Legends of Windemere

Yahoo Image Search. I think they’re from Monster Hunter Video Games.

I did a lot of thinking while stuck in bed.  Eventually, my thoughts went to my books and I started pondering Clyde again.  For those new to here, Clyde is a powerful vampire and will be the main ‘hero’ of my second series.  He’s vicious, violent, and a pure monster, but he gets the ‘hero’ role because of the plot.  Basically, he is a new type of vampire who can retain his abilities in the sunlight while the old vampires lose their abilities (unless they know some spells) in sunlight.  So, he leads the rebels and it shows how the dawnfangs came to exist and integrate with the rest of the world.  Here’s a post on them.

One of the problems that I’ve always had with Clyde is that he’s so powerful, it’s hard to write him losing.  This is in terms of physicality and violence.  I’ve tried to temper him with a sense of boredom if the fight isn’t a challenge.  That’s why so many of his enemies live being one encounter.  He is a monster who will only kill to eat or if someone has earned to be killed by him.  Yet, I need to find a way to give readers a sense that he could be killed.  Truthfully, all dawnfangs are really hard to kill because you need to impale the heart and remove the head.  Doing only one allows them to be resurrected.  Again, this poses a problem.

Another method I used to counter this was to make most of Clyde’s enemies superior in terms of cunning and magic.  His main nemesis is a vampiric sorcerer and noble with an army behind him.  There is a vampire queen who makes an appearance and is able to manipulate Clyde and a threat of Clyde being depowered.  The vampirized demon comes close.  In the end, I had to make the greatest threat to Clyde his own bloodlust and temper.  A lingering risk that he could reach a point of rage where he decides to destroying everything in his path.

Still, how does one utilize a powerful monster as a main character?  We live in a time where people don’t like the unstoppable force even if they have major character flaws.  I can’t see doing this character any other way.  An alteration losing something that has made him a favorite of mine since 1999.  I love his power and his violence and his rage.  Maybe because it’s so different from Luke and the heroes of Legends of Windemere.  So, the question keeps coming up about what to do about him unless I’m worried over nothing.  I did a test scene with Clyde once and people seemed to like it.  Well, 4 people commented that they liked it, which was big back then.

This is a lot of me hashing out my own thoughts and wondering about an idea I had while I was exhausted.  How do I make a monster for my monster?  Do I go through with an idea of a villain that is created solely to destroy Clyde?  If I do, should I kill off other main characters to prove this guy’s lethality?  I already do that when a fake Clyde shows up in the finale, but that character still doesn’t have the same impact that I want.  I guess I want a true Monster Vs Monster book.