Writing The Vampire’s Skull – Part 2
In the first part of this article, I wrote about how I came up with the idea for the story and the characters. Here I’m going to show how I used the eight-sequence framework for an urban fantasy novel that I talked about in Urban Fantasy: How to Write Paranormal and Supernatural Thrillers (2023).
My novel The Vampire’s Skull uses the monster-of-the-week plot, which is a variation on the hardboiled private detective story I wrote about in Crime Thriller (2019) with some elements of the professional secret agent (or James Bond) thriller I talked about in Suspense Thriller (2018). I also used some of the enemies-to-lovers plot from Romance (2022) and the ‘buddy movie’ from Crime Thriller. The buddy movie plot is very similar to the enemies-to-lovers plot in that it pairs a couple of people with different personalities, locking them together in some sort of situation, and exploring how their relationship develops. I put a variation of this, fear-to-friendship, in Urban Fantasy (2023).
The developing relationship between the protagonist, Frankie Rowan, and the vampire Roca is something I planned to be a ‘slow burn’ that occurred over several novels, so I only show the beginning of this subplot in the current story.
Here, then, I’m going to go through the plotting and writing process. In Part 1 I shared with you my original idea for the plot of the novel, and now I’ll show you my first basic outline of plot points. Then I’ll go through the eight sequences of my plot in more detail, showing what decisions I made and why. Think of it like the ‘Director’s Commentary’ on a DVD.
Obviously, this piece is chock-full of spoilers, so I’d advise reading the novel before tackling this. If you buy a copy of my book, it keeps the (were)wolf from my door and I can carry on writing stuff like this. If you have bought any of my books, thank you, you’re helping me live the life I want to live.
Outline
In Part 1, I showed how I brainstormed some key scenes and came up with most of my characters. The next step was to write out a basic plot outline that I would use to guide me through the writing process. Because I already had notes for some of the scenes, my outline was just an annotated list.
Here’s my original 16-point outline for The Vampire’s Skull.
1. Theo asks Frankie to help him.
2. Strabö asks Frankie to recover a stolen object.
3. Frankie talks to a source, Lenny Starrs, about vampires. Lenny is murdered. Matt Holden investigates.
4. Frankie is attacked by Vadim Fredek. Roca saves her. Frankie and Roca buddies/enemies-to-lovers relationship develops. They become reluctant partners.
5. Frankie learns that Theo stole The Vessel from Emil Pendaran. Brings the two investigations together.
6. Frankie learns about the Vessel from Roca. What it contains, its significance, the potential danger it poses. [Midpoint?]
7. Frankie learns from Theo about the other part of the myth – the Corpus. The body of the ancient vampire sorcerer. Whoever wants to resurrect him needs both the Vessel and the Corpus. Theo has the vessel hidden somewhere. And he knows where the Corpus is. He plans to steal it. “Are you up for a little body-snatching?”
8. Indiana Jones tomb robbing. Frankie points out that the body is a fake. At some point in the past, someone pulled a switch.
9. Theo is captured by Pendaran’s men. He will be tortured and then sacrificed. Fredek wants Theo’s blood in revenge for the shooting.
10. Frankie wants to rescue Theo. Roca wants to find the Vessel before Theo reveals its location. Roca argues that if they have the Vessel, they have a bargaining chip. Frankie reluctantly agrees to help him find the vessel.
11. The two vampire gangs converge on the city – ready for war.
12. Frankie and Roca rescue Theo.
13. The plan was to give the Vessel and the Corpus to Strabö, but Roca argues against it. No one should have that power – not even his boss.
14. Vampire gangs meet on a battlefield somewhere outside the city. Frankie managed to persuade Strabö to choose a location where innocent people wouldn’t die.
15. Fighting.
16. Frankie negotiates a truce. Strabö and Pendaran will each get half of the items – one gets the Corpus, one the Vessel. Theo has faked the Corpus to make it look more authentic.
