A string of murders in Los Angeles. A ruthless cult. A secret world of vampires. Journalist June Osborne quickly realizes this is not your average homicide case, and finds her life turned upside down in the process of pursuing it. Her number one suspect, the mysterious Nick Blaine, has secrets that may be the key to unlocking it all... but can he help her and protect her from his dark past at the same time?
This is a story about love, loss, and the shadows within. Vampire AU.
A string of murders in Los Angeles. A ruthless cult. A secret world of vampires. Journalist June Osborne quickly realizes this is not your average homicide case, and finds her life turned upside down in the process of pursuing it. Her number one suspect, the mysterious Nick Blaine, has secrets that may be the key to unlocking it all… but can he help her and protect her from his dark past at the same time?
This is a story about love, loss, and the shadows within. Vampire AU.
A string of murders in Los Angeles. A ruthless cult. A secret world of vampires. Journalist June Osborne quickly realizes this is not your average homicide case, and finds her life turned upside down in the process of pursuing it. Her number one suspect, the mysterious Nick Blaine, has secrets that may be the key to unlocking it all… but can he help her and protect her from his dark past at the same time?
This is a story about love, loss, and the shadows within. Vampire AU.
She didn’t realize she had drifted off to sleep until strong arms wrapped around her waist, encasing her in love. Lucy was gone, and Nick took her place as June’s new source of comfort. She shivered from the coldness of his body after being outside for so long, and in response he pulled a thick, knitted blanket over the both of them.
For a minute he simply held her.
“You don’t have my protection anymore,” he finally said. His voice was a strained whisper against the back of her neck, as if he had to force out the words.
“My claim to you died in the fire with me.”
“I know.”
Heavy silence settled over them.
June shifted under the blanket, rolling over to face him. He held her waist snug against him.
“You won’t always be able to protect me, you know.”
Nick’s jaw clenched. His brown eyes glistened with held back tears.
“Do you trust me?” June murmured.
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
She cupped his cheek, tracing the corner of his mouth with her thumb. Her gaze never wavered.
A string of murders in Los Angeles. A ruthless cult. A secret world of vampires. Journalist June Osborne quickly realizes this is not your average homicide case, and finds her life turned upside down in the process of pursuing it. Her number one suspect, the mysterious Nick Blaine, has secrets that may be the key to unlocking it all… but can he help her and protect her from his dark past at the same time?
This is a story about love, loss, and the shadows within. Vampire AU.
Nick was laying in his bed, surrounded by a nest of silk sheets and pillows. The comforting weight of June’s body rested against his side. The blue glow of dawn peeked through the windows, but he felt no rush to close the curtains. It was the weekend. He knew June wouldn’t have to leave him and they could lay here until the sun came up, when he would drift into a content, dreamless sleep with his girl in his arms.
This was surely heaven.
“What’s it like?” June broke the silence suddenly.
He raised a brow.
“Living forever, I mean.”
“It’s lonely.”
“Even with other vampires?”
“We’re all just lonely together.”
June let out a chuckle that he felt against his ribs. It warmed him— made him smile.
But then her voice grew softer, more serious.
“It’s better than wondering when your time is up though, right?”
Nick took his time forming an answer to that. She waited patiently.
“Death is a natural part of the human experience. Without it… you don’t really feel like you’re living.”
June frowned.
“But I’ve felt like that my whole life.”
Nick looked at her, brows furrowed.
“Most of the time, I feel like I’m simply existing. Getting through the day, through the week, through the year… like it never ends, and I’m wandering aimlessly through the motions with no real purpose.”
Pained by what she was saying, he squeezed her protectively.
“Is that how you feel?”
June shifted to lay on her stomach, resting her chin on his chest and smiling as she gazed into his eyes.
“Not when I’m with you.”
His heart melted.
“I just think… for some, this sadness is hardwired into us. Maybe... whether we’re vampire or human, we all have to learn how to make room for it.”
Nick stared up at the ceiling and absently ran his fingertips over the curve of June’s hip, taking her words to heart. In all his years, he never thought about it the way she did. He couldn’t remember what it was like to be human, and spent his whole long life resenting his curse.
But was it really a curse? Or was it nothing more than a simple state of being?
“Why are you asking me about this?”
June shrugged.
“Is it wrong to admit that I think about it sometimes?”
Nick sighed, a fist closing around his heart. She was talking about turning… about becoming a vampire like him.
“June…”
Then she was gone.
“June?”
