NaNoWrimo Prep

WC: 1110/1000

WHO
Our story covers a formative moment in this man's life, how one night in the desert can change everything, and the harrowing ordeals a man must take to survive--how he must shed his skin and become something new and sharp-toothed.

Born and bred in the coastal city of Portsmouth during the late 1800s, Ebenezer Charles Savil proclaims to be ex-British Army Officer that went West. The romance of his childhood portrays a lad born to a sailor's family; a boy that liked to kick about a football in the streets; whose blood ran blue and yellow as the stars and moon on Portsmouth's flag; now, a man who bristles at the mention of it.

Now, one hundred years later, that man's books are laid bare.

To most, whether this man is a drunk; a madman; an alchemist transcending the truth into something abstract and palatable is much up for debate--Shirley behind the bar says it's most likely a water infection, that Ben should see a doctor (but she'll not foot the bill or burden for that).

((The truth in this is left largely up to interpretation: there's a bisect in theory about whether Ebenezer truly is a British Officer or a stowaway on a ship that sailed West to Queensport. Readers will meet a host of side-characters that perhaps exhibit the traits, quirks and even adages the grizzled man totes wryly over his glass.))

There's no mud, no sand he hasn't crawled to be here today--to dispense the bitter glug of his story into the glass of a quaint young soul: he'll teach them about investing in the insurance of tomorrow, rolling the dice on the time you think you're owed, how quickly it melts into red, desert sand and slips through your hands. Moments lost like tears in the rain.

He's familiar with the loaded roulette revolver that is love: very familiar, though whether this is a story we encounter in this particular tome is yet to be discerned. (I'd rather see the chemistry develop organically as a writer than pre-conceived a relationship; I worry if it feels too forced the readers may baulk from the notion and look elsewhere). His first love is the West, as a Pirate's is the sea--that never-ending horizon plays on his heartstrings.


Physically, Ebenezer has the carriage of a veteran; his arms are swarthy, varicose and hairy; his most notable feature is his moustache--it's a sly smile within itself, dark, groomed and curling at the edges... When he laughs or baulks, there's the glint of gold eye-teeth beneath his lip. Conniving, sharp and as dripping with wit as poison to an asp's.

Initially, his outfits are meticulously smart: pressed, clean, there are no stray threads at the hems (he burns stragglers with his lighter). In this much, he is well-oiled: over time, his collars and clothing tend to wilt as he drinks the night away. He lets his sleeves scrunch and become awry.

Out of place and out of time, he's an out-dated man and confesses this fondly, 'I was intended for another time.' But this era's love-affair with peaky blinders and dark academia suits him and his story well. As a vampire, he is a living, breathing antique of his time, of his exploits-- or at least, the parts he still remembers.

WHY
His predominant theme throughout the story can be muddled--he peddles his tale with frothing hypermania. Pushes it. Drives it. His points are nails and he intends for them to hit home with his audience (both the person talking to him and by, proxy, the reader). He has suffered great losses; gained great fortunes. He has made choices and lived long enough to see the consequence, the aftermath and fall out.

Ben's life has been a long and arduous thing--in his old age and his thirst for redemption--he seeks now to plant the seeds of trees that he may not live long enough to see the fruit bear or to ponder in the shade.

WHAT
Ebenezer is a vampire: he contracted the condition when he went West on his journey to Queensport.
His first week and transition were particularly rough; in the desert with no shade, no cover, there were times he had to bury himself in the baking sand and pray the sun wouldn't reach him. Cattle have been gutted and used for shelter before-- a tip he gladly dispenses upon the audience; though his word of caution is that they must not underestimate the smell.

WHEN/WHERE
Present-day Havant. Our story takes place in a particularly creative bar--the sort that is erratic, trendy, quaint with strange, steampunk oddities bursting from every seam. All this branding to mark up the price of the cocktail you're drinking by 40%. Ben's usual haunt is more morose, more old-blooded and unpleasant to visit: but this particular venue caught his eye for the interior: there are ships, steering wheels, naval pieces that are fond memories for him. Our audience, a university student, is desperately adding spaces after their 'periods' on a literature thesis to up the word-count.

