maybe a fanfic, maybe not preptober 2026

Week 1

I've had an idea for a while that's kinda a Twilight AU fanfiction but could also be its own thing. (Everyone and their mother are publishing fanfiction these days!) For the first draft, I'd stick with the og character names, but if it turned into something I liked, then I would plan to change the names, canon elements, etc., so it could be fully my own story.

Elevator Pitch: What if Bella Swan was destined to be a vampire hunter? This version of events veers heavily from the source material on page one. Bella is in charge of her own destiny, and she wants to bridge the gap between the hunters and the hunted.

Three Things I Know:

1. Some humans have mutated enough to be better at dealing with vampires. These humans are not vulnerable prey. Their powers appear toward the end of puberty. Bella Swan is one of these humans—she doesn't know what to do with her powers because she doesn't even know vampires exist yet. That changes when she moves in with her father to start college; she falls head over heels for a vampire named Edward, and she also joins a secret society of vampire hunters run by a local hunk, Jacob. (I'm deleting the werewolves.)
2. Vampire culture is rich with different levels of depravity and sanctity. Vampires can control themselves, and they don't have to fully kill humans, but some relish it. There's a spectrum. Others, like the Cullens, try to live a "vegetarian" lifestyle subsisting mainly off animals. Vampire hunters don't see the nuance; all vampires are targets.
3. Vampires are well-integrated into human society: some are politicians, most are part of the wealthy elite, some are part of royals, some have unique hobbies where they collect important things through the ages, etc. They do well to hide their age and their thirst for human blood. Vampire hunters usually have scant resources, and they are labeled as conspiracy theorists by their human counterparts.

Three Things I Don't Know

1. I want the power system to be logical. I liked that vampires have an extra power that grew out of something they were innately talented at as humans. I think the vampire hunter power system can be similar. I'm just fuzzy on what it would be like. I wonder if I can do some logical pseudoscience to explain the evolution of vampires and vampire hunters, so it feels grounded in reality. The characters can still believe myths and hold their own prejudices and ideas about vampires drawn from religion or folklore, but it would be cool to have an undercurrent of "oh this is believable with the rules of modern biology." I haven't seen that before with vampires.
2. I think I can do the same villain-type guy from the first book, but I would like an over-arching villain like the Volturi, but this group or person would have a more vested interested in human politics and power and pulling those strings. It would be cool to have this be a mystery element as well. There needs to be something to rally both of Bella's new friend groups together.
3. The vampires need to have weaknesses. They were too OP in the original series. It needs to be possible but extremely difficult for a human to kill a vampire. It needs to be only moderately difficult for a vampire hunter to kill a vampire. There can also be weaker vampires and more cunning ones. I'm just not sure how to make it logical and exciting yet. How much do I pull from existing lore, and what can I throw in to make it feel fresh?

The Promise: I want to make the reader feel excited and entralled. This should be a fun, romantic, fantasy story. I want some of the vampires to do the classical "oh woe is me, mortality sucks" and others to do "I love being bad" and yet even others to say "wow immortality is a gift and I can share some of my joy with all creatures." So I want it to be a fresh vampire story, but not totally lose the darkness and danger that comes with the territory.

Steal This Prompt: It's already a given to have a secret and a monster in this story, so I'll pick something less obvious—A story within a story. It might be interesting to have a unique way for the reader to uncover the previous lives of the vampires Bella meets. Like a series of emails between Jasper and an old acquaintance between chapters, or reading Edward's diaries, or even reading Carlisle's medical reports through the ages, etc.