Nick looked around, finding the bed empty.
Icy cold panic filled his veins as he tried to get up to find her. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t move a single limb.
Everything hurt. His muscles, his bones. In the distance he heard voices. Above, the ceiling of his loft turned into stark white lights that passed him by.
“June?”
His throat was suddenly too dry. He could only whisper her name hoarsely. He couldn’t get enough air.
Why couldn’t he get enough air?
“Shhh.” A hand pressed against his chest. It was warm and soft and familiar. “You’re safe, Nick. Don’t try to speak.”
The last thing he remembered before blackness overtook him was a face surrounded by bright white light, hair glowing like a golden halo. His lover’s face. The face of an angel.
A string of murders in Los Angeles. A ruthless cult. A secret world of vampires. Journalist June Osborne quickly realizes this is not your average homicide case, and finds her life turned upside down in the process of pursuing it. Her number one suspect, the mysterious Nick Blaine, has secrets that may be the key to unlocking it all… but can he help her and protect her from his dark past at the same time?
This is a story about love, loss, and the shadows within. Vampire AU. New chapter every Sunday.
A string of murders in Los Angeles. A ruthless cult. A secret world of vampires. Journalist June Osborne quickly realizes this is not your average homicide case, and finds her life turned upside down in the process of pursuing it. Her number one suspect, the mysterious Nick Blaine, has secrets that may be the key to unlocking it all… but can he help her and protect her from his dark past at the same time?
This is a story about love, loss, and the shadows within. Vampire AU. New chapter every Sunday.
A string of murders in Los Angeles. A ruthless cult. A secret world of vampires. Journalist June Osborne quickly realizes this is not your average homicide case, and finds her life turned upside down in the process of pursuing it. Her number one suspect, the mysterious Nick Blaine, has secrets that may be the key to unlocking it all… but can he help her and protect her from his dark past at the same time?
This is a story about love, loss, and the shadows within. Vampire AU. New chapter every Sunday.
A string of murders in Los Angeles. A ruthless cult. A secret world of vampires. Journalist June Osborne quickly realizes this is not your average homicide case, and finds her life turned upside down in the process of pursuing it. Her number one suspect, the mysterious Nick Blaine, has secrets that may be the key to unlocking it all… but can he help her and protect her from his dark past at the same time?
This is a story about love, loss, and the shadows within. Vampire AU. New chapter every Sunday.
A string of murders in Los Angeles. A ruthless cult. A secret world of vampires. Journalist June Osborne quickly realizes this is not your average homicide case, and finds her life turned upside down in the process of pursuing it. Her number one suspect, the mysterious Nick Blaine, has secrets that may be the key to unlocking it all… but can he help her and protect her from his dark past at the same time?
This is a story about love, loss, and the shadows within. Vampire AU. New chapter every Sunday.
A string of murders in Los Angeles. A ruthless cult. A secret world of vampires. Journalist June Osborne quickly realizes this is not your average homicide case, and finds her life turned upside down in the process of pursuing it. Her number one suspect, the mysterious Nick Blaine, has secrets that may be the key to unlocking it all… but can he help her and protect her from his dark past at the same time?
This is a story about love, loss, and the shadows within. Vampire AU. New chapter every Sunday.
A string of murders in Los Angeles. A ruthless cult. A secret world of vampires. Journalist June Osborne quickly realizes this is not your average homicide case, and finds her life turned upside down in the process of pursuing it. Her number one suspect, the mysterious Nick Blaine, has secrets that may be the key to unlocking it all… but can he help her and protect her from his dark past at the same time?
This is a story about love, loss, and the shadows within. Vampire AU. New chapter every Sunday.
In the year 1901 he was born in the fast-growing city of Ann Arbor, Michigan. His parents and their newborn son, Joshua, immigrated there only a year prior, having crossed the Atlantic ocean in search of the American dream and a shot at a better life for their children.
The road to success wasn’t as easy as the industrial boom promised, but the Blaines managed to scrape by. They gave their sons what little they could. They were satisfied with their humble home. And above all, they believed that everything would work out as it should— as long as they had each other.
But they wouldn’t be able to stay together forever.
Nick and Josh’s mother abruptly passed away from consumption in 1916. The loss was devastating. A home that once contained warm laughter and love turned into a dark gloom, seeping into the walls and poisoning the air. The grieving boys acted out. Their father withdrew. No healing was had.
Less than a year later their father went to the store and never came back.
