also keen to find any stores of blood he may have.

She finds him and tries to go along with him to find his hideaway. When she finds his stash of blood she drinks from one of the bags but it’s tainted with fentanyl and she passes out and wakes up later after he has already weakened her by draining a few pints of her blood.

She could be weak and tied next to another victim who offers to let the vampire drink just enough of her blood to regain some strength…

 

[Jorunn]

The serial killer plays his kinky games. She is confident and waiting. The killer removes his shirt and is wearing a cross or silver chain. He cooks his dinner - with garlic! And offers some to her. She loses track of time, and dawn arrives. Unable to go into the sunlight, she must hide in dark places in the house, while he looks for her. Pretty much any or every vampire ‘fear’ can be played up in his ‘lair’.

 

[Jorunn]

The serial killer plays his kinky games. She is confident and waiting. The killer removes his shirt and is wearing a cross or silver chain. He cooks his dinner - with garlic! And offers some to her. She loses track of time, and dawn arrives. Unable to go into the sunlight, she must hide in dark places in the house, while he looks for her. Pretty much any or every vampire ‘fear’ can be played up in his ‘lair’.

The killer eats a rare steak in front of her. And eats it with real silverware. He offers her a bite on a silver fork. He cuts his finger cooking a meal. He cuts her someplace and her blood trickles down her arm, leg, etc. The cabin is built over the entrance to a cave system where her body will join others. That is where the ultimate evil lives.

He has interesting sex toys and uses them on her. She wants more. He is great at cunnilingus and thinks about keeping him alive for a little longer as her ‘toy’.

 

[lovecraft68]

You could go with the angle from Fright Night-the original-or even Lost Boys where the guy is a lifelong horror fan and part of why he is a serial killer is he is trying to find actual vampires of werewolves to kill and something about her gets him thinking he may have found one.

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

Write the scene with atmosphere in mind.

When his corpse sits up (already a creepy image), color the scene with environmental details. Does the corpse sit up in the middle of the night, and it's a new moon so all she can see is the shape of the corpse outlined by darkness? Is it dark and stormy, and the corpse is revealed only when lightning illuminates the room. Or does it sit up on a bright Sunday morning while she's at a breakfast table enjoying freshly brewed coffee?

The part where you wrote "She's terrified"
is one of those perfect opportunities to obey the maxim "show, don't tell."
Don't simply say she's terrified, tell us how she reacts to the corpse sitting up. Does she spew her coffee out, and launch her coffee mug at it? Does her immortal heart stop?
Say that she's terrified without using the word terrified.

Atmosphere is important... And I think it can be the difference between having a character seem cartoonish and unrealistic to genuinely creepy.

For inspiration, I'll refer you to @onehitwanda 's recent wonderful essay

P.s. You can try changing the viewpoint but I'd caution against it if your story is already drafted. Speaking from personal experience... It's a REAL pain in the ass trying to change that and inevitably you'll accidentally leave a sentence or a whole paragraph in with the original POV.

 

[jsmiam]

I got confused on what principles she stuck to, but no matter.

the serial killer was a priest (a straight one! Or maybe she looked/dressed like a male because the money is better).

And he had taken her to his rectory, had a cross around his neck, and there was holy water everywhere, so the fight wasn’t a guaranteed victory. And his weapon of choice was the thingie they put under your chin during communion, also holy. And dangerous. Maybe he realizes she’s a vampire too, maybe he’s not exactly a serial killer, but he’s a vampire serial killer. (You can make any baloney up with vampires, it’s almost as bad as bdsm)

Also, get a super soaker involved. I always wanted to make a vampire movie where the protagonist has a super soaker filled with holy water. (There. Somebody run with that, please give me credit. ). Or a priest blesses a water tower, and a massive street battle ends with firemen decimating the army of vampires. (Man, I’m giving away all my ideas, although they’re so good, I bet they’ve been done)

Sorry, got sidetracked. The priest could also be one of those half vampires, didn’t get turned into a full one so he’s part vampire but kills vampires anyway because one cut him off in traffic once.

Good luck! These threads are always interesting but I bet you’ll eventually get fatigued from the quantity of suggestions.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Also, get a super soaker involved. I always wanted to make a vampire movie where the protagonist has a super soaker filled with holy water. (There. Somebody run with that, please give me credit.

Lost Boys did squirt guns full of Holy Water before I was born.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Don't do tense.

Do 'Dead, and Loving it!', with a mix of the first season of 'Buffy' before it got stupid.

 

[MrPixel]

Every time I see the phrase "serial killer", the wordsmith in me goes into homophone overdrive. Since I write group stories, I'm envisioning a breakfast scene, "Who ate the last of the Cheerios and left an empty box in the cabinet, dammit?"

 

[NuclearFairy]

Every time I see the phrase "serial killer", the wordsmith in me goes into homophone overdrive. Since I write group stories, I'm envisioning a breakfast scene, "Who ate the last of the Cheerios and left an empty box in the cabinet, dammit?"

Ya know what's even worse than that, when every box of cereal in the cabinet is almost but not quite empty. So you gotta decide, which cereals do you wanna mix together today, cause there's not enough of any of them for a bowl.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Every time I see the phrase "serial killer", the wordsmith in me goes into homophone overdrive. Since I write group stories, I'm envisioning a breakfast scene, "Who ate the last of the Cheerios and left an empty box in the cabinet, dammit?"

It was the work of a cereal killer!

How can you tell?

We found her face down in a bathtub full of milk with a banana shoved in her pussy!

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

We found her face down in a bathtub covered in chocolate sauce with a banana shoved in her split!

 

[Voboy]

Smells.

Use smells. Don't ever forget sensory details in general, but for something like this? Smells.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Would it smell like a banana split?

 

[MrPixel]

Would it smell like a banana split?

A fishy banana split.

 

[ThatNewGuy]

Okay, so here's the problem: I cannot for the life of me write the one scene with the serial killer.

I tried to make it scary but there's no tension there. She knows she can take him.

I tried to make it sexy but it's kind of hard to pull off the transition from "I'm desperately hungry" to "never mind, horny now!"

Circling back to this, I have a couple thoughts. The first is a question: when you say you can't write the scene with the serial killer, you're talking about the scene before the serial killer dies, right? Not the scene after his corpse sits up?

If so, then what if you played it for laughs? I'm thinking of Hong's interaction with the customer in the opening scene of Vampire's Don't Wait Tables. The one where she picks up on the guy's racism and leans hard into that stereotype. The reader (and Jemmy, who is watching) know that Hong isn't at all like the woman she's portraying, and it's funny watching her ham it up for the oblivious customer.

What if you did something similar here? As a reader, we know the power dynamic is completely the opposite of what the serial killer believes it to be. So maybe play up the serial killer's desire to appear menacing and terrifying in his victim's eyes and then have some fun with Hong's reaction to that. Maybe she enjoys playing along and pretending to be scared right up until the end when he's about to "kill" her and she flips the script. Or maybe she reacts with boredom after each thing he says or does that's meant to terrify her and he can't figure out what's going on.

A completely different option would be to introduce a third character to create some tension. What if the serial killer already has another woman confined in his upstate cabin? Hong's life is not in danger, but this other woman's life certainly is. Hong has to dispatch the guy in a way that doesn't endanger her life, and maybe also in a way that doesn't reveal she's a vampire. Her life spared, the woman flees the cabin, and right afterward the corpse sits up and speaks to Hong.

Just a few off-the-cuff thoughts. Good luck!

 

[TarnishedPenny]

OK, could the serial killer also be a vampire, with the MFC realizing it (almost) too late? She sudden realizes that she's not up against a normal person, but somebody at least her equal.