If you’ve read the novel, you’ll see that I made quite a few changes during the writing process. Here I’m still referring to the missing object as ‘the Vessel’ and the Corpus is a dead body, complete with a head. There’s no mention of the Brotherhood of the Immortal One, who want to resurrect the vampire sorcerer. And there’s no mention of the ritual as the climax of the story.
I also haven’t divided these story points into the eight sequences that will make up my story. There isn’t enough detail to know what should go where. At this point, I just wanted to make sure that I had enough story points for a whole novel. A private eye plot, and an urban fantasy novel based on this kind of plot, is basically a string of related events. This happens which then causes this to happen. That’s what the sixteen points above are. Below, I’ll show you how I turned these story points into my eight-part plot structure.
My plan was to write a more detailed outline for each of the eight sequences. I did that for sequences one and two, but after that, I decided to wing it. When I got to the midpoint, I spent some time coming up with a more detailed list of what would happen in the second half of the book.
For me, one of the major advantages of plotting a story beforehand is that I know what I’ve got to write next. The only time I ever come close to writer’s block is when I don’t know what I need to write next. That’s when I start to just put words on a page and end up going off-piste. I always end up having to go back and find where I made the wrong turn. The other thing that gives me writer’s block is being so exhausted and/or ill that I don’t have the energy to write. Thank you Covid-19 for teaching me that one.
Even when I don’t fully plot out the sequence I’m about to write, I still try and make a list of what I need to write over the next couple of days. I think that knowing in advance what scenes and descriptions I need gives my subconscious a chance to work on things before I sit down to write. And I’m usually able to sit at my desk and get into ‘the zone’ and write without any serious problems. Even making a list of things to write at the beginning of a writing session can be helpful. This is one of those things where my process works and I don’t poke at it in case I break it. Your mileage may vary.
The Eight Sequences of The Vampire’s Skull
Sequence 1
In a normal private detective novel, the first sequence typically consists of meeting a new client, taking the case, and (sometimes) beginning the investigation. There may be an element of ‘refusing the challenge’ if the case or the client isn’t something the detective likes the look of, but this is usually overcome pretty quickly. Sometimes a detective will refuse a case and then someone will try and warn them off the case, piquing the detective’s interest and so they take the case because they refuse to be bullied.
If I’m writing any sort of action or adventure story, I like to start things happening in the first few pages and then go back and explain things if necessary. It’s a storytelling technique called in media res, which means starting in the middle of things, without an introduction. I do introduce my protagonist, Frankie Rowan, in her own first-person narration, but then I have her confronted by an escaped prisoner. Theo Pherson is a man she helped convict – she was a witness at his murder trial. This is my ‘narrative hook,’ something to get the reader’s attention and pull them into my story. And as I mentioned in Part 1, I took this opening from a spec screenplay I wrote years ago when I was first learning how to write.
There’s a slight twist to keep things interesting – Theo doesn’t want to harm Frankie, he wants to hire her. He wants to help prove that he didn’t murder the vampire Vadim Fredek. Frankie is sceptical, but Theo insists Fredek got up and walked out of the morgue. She’s still sceptical until she talks to Matt Holden, a homicide detective and possible love interest, who tells her the vampire’s body may have gone missing, though he says it was just an administrative error and the body must have been collected by a relative.
As I said before, I wanted Frankie and the reader to like Theo, so I structured some of the opening chapters like a ‘cute meet’ in a romance. Their banter quickly establishes a relationship that is a little more than detective-client. But at the same time, I make clear the age difference between them and the fact that Theo is into guys as well as girls – I don’t want the reader to think this is a straight romance (so to speak) and then be disappointed when it doesn’t develop that way.
Another common feature of a private eye novel is that the detective, who investigates things as his or her day job, takes on a second case. These two cases seem to be entirely separate – until something, often around the midpoint of the story, shows the detective that the two cases are linked and that both are part of some larger criminal conspiracy. Or, in the case of an urban fantasy, a criminal and/or magical conspiracy.