Abandoned, and only 16 years old, Nick entered the workforce to keep putting food on the table. It was his only way of feeling in control of such a dire situation. Josh found a darker way to cope: opium.
Nick may have lost his parents and his innocence, but he refused to lose his brother too. The further Josh sank into the clutches of addiction, the harder Nick fought to save him from himself. Opium turned into heroin. Nights out turned into weeklong benders. Nick lost job after job because of the work he missed— it was nearly impossible to maintain one when he was busy pulling his older brother out of gutters, or helping him through withdrawal when the drugs and money ran out.
Then one day, Nick was given a job at the textile factory. The owner – knowing the pain of losing a family member to addiction – took pity and gave him more flexibility than any other employer was willing to. This kindness also came at the behest of the owner’s young daughter, who worked at the family business as a part time secretary. Her name was Clara Rose, and because of her kindness, Nick would go on to fall madly in love with her.
It was a picturesque romance of the early 20th century. Nick and Clara Rose courted each other for years before getting married in the summer of 1924. The American economy was in the early stages of collapse, but they didn’t see it at the time. Nick moved up the chain of command at the textile factory, and Clara Rose moved on to school and a brighter future for them both— but she still returned to the factory every day to have lunch on the rooftop with her husband.
Clara Rose was the light of Nick’s life. Poverty and addiction was a vast pit of depression, but as long as she shone down on him like the sun, he had the strength to keep climbing. In all his years Nick had to be the strong one for Josh— but in the safety of Clara Rose’s unconditional love he could let down his walls. He could be himself, and he was happy.
Until one fateful day in 1928, when everything good in his life slipped through his fingers for the second time.
Nick was running late for his lunch date with Clara that day. They always met at 2:00, but at 2:10 he was still waiting in line for tuna sandwiches. With lunch in hand, Nick took off in an easy jog to meet his wife— not noticing the smoke that had begun to rise in the sky, until a fire engine barreled by in the same direction as him.
Suddenly all of Nick’s senses screamed at him that something was very, very wrong. Panic filled him, making him sprint as fast as he could to check on his wife.
By the time Nick got back to the textile factory, all his worst fears had come true.
The building was up in flames.
It burned all day until the full moon appeared in the sky, when the firefighters were able to start picking through the charred remains. There was a total lunar eclipse that night, and Nick could still remember how the moon turned blood red in the sky as ash continued to rain down. Only then did he finally lose hope for Clara Rose’s survival, and cried in the street until his throat was raw.
Nick buried his wife’s remains in Ann Arbor, and his heart with her. He was never himself again after that.
Josh’s addiction only became worse as Nick struggled with his own grief. After the factory burned down, Nick was never able to find work again. America was in the clutches of its Great Depression and poor, downtrodden folk like the Blaines didn’t stand a chance. The bank took their childhood home that Nick had worked so hard to keep. The brothers squatted in empty buildings, digging scraps of food out of trash cans to survive the harsh Michigan winters.
Josh would disappear for days and weeks. In 1931 he left for the last time, never to come back. For two more years Nick carried on, withering away without the slightest will to live and no one to care.
When he developed his mother’s persistent cough, he knew his time had finally come. He welcomed the sweet embrace of death. Unable to afford a doctor, consumption took Nick in 1933. He died, cold and alone, huddled under a blanket beneath a bridge.
The next day, by some twisted stroke of fate, he awoke in a warm cot with Joshua at his side and a terrible, burning thirst in his veins.
“I’m sorry I had to curse you with this, Nick,” his brother explained, “but I couldn’t stand the idea of being alone in this world.”
Cheep and easy ways to find a basis for your plot.
When you have characters:
What does your character aspire to do or become? Making that aspiration really hard for them to reach.
What does your character love? Take it away from them and make them earn it back.
What does your character hate? Bind them too it and make them work to get rid of it.
When you have a world:
What is the most chaotic thing that can happen to this world’s politics? Find the character this chaos would effect the most and see what they do about it.
What is the most dangerous thing that can happen within this magic system? Figure out who would come to stop or reverse it and see what they do.
Who is the most damaging person in this world and what are they doing? Figure out who of those they hurt might rise up and defeat them.
When you have only spite:
What story do you absolutely hate the execution of? Take the very basic concept of its plot and build it into the story you wish it produced.
What plot structure do you enjoy but wish writers would be more original with? Take it and then throw a dozen spins on it.
** Remember to mix and match for more elaborate plot structures. Carry on this format with your own tricks to digging up basic plot structures!