Some cross-over with the location post here: but it's worth a mention for character development that Ebenezer owns an old-school barber, the sort with hot towels; some land; about six horses that he'll gladly introduce you to. He has condensed the grandiosity of his life to a humble snow-globe existence: to a terrarium of routine and colour that suits him just fine in his ennui. It's a fine cage, to be sure.

Setting

SETTING

WC: 1081/1000

(I'd like to thank Kalen and Oliver for helping me concept Queensport and all its subsidiary places and creating the map. This wouldn't have been at all possible without them.)

After the initial wick of humanity, we have two-hundred years worth of timeline to play with here: our modern-day timeline takes place back in the UK, in one of the many liberal cities with their noveau hipster flair and charming small businesses. Ben may be keen on Sheffield due to there also being a town called Sheffield near Queensport-just a notion for me to think about. Whether that confuses the readers or mirrors nicely by tying the past and present, I've yet to determine.

Back in the 1900s, we now Ebenezer gets passage to the West: for the purposes of this story the West is a continent not unlike the US, there are derivatives of certain states in the places Ben visits. It mirrors facets of American history in some ways but should be considered separate from real-world history. Reminiscent of Tombstone and old frontiers, Queensport adds texture to the novel by taking us from modern-day times to the Old West--or, at least, the Spaghetti Western dream of it in Ben's head. It's key to remember that the narrator may not always be accurate in what he says; that he may fantasize a great deal or romanticize certain aspects of the past. This may be coping to him. He may also forget the details. He's old.

Queensport

During the 1900s
They named Queensport after the Queen. Used to be something, our Queen; back in the day. This town sprung up like an oil-well and all the beggars, thieves and conglomerates came-a-runnin' to pick the gold out of the teeth of this town. Drained it to the bone.

Mining folk bought out the mines, brought work and wealth into this little settlement of ours, made it prosper. Wealth coursed through this town like blood through a body, but you stick a knife in that body and keep fleecing it, it dies. Runs dry. And cousin, it's a desert out here.

I don't have to tell you what you know. You've seen what happens when a thing dies. It bleeds and rots from the inside out; the only thing that's left is there to pick the and sinew marrow out. There's not much to it, save for bullies and gangs and misery.

These days, the first man you'll meet in Queensport is Chewie -- a low-brow with a penchant for hawking chewed 'bacca spittoons in a bucket, no one understands a word he says. These days, this is a lone-digger's town, a one-horse place that bloomed when the deputy turned a blind eye to the Smith Gang.

East of Queensport there's a deserted settlement; they say when the moon covered the sun, people disappeared from that there settlement. Only thing remains of that place is the Smith Gang that haunt the nearest boom-town and settlements like scorned ghosts.

In the story: Queensport was Ben's initial destination before the incident--he was bitten out near Lowpoint on his way here. It's also where he spends a great deal of time as a fledgeling; it's one of the few places nobody notices when a person goes missing.

Lowpoint

Desert land. Godless lands--the faithful don't journey there; it's hotter than hell out here, and the sky's an axe-wound--angry, wounded and red and bleeding under a sun that punishes men and hangovers alike. There are marshalls that are kinder.

Word is that when people journey to Lowpoint, they come back different. Miles of nothing but sand there: a small town with less than thirty people, all a little too friendly.

This is where Ebenezer was made into a creature of the night: a terrible fate, considering the sun, the sand and the lack of shelter during high-noon. It's by the skin of his teeth that he manages to survive his fate out in the wastelands.

Other plot points here orbit around the too small, too friendly town where Ben ends up. There are some issues in the town that he fixes while he's healing from nearly burning up in the desert. It's a harrowing thing for a young man to endure--even one hardened by war. People have a tendency to go missing.

