So my girlfriend just became a Twihard or a Twilighty or whatever you call fans of the Twilight series.
We were driving and she was telling me about the book and the movie and the action figures and she said she was at the part where the vampires were playing baseball during the thunderstorm.
And I've seen the movie, so I said, "Yeah, whoever wrote that knows nothing about physics. To hit a ball that hard so it sounds like thunder would just shatter the wooden bat. And what vampire wants to be near a hunk of wood shaped like a dagger."
[Yes, I now know the vampires use metal bats in the movie. Which makes sense, fear of stakes and all. I'm just relating our discussion as we had it.]
And she said the bat wouldn't break because it's a vampire bat. They have special bats so vampires can play baseball. And then I said, "Okay, so the vampires leave a vampire bat in the woods and a human boy finds it. And he takes it to his next baseball game, and he's normally just an average hitter, but now he finds he can hit home runs nearly all the time. So he realizes it's the bat. It looks like a normal bat, but every time he hits a ball, it flies about 300 feet or more.
And just when he's getting used to all the fame his hitting is bringing, he's now the most famous player on the team at his school, the vampires find him because they want their bat back. Humans aren't supposed to have these things and they ask him to give it back. But he lies to them and says he doesn't know what they're talking about.
So that's our story. The Vampire Bat. Or my story. Copyright protection only kicks in after you write it down.
Notes: the story probably only works as a juvenile book because of the goofy nature of a "vampire bat." It could work as an adult tale like "The Natural" if you want the story to be about loss and redemption instead of vampires.
And the usual devices must be included:
protagonist has a weird friend who if fascinated with some area that has been fruitless until now, and his or her help become useful in battling the current threat, or he's just around to be funny;
a girl or boy who likes our hero but the hero does not recognize the importance of the relationship until later;
a desirable partner usually out of the hero's reach, who is suddenly interested because of the hero's new found fame, i.e, the "hot girl";
parents who are non-existent or oblivious to the problem;
possible plot twists:
parent or teacher who knows about the threat or has similar childhood experience as the hero;
the bat only works at night;
the bat needs blood, or has other powers;
...Yeah, I'll get on this as soon as I finish all this important sleeping and eating I have scheduled and as soon as I can verify that RL Stine didn't write this same story ten years ago.