One problem with my opening scene was that it was too similar to an ordinary detective story. I had the urban but no fantasy. Originally I’d intended to have my protagonist be a ‘kick-ass heroine’ who fought vampires in the opening scene. When I ditched that idea, I had to come up with something that showed my story was set in a world where the paranormal and supernatural beings existed.
You have to establish the genre of your story in the first chapter. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, if you are submitting to a traditional publisher, you’ve got to demonstrate that your novel belongs within their definition of the urban fantasy genre. Before your book is published, you don’t have a cover image to help demonstrate its genre. And second, when your book – traditionally or self-published – is available for sale, a reader who picks it up and looks at the opening pages has got to be able to see that it belongs in the genre they’re looking for. The content and style have to meet their expectations. I talk more about style in Urban Fantasy (2023).
For the opening of The Vampire’s Skull, I tried to set the mood with misty, drizzly weather and an almost Victorian setting, and then I had the barman of the Green Man pub be a big beast-like creature. Then in the second chapter, I have it that Theo was convicted of murdering a vampire. I do manage to establish my genre, but I still feel it’s a little on the weak side. Luckily, urban fantasy readers also expect to find a ‘film noir’ style, and I think I do manage to have that in the first person’s narration and Frankie’s references to hardboiled detective clichés. I also make it clear that I intend that the reader and I have some fun with this story, not taking things entirely seriously.
As I said in Part 1, I also introduce the idea that Frankie has an uncanny knack for finding things. She makes a joke of it and plays it down, but her ‘ability’ – whether psychic or magical – will have more of a role to play later. This is something that I don’t explore in any great detail – I would want to do that in future novels in the series.
By the end of Sequence 1 (Chapter 4), Frankie has begun investigating, talking to a street person called Lenny Starrs to ask if he’s heard anything about Vadim Fredek walking around not-dead.
Sequence 2
This sequence in a private eye novel usually consists of investigation and more specifically interviewing. I have that beginning in the previous sequence and it continues here. This process will carry on through much of the rest of the story, with the same people sometimes being reinterviewed or consulted for a second time. There is typically a series of one interviewee giving the name of the next and so on.
In Urban Fantasy (2023) I wrote, “The detective’s actions here will often have consequences – most dramatically, they could result in someone being killed later in the story.” I have this happen in my story.
At the end of Sequence 1 or the beginning of Sequence 2, I have Frankie meeting her second client, Oskar Strabö, the vampire who owns the Green Man pub. While there can be clear borders between the three acts of a story, often involving a change of location, the lines between the sequences that make up these acts are usually less defined. Your structure shouldn’t be too obvious to your reader.
Frankie also meets Roca, a handsome vampire who is acting as Strabö’s driver and possibly bodyguard. When their fingers touch, Frankie and Roca both feel a strange shock which disturbs them both. What can it mean?
Strabö wants Frankie to locate an ancient artefact – a skull said to have belonged to a vampire sorcerer called Chanoch. It has been stolen. At this point, Frankie believes the skull has been stolen from Strabö, but she later discovers that this isn’t the case.
The skull is basically a MacGuffin. Alfred Hitchcock popularised the use of the term and it refers to an object that characters in a story are desperate to obtain but which has no real significance beyond that. The ‘black bird’ that everyone wants in The Maltese Falcon is a MacGuffin. So are the secret plans (often on microfilm) that everyone wants in spy thrillers. The plans of the Death Star in Star Wars are also a MacGuffin. The quest for the MacGuffin is what holds the action of the story together – it is a tangible object and obtaining it is a visible goal for the protagonist.
Continuing her investigation of Theo’s case, Frankie gets a clue, which may have come from Lenny Starrs or which may have been designed to lure her into a trap. I also include a bit of Frankie’s backstory, including the fact that she briefly dated a vampire in college. If I had been writing a one-off novel, I would have included more about Frankie’s early life, but as this was intended to be the first novel in a series, I wanted to leave myself room to develop Frankie’s background in future stories. If you include too much up front, you may end up painting yourself into a corner. By revealing only a little, I can invent new things that relate to events in later stories. I also give Frankie an ‘ex’ – either boyfriend or husband, I don’t say – and other than giving him a name and saying her went away, I leave him open as a possibility for a future story development.