Lowpoint is also where Ebenezer encounters one of our side-characters: the very same one he saves from an early grave. Given that particular character's knowledge of the area, they continue to serve as a waypoint for Ebenezer as they travel further into the West and make their merry way to Queensport.

The Emporium

Tavern | Botanical Garden

Dimly lit and thronging with bodies, this is the place where Ebenezer meets the University student. It's different from his usual haunts, it's small, mirrored--a menagerie of decor, somewhere between naval and steampunk the outright kooky. This is the sort of bar a whiskey and coke will run you into debt. Nevermind the fancy cocktails named after storms and imaginary Earls. It's brimming with the hip and young, those that work in the City and enjoy something a little out of the usual.

It seems funny to Ebenezer that in the middle of it all, a literature student is fretting over their thesis and spending the last of their student loan on upmarket drinks.

On the night our first chapter transpires--there's a woman crooning on the microphone, a little 'say a little prayer for you' soul for the evening. There's a little Aretha in her voice; but none of the same passion or chipper circadian warmth when Mrs Franklin would sway.

Those working the bar are working their way down a debt, that's the price you pay for inner-city learning, for university courses and long-hours spent dreaming about making it big one day. Some are artists: different boats, same storm. Most are like our secondary character.



This place is a stark contrast to Ebenezer's usual haunt: a place where men often support Portsmouth FC and rant and rave and drink bitter; those places he understands. Interestingly, the emporium, however, mirrors the main character--being a place of an opulent old-world extravagance. Over the course of the night, the people there filter out as the story starts to turn bizarre. The exterior may very well blend with Ben's aesthetic--but his soul and heart are more likely to be as barren and antiquated as the place he normally drinks.

Side-characters:

302/300 words

Potential names:
Frances Rowley
Maya Lamb

The Student.

Reducio

Beyond the MacBook air, our university literature major is a layered, complicated soul: not much is currently known about them, except they're millennial, depressed and drinking down the bottle trying to hash out their thesis by reading Reddit tips and #LifeHacks. Between the cocktails, beers, and pumpkin spiced lattes, they've drunk their student loan away in syrups and caffeine and regret.

Physically, they resemble your average Joe/Jane university student with a major in literature: they tweet, curate their dnd characters and aesthetics on a Pinterest board, the whole nine yards. They fancy themselves a realist, the quintessentially pragmatic person. Despite their love for social media, they loathe that it reduced journalism to smiley faces, hearts, quick reads, soundbites and clickbait--they still dare to dream that dream where they write a great novel; where their name lives in small-town libraries on paperbacks.

That they meet Ebenezer is a pure coincidence: but one has to wonder if there is a larger fated red thread life has played cat's cradle with to snare them both here at the same time, in the same place. This character may physically resemble another character from Ben's past--another way of tying things together, which may also make sense as to why a chary vampire would feel the need to open up to them.

Because of their nature, they ask questions: they doubt: but they listen, because what else is there to do? If we are to peer beyond this interaction with Ebenezer, the student may bleed into a sub-plot: they've been looking for a muse, perhaps Ebenezer fulfils that--should their work be a success, then what? Should their work fail, then what? How does this formative interaction with Ebenezer change them for the better? For the worst? Will they seek out their muse again?

311/300 words

Potential Names
Billy Wyatt
Billy Christie
Ryan Kidd



The Antagonist

Reducio

There's one in every story--in this one, two or three.

Ebenezer's sire is the preliminary antagonist for the first leg of the journey: this is the shadow he chases madly across the West, through brimstone and desert, on knees ground to the bone.

I'm contemplating at the moment if the antagonist should be a lone-wolf or the head of a small colony ripe with vampirism, disease and decay. Given that they live in the desert: there's a chance they waste nothing when it comes to meals, though this should be more implied or inferred for the benefit of the audience rather than outright declared.

