Mythical creatures in urban fantasy

I'm on the very first chapter of a new urban fantasy book. The story takes place in our world, but with hidden magic and mythical creatures.

Now, here's my problem: I don't want my story to be one of those books. You know, the ones where the vampires sparkle, the fey are always good, all the mythical creatures are going extinct, humans are bad, the magic is dying, yadayadayada puke.

On the other hand, I don't want to totally distort the classical images of fantasy creatures by giving the unicorns fangs or something (although I have always wondered what those horns were for )

So how do I achieve a good balance? I want my creatures to be original and have interesting twists, but I don't want to stray so far from the original legends that they're unrecognizable. Does anyone have any tips?

Well, the fey were NEVER good, and vampires DON'T sparkle. THOSE books, if anything, are corrupting the original myths.

My recommendation would be the same as I would give a traditional fantasy writer:

Go to the source. Don't research Tolkein elves, or Warhammer orcs, or Meyer vampires. Instead, go to the original stories and take what you will from them. For example, vampires were originally revenants, who were the reanimated corpses of felons and those died of plague. That could be some interesting fodder right there.

My other recommendation is to go to other sources than the overused myths of the Western world. Research the dreaded Aswang, or insert the Eight Immortals into your mythos. There's a lot of interesting stuff that hasn't even been touched because it's not traditional to the West.

~Annie

Or even do the opposite--try having the mythical creatures attempting to integrate themselves and blend in. Something always irked me about the 'world under the world' stuff; when you have a tiny minority in a foreign country, they ALWAYS, EVENTUALLY, integrate.

First, allow me a moment to fangirl over your username.

ZOMG ALEC AND MAGNUS THEY ARE SO CUTE984TQIY4TUJTYOS

Now that that's out of my system.

Everyone else has basically said what I was going to say. If you go to Encyclopedia Mythica, it has hundreds and hundreds of pages dedicated to almost every mythology, folk tale, legend, etc. in the known world. I was actually building a story around Persian mythology using mostly info from EM until school started, and my plans fell through due to schoolwork.

I would suggest, like ankhirke said, researching the crap out of the ORIGINAL myths. Most vampire stories now are solely based on other vampire stories in pop culture. Same goes for faeries and unicorns, etc. This means, then, that if you stripped all the glitter and glamour of the entertainment industry away, you'd actually find something original and nearly untouched undeneath. Sometimes being traditional is a good thing.

All I can say is find the originals and start there. Dr. Bob Curran’s Encyclopedia of the Undead: A Field Guide to the Creatures That Cannot Rest in Peace along with many of his other books. I own his book on Vampires, which gives details to all sorts of old vampire legends from way back in the day. It’s an amazing resource to have at your disposal.

Another set of books that I inherited from my Uncle was the Enchanted World series, which tells about all sorts of mythical legends on all sorts of creatures. Some libraries I’ve been too have had some of them and I have about 14 or 15 that have always been fun to read.

So, like others have said, start with the original stories and work your way out.

~lilymoore