A good vampire story includes the following:
-Awesome characters: In Dracula, we get, well, a vampire that transforms into mist, smoke, and wolves, he sucks blood, he's a polygamist, and he hires estate agents (XD), and the thing of his being all of the above makes him oh-so-sinister, without him having to tell us this in capital letters.
In The Saga of Darren Shan you have a kid transformed into a vampire (more on this later) who gets really angry about this, because he can never have a normal life, and all love is for naught. Aaaaaand Mr. Crepsley (he never talks with apostrophes. What's not to like?).
Twilight does not give us awesome characters, except for all the werewolves and Carlisle.
-Different vampires: Dracula didn't really need to be original, because, you know, he was in the first famous vampire book, FCS. But he does all the stuff described above, and, once you get to the end, you think, 'No way can I come up with a character this awesome'.
Darren Shan's vampires are not immortal (age ten years for each one), incredibly strong and fast (but at the same time scientific about it; so like saying 'OK, yeah yeah, the thing of the 'flitting' is a little unbelievable, but it explains the lock-opening thing!'), and have beliefs. And they're split into two factions... SPOILER ALERT FOR EVERYTHING I'VE SAID!!
Twilight has no shapeshifting-sinister-but-unmatchable-vampires, nor does it have noble-but-slightly-questionable-at-times-vampires. It has gloriously-pretty-vampires-who-are-incredibly-creepy-stalkers.
-A good vocabulary. Dracula speaks for itself.
Darren Shan is, while < Dracula, it does have some good vocab. And anyway, at least it's vocab in the way of 'I gripped the Little-Person's shin-bone as the rabid bear ran towards me, murder in its eyes', than 'Edward dazzled and sparkled like a marble pillar'.
-Romance that just isn't creepy. OK, well, Dracula passes this one, because a) its romance off screen, and b) Dracula, though polygamic, just doesn't work romantically.
Darren Shan has the issue of 'What if a vampire fell in love with a girl there, and, thirteen years later, comes back, only to discover that she's his twenty-six-year-old English teacher?' But it doesn't go to 'I watch you while you sleep' extremes; no, he just goes round to her place, chats, eats great food, studies, and, when he tries to kiss her romantically, gets slapped in the face. And at least he's protective in the 'I'm getting my friends to patrol the area just in case' rather than 'I will totally be Velcroed to your side, so you will never ever get rid of me'. And, hey, Mr. Crepsley had a one true love, who gets stabbed in the guts. The funeral scene is... touching.
-Action. Dracula raises his head for his one, because you've got the wolf bursting into Lucy's room (OK, yes, I spot the similarity. At least it's for nefarious aims, and does not attempt to hide it), the chasing of Dracula all the way to Romania, Jonathan Harker's escape. But it doesn't need a lot, so, you have the thing of us wandering round Dr. Seward's asylum, hearing conversations between Lucy, Mina, Lucy's fiancee and suitors, etc. But it's all evenly paced out.
Darren Shan in one way, is a (no pun intended) blood bath. You've got, for example, his breaking a human's leg to the bone, a wolf-man-thing rips up his (in that book) best friend, and not to mention the battle-scenes of spiked chains, swords, daggers, spears, and spiders. Oh the spiders. But this is all evenly paced too; for every four books, there is at least one major battle scene, from, say, a four-second-long one in the love-interest's house, to the final battle of Evil and Questionable Good.
-Finis. Let's recap.
1) Awesome characters; go for (if writing evil) sinister sophisticate, or (if writing good) make them likable but also at times, questionable, so the reader doesn't puke for them being so lovely.
2) Different vampires; add something new to the story that is vampires. Be it 'they actually age pretty slowly, and have their own vampire religion' to 'they are pure evil and must have a stake rammed into their hearts!'
3) Vocabulary. Try to use that big thesaurus on either book-form, on the internet, or even, like moi, a program that has a thesaurus.
4) Non-Creepy Romance. Try to make it, if anything, cute and occasionally frustrating rather than total and somewhat scary.
5) Action. Make this well-paced out rather than crammed into the end.
And six; when there is a moment, when you think, 'What do I do?' Then think of what Stephanie Meyer would do. And do the opposite.
) And the ending of any vampire-human romance should be heartbreaking and tragic, not happy and sparkly. Vampirism should never be used as a plot device for immortality and eternal youth and happiness.
). And, if your mother reads it, Socks, that... doesn't really give me the right image. My mother, a university professor on English in the same university that the royal lineage goes to, couldn't really get past it; she prefers books that don't drag on like that.