This character's primary motives are that of any creature: it adheres to Maslow's hierarchy, prioritising food in a desert wasteland; stragglers and lost souls like Ben are fair game to them. They're remiss if they've created vampires incidentally rather than intentionally. That they left him bleeding in the desert sort of indicates that perhaps the feeding was interrupted--and if so, by what? Or who? Did they have a sudden crisis of conscience?

Moreover that this character is negligent may imply that the nearby town afflicted with vampirism could actually be due to a straggler getting away from the vampire, rather than the explicit intention of creating a coven.

Physically, the character possesses machete cheekbones--a very concave and fine-featured face, craggy, mournful mouth. Grizzly and macabre. Cathedral grotesque. Though there's a melancholic, alien beauty to them; there's also the unforgiving bite of hunger; scavenger living at it's finest; you can't lick the marrow from bones and expect to be human. Cthonic eyes. This isn't a vampire of poise or grace, this a vampire that relies on the killing blow to feed because it doesn't blend into society particularly well, and given it's hunting grounds, it isn't necessary for it to do so.

303/300 words

Potential Names
Cade
Wyatt

The Student's doppelganger

Reducio

Renown for rustling cattle, causing chaos and living on the raggedy tattered edges of Queenport's map. This person was in the middle of being buried alive when Ebenezer found them by, who they proclaim to be, 'a hell of hound itself'.

They say they've been hung once before: didn't die. Death keeps passing over them-- why? they're not entirely sure, it's one of those bigger-picture questions they're too afraid to ask. Ignorance is bliss and they relish in it. Whether it's true or not that this companion is chased by the hounds of Hell, the vampire couldn't say, but the person acts as though there's always a beast with its tail low in the grass, watching, waiting. Patiently ambling after them as the plot moves on. No need for hounds to hurry they reckon, they know they'll catch you up, sooner or later. On some moonless, godless night.

They look and act like a coyote--or some sort of starved jackal, this would-be doppelganger. This person is Ben's first Childe: his first fledgeling, a complainer, head-ache and overall pain in the ass--the kid's always hungry, always asking for more. As much as that is a grating nuisance to Ebenezer--buckshot to the current state of mind--he admires them for it. Hunger is what got them both here. It's a fair statement to say that he's terribly fond of them, but the feeling is not mutual. Frankly, if it wasn't for Ben's purported use as a provider: our resident scavenger probably would have moved on by now.

What happens to this person is also a subplot: they're not alive in modern society, or they're absent, but their fate must've impacted Ben deeply. We'll find out what happens to them. Whether those rumours and beliefs are true.

Sub-Plots:

548/500 words

Reducio

O little town of Lowpoint with your burning sea of sand and fire. It's here that Ebenezer first encounters his initial purpose in the novel: but there's also a side-plot here in that he must free the town from the clutches of what possesses it. What he is not expecting, is the twisted plot-within-a-plot that lays as low and ruinous as a massasauga in the dead, dry grass.

The people in this small settlement are vampires just like him, but whether their morals lie on the same compass is a thing to be determined (spoiler: their morals definitely do not).

But in the crux of all this, there is a small human child that needs to be freed from the town's clutches--they are not infected, no, they are likely not even related to the person that keeps them. Ben would very much like to return to sender on this obligation: he is still young himself, he has never had younger siblings or small mouths to feed, so this unexpected development is something of a roller-coaster for him--and there are no brakes or safety belts on this ride.

This situation leaves him at the end of his rope, it seems like the straw that may break the camel's back and it definitely frustrates him no end that he can't just march to Queensport and enact revenge.

It's not an ideal situation. But he does say he'll find a way to reunite the child with their parents. He is not quite sure where that is, and nor are they, the child is very small and weeps quite a bit. It takes him the gentle persuasion of seeing his horse stop the small child crying. It is a challenge to coordinate a movement at night when the little one wants to sleep: much more a challenge when the little one wanders away from their encampment during the day.