Over coffee with the detective Matt Holden, who might develop into a ‘love interest’ in a future story, Frankie learns about Lily Lomax, a retired newspaper reporter who may be able to give her more information about vampires.
This is how the investigation in a detective story works – the private eye talks to one source or witness who tells her about another person (or perhaps a place) and the story moves on as they go to investigate this new clue. I have Frankie given a location, a derelict warehouse building, and a name, Lily Lomax. She chooses to check out the location first.
At the end of Sequence 2 and going into Sequence 3 – again I blur the boundary – I have Frankie go to the derelict warehouse, where she hopes Lenny is hiding with information for her. Instead, she is attacked by the vampire Vadim Fredek. The good news is that Theo was right, Fredek is alive. The bad news: he’s trying to kill Frankie.
Sequence 3
The function of Sequence 3 is to continue the investigation, and significant discoveries may be made here. Often a link is discovered between two people who were thought to be unrelated. In Urban Fantasy (2023) I also say that in this sequence “…there is often something planted or set-up that will pay off in Sequence 5. Often it is a piece of information or a clue that the investigator doesn’t understand the significance of until later.” In The Vampire’s Skull, this might be the sweatshirt that I mention below.
Frankie fights Vadim Fredek and manages to escape. Roca steps out of the shadows. He has been watching her and, we later learn, taking photos and a video. Why didn’t he help her? She didn’t need help. I didn’t want Roca to be a guy who assumes women are too weak to protect themselves. The two of them are uncomfortable and don’t want to talk about the weird shock they experienced when they last met.
Roca acts as a source, giving her information about there being two major vampire clans in England, one in the north and one in the south. Frankie guesses that Strabö is the ‘King in the North,’ though Roca doesn’t want to confirm it. But he does tell her that Fredek doesn’t work for Strabö, he works for the southern vampire clan leader.
Roca has also brought her a sweatshirt that belongs to the thief who stole the skull. She may be able to use it to locate the thief – her ‘knack’ for finding things is a sort of psychometry that allows her to draw information from objects she touches. She’s uncomfortable with her ability and reluctant to touch the sweatshirt until she’s prepared herself mentally.
Frankie visits Lily Lomax. Lily is an information source and also a mentor character, similar to the role of Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She tells Frankie something about vampires and their culture. Frankie will return to Lily for more information later in the story. And Lily will probably be a recurring character in the series.
In Sequence 3, Frankie also learns that the derelict warehouse has been set on fire and that a body was discovered there. She will discover the identity of the dead person later in the story.
Frankie also learns that Roca took photos of her fight with Vadim Fredek and even has a video of part of the encounter. These prove that Fredek is still alive. Unfortunately, Frankie can’t take them to the police without Roca’s permission. They also show her at the warehouse before the fire and the discovery of the body. Theo is unhappy that this evidence can’t be used to prove his innocence and goes away for a while.
Frankie decides to use the sweatshirt to locate the person who stole the skull, but it has disappeared. She then receives an invitation to meet Emil Pendaran, the head of the vampire clan from the south. What is he doing in Nottingham? This invitation and her meeting with Pendaran are the fuzzy boundary between Sequence 3 and Sequence 4. Probably.
Sequence 4
In Urban Fantasy (2023) I say that this sequence might include investigating the victim and/or contact with the opposition. This could involve the villain’s people beating up the investigator and telling them to stop ‘nosing around.’ Or a femme fatale (or homme fatale) might try and lure the detective away from the investigation.
In The Vampire’s Skull, I set Emil Pendaran up as a potential villain, and then show him to be almost entirely un-villain-like. He doesn’t have Frankie beaten up, instead he’s quite charming. Is he deceiving her? This is another case of me trying to avoid the cliché, but in doing so I introduce Pendaran as another sort of cliché. I don’t care, he’s a type of character I like.
