Invite the Vampires Inside (and Other Rules for Genre Writing)

In defining your monster, you’re also building your world. By saying what the big, spooky creature can and can’t do, you’re eliminating convenient and easy plot mechanics your protagonist will inevitably exploit.

Really quick: What are the rules of a vampire? What about a werewolf? Could you tell me about the curse from The Ring?

It’s no secret that restrictions are good for creativity. Making rules for your monsters is the same as making rules for your protagonists, which is the same as making rules for yourself. Moreover, certain genres rely on it. While they’re not the same as tropes or clichés, they’re expected by the reader on a subconscious level.

This morning, with my cup of coffee and yogurt, I dove into The Gossamer Project and read an X-Files / Hellraiser crossover from, like, 1995. I was blown away by the plotting of it. The rules of the box and the Cenobites. Sure, it’s easy to write in an established universe, but that’s why people do it. It’s because, whether it’s vampires that need to be let in the house, werewolves that fear the moon, or a curse that needs to be spread, these rules function as concrete pillars against which the author can fasten their story.

In defining your monster, you’re also building your world. In saying what the big, spooky creature can and can’t do, you’re eliminating convenient and easy plot mechanics your protagonist will inevitably exploit. For example, a few years ago I was working on a story about a coven of witches seeking a grimoire. The spellbook was in the hands of my plucky, naive heroine and she wouldn’t give it up. My friend asked me simply, “Why don’t they just kill her?”

“Well, because the book has to be placed in their hands.”

“Then why don’t they possess her? They possessed that other character.”

“Oh. Um. Because, well—”

“And why would they need the book if they can already do XYZ?”

And just like that, all of my nifty little monologues and spooky, thrilling scenes disintegrated. The conflict was artificial, the plot tiptoeing on eggshells and hoping nobody would call it out. I’m glad it was ripped apart because, as a horror writer, it gave me the opportunity to hit the drawing board and devise something worse, meaner, hermetic in its cruelty.

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Two years ago, R. L. Stine read my debut novel and said it was boring as shit. Okay, he wasn’t that harsh, but, for context, earlier, he had read my short story “Make It Scarier” and loved it. In that story, I knew the twist I wanted, I knew the game I was playing, and I stuck to my guns. The characters never left a room (geographic restrictions work well), the stakes kept getting heightened (repetition has its own inherent structure), and the twist was earned because I had justified it through blood, sweat, and tears (if you waggle your left hand enough you can hit ’em with your right). By contrast, my novel was a lot of navel-gazing and swapped perspectives, and, if “Make It Scarier” functioned like a drill to the femur, my novel moved more like a spooky terry cloth. Ol’ Bobby Stine didn’t mince words. He said the story was good, the writing was fine, but it just wasn’t horror.

Thinking I knew everything, I carried on with a new project. That next novel went out on submission the following year. The big publishers all gushed over my premise but said the same thing: The plot wasn’t propulsive. It didn’t move at the clip you’d expect from such a high-genre concept.

I finally looked at my story. I mean really looked at what was happening. Why the hell was my character always thinking? Always remembering? How much of my word count was being used for some literary, Proustian memory when, ostensibly, this was a book about a killer website. What O. Henry short story had wormed into my brain that I was trying to ape?

In the same way I made a series of rules for my witches, I made some for my novel’s protagonist:

1. He’ll never look at a photo. You laugh now, but how many times has a character looked at a photo of their parents, their ex, their old home, their anything. How often does it push the plot forward versus, say, inflate the word count for some maudlin, literary waxing?

2. If there is a flashback, it’s a few lines maximum, and you have to name the specific information that is gleaned and how it is actionable for the protagonist now. The protagonist remembering a moment from their childhood could be illuminating, sure, but does it have to happen now? In the middle of this chapter? And is it really going to help them get out of the serial killer’s trunk? I’m dubious.

3. Action leads to information, while reactions obscure it. The best bad guys are driven by bold choices: Take over the world, kidnap the child, poison the water supply. Average good guys react to it. Maintaining the status quo is noble, sure, but it’s hardly compelling. If your protagonist is just playing defense while your bad guy beams shots at them, the reader will get a little antsy. Ask yourself, “What happens if the bad guy just stops?” Does the protagonist learn anything? Does their arc just stop in its tracks? If so, then you have a reactive character. Look at the ending of Se7en. The killer is caught, Morgan Freeman did his job, maintained the status quo, and can rest easy. Then look at Brad Pitt, fuming, terrified of the contents of the box, waving a gun around, and about to make the boldest choice of his life.

While you’re here, these are some rules for villains I stick by:

1. Put your bad guy on a tight schedule. Little deadlines are a great way to close in some walls and put the pressure on. The next full moon, seven days from the phone call, one more sex worker to make the perfume—hell, even Pennywise had to pound some pavement before he went to bed again.

2. The bad guy has been the bad guy longer than your protagonist has known him. This is to say, until the very end, your bad guy is smarter than anything your hero throws at him. In Joe Hill’s NOS4A2, Charlie Manx III has been taking children to Christmasland for nearly a century before Vic shows up on her motorcycle. So what does that give us in terms of tools and techniques? For starters, dramatically, Manx has the upper hand. He knows how to kill, knows how to travel like her, and because he’s the one with the winter wonderland of tortured children, he has home-field advantage. So what does that give Vic? Well, Vic is the conduit for the reader, so we get to microdose world building, we get to ask questions and get answers in real time, and we get to ride her arc with her. And while one could argue that she’s reactive because her son gets snatched by Manx, that’s only after years of her boldly pricking him in the side and traveling to him.

3. If the bad guy has the chance to kill, he needs to take it. Now this one may be a bit contentious, but I stand by it. Horror is a genre of brevity. Tension can only be maintained for so long before the reader loses interest. And, yes, I know Stephen King has sprawling tomes of townsfolk, and Dan Simmons and Robert R. McCammon have globe-trotting epics, but the fact is you’re not them. Moreover, I’d say that even among those books the tension rises and falls. Regardless, this rule works in both directions. How often have we seen a movie where the hero gets a chance to kill the bad guy only to turn their back and the bad guy is gone, escaping through the garret window, the curtains shuddering in the wind? Congrats, you’ve let down your readers just to buy yourself some word count and runtime. You’re not fooling anyone.

So what the hell am I talking about? I’m saying that rules for monsters are more than that. They’re limitations for your plot, restrictions for your protagonist, and when you sit down as a writer they’re forcing you to focus. What nobody will tell you is that genre writing requires discipline. Whether it’s a pulpy crime thriller, a romance, a clown with a chainsaw, or a swords-and-sorcery epic, there are certain indulgences that a genre writer has to deny themselves in order to follow the rules. This isn’t a pro or con; it’s just the nature of the game. Vampires have to get invited in. Now it’s your job to build the house.