Some various ideas for where they end up are:

a) Little One follows a horse, forays too far away from their encampment and ends up near a felled caravan: the proverbial bones and meat of it are being picked clean by scavengers, two lowlives, looking for jewellery or any riches to take back to their nest. They end up taking the child because they are not quite sure what else to do--the would-be brains of their operation suggests they use the child to make money, Oliver Twist style. There is a staged situation: a money-making scheme that goes awry when Ebenezer and company arrive later that night after tracking down the missing child.

It is likely that either the carnival-antics of the two low lives attract the attention: word travels fast in a place where nothing much happens. Or that Ben used some less than friendly means to find out where the child ends up.

This subplot is later resolved as the child appears to come from a small, one-horse Podunk town in Hawking--a small place amidst the pines, winding rivers and lush greenery. It is a far cry from Low Point. Their family is pleased to see their child returned home and in return for Ben's service: bestow him with supplies and an heirloom to sell and buy goods and supplies with. It's also at this ranch that he acquires another horse.

506/500 words

Reducio

If we're all racing towards doomsday, this person is leaning on the gas. Ben's companion [name]: they are an alley cat made human: prone to bouncing on their toes, hissing and shying away when the going gets tough--but aside from Ebenezer, they are also the only consistent character in the book. That is until they disappear without a trace.

Unlike the child that also disappears for a time, this character doesn't show up--but Ben believes the student can help provide clues or some footnotes that may grant him closure: the last thing he remembers they were there, and then they weren't. Like they suddenly blinked out of existence. This character has cheated death on a number of occasions like they're cheating at cards or taking textile scissors to fate's cat cradle: that they become a vampire seems the natural progression for them.

My current thoughts as an author for what happened is:
a) Perhaps their streak of good luck has finally run dry: someone or something finally caught up to them. If their death is the end-game, there is the opportunity for both Ben and the student to pry into it: but that may not be as engaging for the reader as option B.

b) There is the possibility that they could still be alive. There is also a chance yet that they may show up--it could be a resurrection or something that both Ben and the student work towards solving after he concludes his tale. Our student dreams up some ideas, they sift through these together like prospectors after gold dust: initially, it's likely that they suggest that perhaps the sidekick is incarcerated, or perhaps living their best life or maybe even buried alive somewhere. But the good news is that the world is smaller than ever because of social media, all they would need to do is pick up a trace.

If that group from the Netflix documentary could track down a murderer--surely the two of them could find the sidekick. Something tells me as the writer that this particular sidekick is coy and clever enough to have succeeded as a vampire and that maybe they have left traces and other fledgelings along the way, some unintended, but it's a trail that should lead the protagonists to find them.

Between the two of them conjecturing, I think there is very much a chance that they would return to the scene of the crime to find them. That they would revisit Queensport--the last of the frontiers, and find it a changed place in this day and age that is the farthest cry from the corrupt mining town it used to be. Today, Queensport is now a bustling little community, but one that is likely plagued with some form of intrigue: least of all that they've returned there to find [name].

This could be the lead-in to a sequel or the final leg of the book depending on what extent the narrative sticks.

C) Some weird plot where the student is that same character. But how?

Main Plot:

1022/1000 words

Our story starts in the humdrum heartbeat of modern-day society. Behind the wheel, our narrative perspective begins from the student character in the bar where it all transpires. In this moment, they are working on their thesis, feeling particularly uninspired, a little drowned in the ennui of university/college and all the stress and work that it entails--it is fair to say that in this moment the character is a little at the end of their tether. This is where the student meets the vampire, Ebenezer Charles Savil. He sits and spins them a yarn--after all, what else is there for perfect strangers to do in eclectic bars?