Frankie meets Pendaran and he tells her the legend that is attached to the skull. He also tells her that Chanoch’s body – referred to as the Corpus – has also survived, in the care of the Brotherhood of the Immortal One. Legend has it that if the skull and the Corpus are reunited, Chanoch can be brought back to life. Frankie also learns that Maxim Jarrett, Theo’s former cellmate, is the current high priest of the Brotherhood.
Roca drives Frankie home and warns her that Pendaran is dangerous. He has brought a small army of his own vampires to the city. Frankie and Roca agree to a temporary partnership, even though they both normally work alone.
When Frankie and Roca get there, Frankie’s apartment has been burgled. The detective Matt Holden is there – unofficially. He knows Roca and warns Frankie that the vampire is dangerous. There may also be some jealousy involved in his dislike for Roca. Roca gives the detective his phone with the photo and videos of Vadim Fredek. Unhappy with the situation – particularly the fact that Frankie has been ‘harbouring’ Theo, an escaped prisoner – Holden wants them to come into the police station and make a formal statement the next day. And he wants them to bring Theo. Frankie says this may not be possible – Theo isn’t around. And she fears he may have been kidnapped by whoever broke into Frankie’s apartment.
But when Holden has gone, Theo reappears. Frankie, Theo, and Roca – now effectively a ‘Scooby Gang’ – discuss the case. They decide that Theo was probably set up to steal the skull and that Vadim Fredek was supposed to take it from him and kill him. Fearing for his safety, Theo runs away. Roca gives chase but loses him. Frankie assumes that Theo has gone to find Maxim Jarrett, the man who protected him in prison.
Frankie gets another clue. In a dream. I know, that sounds like cheating. But we learn later that someone used magic to plant this dream in her mind. That explanation is probably also cheating, but it kind of makes sense within the context of this story world. In the dream, she ‘sees’ that Theo has been captured by the Brotherhood and is being tortured to make him give up the location of the skull. She also recognises the location, Selwick Abbey, which is my alternate reality version of Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire, once home to the poet Lord Byron.
Roca and Frankie visit Lily Lomax to look at old maps and discover a way to sneak into the abbey and rescue Theo. They need to get there before he gives up the location of the skull. Before they can head off to the abbey, Roca has to drive Oskar Strabö to a meeting. Frankie is nearby when their car is blown up by a car bomb.
I had thought that the car bomb would be the midpoint of the story – it affects the story by moving the two vampire clans to the brink of war. Strabö’s clan think Pendaran ordered the car bomb to be planted. But this occurs too soon to be the midpoint of the novel. It occurs about 38,000 words into a 99,000-word story. At this point in the writing of it, I just shrugged and hoped things would work out. Sometimes you just have to trust the process.
Roca survives the car bomb, virtually unscathed, but Strabö is injured. He’s a vampire, he’ll heal, but he’s not a happy bunny.
Sequence 5
Again, the investigation continues. The detective might stake out a building or investigate another person related to the case. Checking into someone’s background might uncover a relationship with another known character or reveal another location to check out. Sometimes a hardboiled detective is kidnapped and drugged, beaten, or tortured by the villain, who wants to know how much the detective knows about his plans.
The investigation might move to a new location. And often we learn something about the villain’s viewpoint – why he’s motivated to do what he’s doing and perhaps some details about his plan. This is what often happens with the villains in one of the older James Bond films.
I use several of these ideas in The Vampire’s Skull, but try to put a bit of a spin on them to give the reader something ‘the same only different.’ I’m being true to genre conventions, but trying to do it in an original way.
Frankie and Roca head to the abbey to rescue Theo. I had them in an old graveyard, which was a cliché I wanted to include. They sneak in through underground tunnels which they discover are booby-trapped. As I said before, this was one of the scenes I envisaged right at the beginning. I referred to it as an Indiana Jones scene, after the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Frankie makes a comment that directly references that film. But I’d also watched The Goonies recently, for only the second time ever. I saw it when it came out and young me hated the shrieking kids, so it was never a favourite, even though it contained lots of elements I liked in stories as a kid. Rewatching it, the only thing that made me uncomfortable was the bullying of the ‘fat kid’ near the beginning. I ended up referring to ‘booty traps’ after watching it, but I deliberately didn’t mention the title of the film. If readers recognise where it comes from, good on them.