His story begins not far from the bar: some miles, South as South goes, on the small Island of Portsmouth-- a Navy port joined by a thin thread to the mainland of Britain, almost like the city was an afterthought, but this place was once the pride of Britain. There's a consonance between the port and Ben in that regard: both were once points of pride for crown and country, this is a realisation the young author is prone to have. Ebenezer talks about his childhood to some extent and likely delves into about something that he sat here, something that changed him: stirred his interest and put a fire in his belly. Then about how that same changed young man decided to venture West.

Coming with the King's men, Ebenezer takes to sea-life and the outbacks like a bird to the sky. He talks extensively about his experiences here: the friends he made, the sparks of new life in a place they'd only wondered about. There were no photographs then, no Google or references--to see something no one else had captured with the details or hunger of your eyes is an experience unlike any other, and one Ebenezer relishes in relaying. The world looked like a series of Dreamscapes back then.

There's an established base where Ebenezer and some men are tasked with reaching Sheffield to make a delivery: the railway has been compromised and was being fixed, so this is a journey they undertake the old Fashioned way: horseback. He talks about the corral, about how the horses are caught wild and broken in fresh there--how he met his first horse. Following ranchers with their cattle, the team set out across the vast, barren lands of Lowpoint. They're only partway into the journey when they're ambushed and attacked by the story's antagonist--a very starved vampire, an abhorrent creature that hasn't been feeding too well since the footfall declined in the area. Given the state of the antagonist, not many survive the attack, least of all Ebenezer, who was pulled from his horse and left to die.

Left for dead, but not dying, the protagonist manages to crawl back to the road--where some cattle still linger; the horses have mostly scattered; his travel companions missing or dead. Ben is only just starting to realise that his heart isn't beating; that things are strange; his vision is blurred and his judgement woefully Maslow. Worse yet, the sky is starting to lighten. It takes him some time but he manages to belly crawl alongside the tarantulas, snakes and scorpions toward some of the remaining cattle. This juncture is where one is famously killed and he takes shelter from the daytime.

Between these fixtures is likely when he discovers his new friend--the person that will become his fledgeling and part of the secondary subplot. They will journey together and provide more narrative texture. There appears to be some sort of human burying this person--it's liable that Ebenezer might drain this person and resent himself in the aftermath. He's not certain why much less how or when this started happening. His proclivity and new survival instincts are strange to him. His new friend definitely seems to think so.

There is not much time to cover ground during the night after: Ben and his acquaintance wander for what feels like forever before stumbling upon a settlement. It does not feel quite right, but a man that needs shelter does not have many options--he explains that he has been attacked, but the chary, distrustful person that greets him creates a reason to doubt when they can't find any. His friend manages to convince them otherwise--proffering that they just stay for a little while, not too long, there's not much they can do in their condition. This apex moment is when another subplot is introduced during their stay here: it's here that they will later encounter the Child. It's also at this juncture that the plot starts to build surrounding the antagonist: they both become aware that the townsfolk are not so different from Ben, that they're nocturnal, have no livestock and do not seem to actively trade spices or foodstuff.

This grand algorithm points them to a fundamental truth: that whatever Ben is, these townspeople are too. Ebenezer starts to realise how far gone they are in their rituals and strange ways; he also comes to realise this is where they diverge, his opinions and morals segregate him. Ben seeks out their sire--the monster that attacked them on the road and believes the people here may be able to identify or localise where the beast has gone. This is the culmination of the first quarter of the story: and it ends in blood. Both the townspeople and the monster meet an unfortunate fate--whilst Ben and his friend find and adopt a human child that has been living with the townspeople for just a few days. They make the unanimous decision that the child should be taken home--they're not quite sure how to care for them but figure this out in a lighthearted way.

One night the child goes missing, which diversifies the novel and adds another layer of narrative: told from the perspective of the child and ne'er do wells that come across them. Whether this is entirely true is up to the reader as it could just as easily be falseified or fantasized by the student that has read too many books and watched too many Netflix shows.