I also take a fairly ‘post-modern’ approach to the booby-trapped tunnel idea, having everyone concerned recognise that it is a cliché from the movies. It was still fun to write.
In my story outline, Roca and Frankie were there to rescue Theo, but when I got to that moment, I felt it was too much of a cliché, so I had the two of them trapped by the Brotherhood. Jarratt drugs Roca so he can’t use his vampire strength to escape. Theo has to rescue them. Again, a bit of misdirection sets up something the reader isn’t suspecting. The same only different.
When Maxim Jarrett and the Brotherhood capture our heroes (in Chapter 19), they take away Frankie’s phone. Roca had given his phone to Matt Holden in Chapter 12. In Chapter 22, I have both of them making phone calls, so I realised I had to explain where they got phones from. I wrote a brief piece explaining that they both get new phones and then went back to find somewhere where I could insert this. But I made a mistake. The only place I could find to put it was in Chapter 16. It was only when I was reading through the finished story that I realised Frankie was being given a new phone before her old one had been taken. Oops. You really have to watch for continuity errors like this. By trying to fix one plot issue, I had created another. And I couldn’t fix it easily – there was no other logical point to put the new phones scene I had written, so I had to delete it completely and come up with another explanation at a later point.
In the dungeon under the abbey, I have Maxim Jarrett make his James Bond villain speech, telling Frankie – and the reader – what he’s planning to do and why. This makes the full extent of his criminal/magical conspiracy clear. Technically, I think this should be the midpoint of the story. This or the moment when Frankie revives Roca with a kiss.
The ‘Scooby Gang’ make another discovery here, the Corpus that the Brotherhood are protecting is a fake. This is another direct steal from The Maltese Falcon. It also increases the value of the skull, which is presumably genuine. The gang realise that Jarratt is still looking for Theo and the skull and that his mother – who I ‘planted’ back in Chapter 2 and reminded the reader about in a later chapter – could be in danger. They race off to rescue her.
Again, I recognised that ‘rescuing Theo’s mum,’ although it was in my outline, was another cliché. Why should we assume that women always need rescuing? Something I’d written earlier about Theo’s mum, Felicity Pherson, was a hint that she, too, might be a thief. When the gang get to her house, they discover that Felicity doesn’t need rescuing. Cliché avoided.
Sequence 6
In Urban Fantasy (2023) I suggest that this sequence may contain things like the detective becoming more proactive, taking the fight to the bad guys instead of simply reacting to their moves. Or the detective may set up meetings. And they may formulate a plan that they think will trap the villain. In this stage, the detective may also lay hands on the MacGuffin for the first time (I have this happen in Sequence 7). The bag guys and/or the police may try to prevent the detective from continuing their investigation. Or a femme fatale or homme fatale might try to distract them. And the detective may check documentary evidence (I have Frankie checking looking at a grimoire). Again, the detective could discover a link between two people previously thought to be unrelated. And/or the detective may interview an expert or specialist to obtain specific information relevant to the case or to get a general understanding of some subject associated with it (I have Frankie visit Lily Lomax again).
Frankie phones Pendaran to let him know what the Brotherhood are up to – trying to resurrect the vampire sorcerer. Roca phones Strabö to tell him. This was when I realised neither of them had phones. I have Felicity give them new ‘burner’ phones – she’s the kind of woman who would have these things in the house.
At this point, the gang come up with a new plan. They will arrange peace talks and try to reconcile the two vampire clans. Together, the clans can then help stop the Brotherhood from bringing back the Big Bad, Chanoch the Sorcerer.
Frankie goes to see Lily Lomax to ask about blood magic. She needs to know as much as she can about the ritual to resurrect Chanoch, so she can stop it if she has to. Lily takes her to a secret archive, and they consult a grimoire. Every urban fantasy needs a grimoire.
Roca then takes Frankie to Madam Echidna’s House of Sin. Her place is the neutral ground where the peace talks will be held. Madam Echidna is a sext snake woman – I don’t need to explain the symbolism. In my head, she’s played by a young Eartha Kitt. She will allow her house to be used, but in exchange, Roca will owe her a ‘debt of honour.’ When I wrote that, I had no idea what it meant. But a little while later, an idea popped into my head which could be one of the plot strands of a second novel. Don’t you love it when that happens?
The peace talks between the vampire clans are all set up, but before Strabö and Pendaran even meet, someone launches an attack on the House of Sin with a grenade launcher. More symbolism? The talks are a complete failure, with Strabö thinking this is another attempt to kill him. A war between the vampire clans now seems almost inevitable. This marks the beginning of Frankie and Roca’s darkest hour. The point in a story where the villain seems to be winning and there seems to be no hope for the heroes. It marks the end of Sequence 6 or the beginning of Sequence 7.
Sequence 7
Sequence 6 pretty much ends with the failure of the hero’s plan to end the conspiracy. They may even have made the situation worse. There may be a moment’s pause while the hero takes stock and tries to come up with a new plan. The new plan may include investigation or reinvestigation of the circumstances of the crime and interviewing or re-interviewing witnesses or other sources. Sometimes previously known evidence must be re-examined in a new light or something may be revealed to have been a red herring.
The detective may go and confront someone directly, and be warned that this person has powerful friends. But the person giving the warning may also let slip something significant. An earlier source who was reluctant to talk may finally speak if pressure is applied.
Having failed at the end of the last sequence, the hero may feel they have reached an impasse. The investigation is stalled. They might feel a need to use some kind of catalyst – taking some action that will result in a response from the bad guys, flushing them out into the open. Or the detective might apply some other sort of pressure, making it more difficult for the bad guys to do what they’re planning to do. This catalyst could be a specific action or it may be a bluff that has the desired effect. One way or another, the detective finds some way to get the investigation moving again.
In The Vampire’s Skull, I extend the darkest hour, piling on the pressure and making things worse for the heroes. In part, this is because I want the actual climax of the story to occur as late as possible. After the final battle has been fought, there isn’t much story left and dragging out Sequence 8 after that robs the climax of its impact.
Here I include a brief scene where Frankie and Roca talk about their relationship – or rather, Roca tells her why the two of them can never have a relationship. The ‘relationship scene’ often occurs in Sequence 5 of a story, after the revelations of the midpoint, or in Sequence 6 of a thriller after some other dramatic event. Here I use it as part of a romance/relationship arc that will continue across several novels. In terms of the plot points of a romance plot, Roca’s dialogue is the equivalent of ‘refusing the call’ or denying the opportunity. He and Frankie have met, they like each other, and they’ve kissed, but now he’s denying that a relationship is possible. It adds to the ‘darkest’ hour feel of this part of the story. But I’m not done piling on the woe just yet.
Roca reveals that he is being blamed for the failure of the peace talks and for putting Strabö at risk. He is now an outcast, shunned by both vampire clans.
In a slightly more uplifting moment, Frankie and Theo reaffirm their support for Roca. They will be his ‘clan.’ And Theo reveals to them the location of the skull. He stashed it in Frankie’s apartment when he first visited it. Yes, this is a bit of a cliché and a bit unlikely, but I make a joke of it and quickly move on.
Before they can make any plans, the Brotherhood break down Frankie’s door. Our three heroes escape across the rooftops. Roca is shot and falls, taking the skull with him. The Brotherhood go after him, leaving Frankie and Theo shocked. Losing Roca and the skull is the final part of the ‘darkest hour’ for Frankie.
I’ve said a number of times in various places that when it comes to their characters, an author has got to be a sadist. In real life, we want to protect people we like from bad things. In stories, we have to keep asking ourselves, ‘What’s the worst thing that I could do to them now?’ If you don’t do this, you end up with a dull story where nothing dramatic ever happens. Even in romantic novels, we include a break-up scene. I’ve been practising story sadism for a while now.
I introduce a change of scene here, moving to an abandoned village. This was inspired by some videos about abandoned places I’d seen on YouTube. And maybe by an old episode of The Goodies. It also gave me my location for a Western-style shootout that I wanted to write. This was another of the scenes I’d imagined when I came up with the original story idea. This change could mark the boundary between Sequence 7 and Sequence 8, but I don’t think it does. That occurs later.
The two vampire clans arrive – one by road, including vampires in leather jackets on motorbikes, and the other clan arriving in a hijacked train. I wanted to make these arrivals seem like two gangs coming into town in a Western. One of the first images I had in my head for this scene was men with rifles walking along the train tracks towards the showdown.
In a last-ditch attempt to avert a war between the two clans, Frankie and Theo try to set up peace talks. I imagined this as two generals getting together in a tent on a battlefield. I have my story people do it in front of a derelict pub.
I raise hopes by making it seem that these peace talks could succeed, but then Vadim Fredek, who is one of Pendaran’s men, sabotages the talks and triggers the gunfight. You can’t promise your readers a gunfight and then fail to give it to them.
To make things worse (more story sadism), it becomes obvious that Maxim Jarrett has begun the ritual to resurrect Chanoch the Sorcerer. He draws on the blood and energy of the vampires being killed or hurt in the gunfight. Blood magic with vampire blood. Powerful stuff.
Fredek captures Frankie and Theo and takes them off the to abbey catacombs where the ritual is taking place. It turns out that Fredek is the biggest of the villains and has been manipulating everyone.
Sequence 8
The final sequence of the story consists of the climax and resolution and the denouement. During the climax, the full nature and extent of the criminal/magic conspiracy are revealed, and the hero puts a stop to it. The solution to any mystery element is provided – who killed who and why. And there may be a final twist in the story. The bad guys receive their comeuppance, being killed in some form of poetic justice or arrested. If there is not a formal arrest, justice may be served in another way, consistent with the hero’s moral code.
The denouement sorts any other loose ends, often relating to subplots such as relationships. There may be the equivalent of a ‘happily ever after’ or a ‘happy for now.’ The femme fatale or homme fatale may be killed or arrested, or in a series novel, they may live to fight (and seduce) another day.
In The Vampire’s Skull, we’re in the catacombs. The ritual is underway. Frankie and Theo have to find a way to stop the ritual. During their attempt, Maxim Jarrett turns his ritual magic loose on Roca and it drains the life from him, as it has the other vampires. Jarrett makes the mistake of trying to betray Fredek and the resulting chaos puts an end to the ritual.
Frankie tries to revive Roca with a magical kiss. She shares her ‘light’ magic with him and receives some of his ‘shadow magic’ in return. This is dangerous stuff and could have unwanted consequences, but she’s prepared to risk it. He wants to live and be with her, so he accepts her gift of energy. I needed this kiss to be pretty powerful stuff, so I deliberately tried to write it like one of the sex scenes Laurell K. Hamilton includes in her Antia Blake and Merry Gentry series. But without the sex. Sex scenes aren’t really my thing.
Emil Pendaran arrives and tells them the vampire gunfight is over.
The story ends with Frankie brokering a new truce between the two vampire clans, finding a way to restore the balance of power and allowing one of them to have the skull and one something equally powerful.
Vadim Fredek has been taken into custody, very much alive (or not dead) and Theo’s conviction is quashed. Roca is still technically an outcast, so he and Frankie will be partners in her detective business on a temporary basis. As the story ends, both are in denial about the second kiss and the exchange of energy it caused. Their story is to be continued.
I’ve also written a second piece about The Vampire’s Skull, testing it against the full eight-sequence model that I wrote about in Plot Basics (2017). Did my story pass the test? Check the evidence here.
PAUL TOMLINSON 