I have a few ideas going around in my head, but they seem to lean toward a Vampire versus Werewolves theme. Problem is, it seems too cliché, especially after movies such as "Underworld" and "Van Helsing".

With the right characters, motivations and everything else it could work. I would love to read something like this, so maybe if thirty people give thirty different references to similar books it may be a bit overdone.

Most of the vampire stuff I've seen deals is either a) evil vampires vs. good humans (Dracula, Blade; or b) soft-core porn (the collected works of Anne Rice).

Underworld starts to deal with a more interesting concept--what kind of societies would vampires have, if such creatures existed? What would there politics be? What would they have to do to keep themselves secret; to survive? What kind of laws would they govern themselves with, and how would they enforce them?

A book about werewolves fighting vampires could be interesting, because it presents opportunities to delve into unexplored territory--like the questions above, or questions about the psychology of being a vampire--what would it be like for a Buddhist, for example, to find that he now had to do violence to others in order to survive?

A story like that could also reflect on mortal life. You could get a mileage investigating why vampires might fight werewolves. Racism? Nationalism? Resource allocation? Security?

Perhaps instead of all the old reasons for their hatred of each other make it a fight over food. Maybe with the growing problem of HIV/AIDS and other blood-borne diseases the number of harvestable humans has dwindled (of course this idea was probably already done too)
Maybe the "virus" or whatever that causes people to become vampires or werewolves is being resisted. With no fresh blood to join the ranks both sides are in a battle to infect the few humans that can still be converted.

I have a simple solution. Try reading the 'Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter' series by Laurell K. Hamilton. While it may not directly deal with what your trying, it does have a heavy dose of how the lycanthropes and the vampires societies work and the harsh realities of them. She's quite good at it. Have I mentioned that I'm rereading the series for the 4th time (on book 6 now).

I thoroughly enjoy her writing. It is the closest that I can think of 'Underworld'.

Take a peek at her website LaurellKHamilton.org

There she gives a synopsis of each book and I think a chapter of each.

Enough of my ramblins for now. Gotta finish eating.

Just to be clear, the milieu is not based on "Underworld". It is a derrivitive of White Wolf's RPG: World of Darkness "Vampire: The Masquerade", which is a derrivitive of Anne Rice's vampire milieu (as I didn't particularly enjoy watching "Interview with the Vampire", I haven't rushed out to buy her books). There is no pathogen that automatically turns a victim into a vampire, to be turned, a drained person must have their blood replaced by drinking the blood of a vampire.

The conflict between the Vampires and Werewolves is territorial. The story is set in west coast British Columbia specifically the city of Vancouver and Vancouver Island. Vancouver is a large city that is more or less stuck in a forest. Vampires tend to be city dwellers, Werewolves like being close to the forest. Vancouver is hotly contested property for both.

I'd think that you'd want to wait till you'd mapped out your vampire "society" before you started adding werewolves into the mix. Depending on the rules of how one becomes a vampire/werewolves and what vulnerabilities each has, vampires tend to be more capable of forming a society. Though they crave blood, they aren't usually represented as loosing all sentience during the period when their supernatural abilities manifest. Also, the usual method of making a vampire requires conscious effort and a small sacrifice on the part of another vampire, while making a werewolf requires only that a victim survive a werewolf's bite.

I'd think that conflict between vampires and werewolves would tend to be extremely rare and heavily slanted in favor of the vampires. For one thing, vampires can hunt whenever they want, they don't need to go out on nights when there will be werewolves about if they don't like it. Also, they can attack and kill a werewolf any time, not just when the werewolf is in wolf form. Whether in wolf form or not, a werewolf has critical weaknesses in a fight. And a werewolf isn't going to be likely to even know about vampires, so the vampires will get first strike.

The most important thing, of course, is that werewolves seem to be very solitary. Even if they did run in packs, it would seem that after you had two or three werewolves hunting together, the probability of anyone being bitten and surviving would drop so low as to be effectively zero. So packs couldn't get very large, and would still be under all the limitations of werewolves. Of course, even one man-killing wolf is likely to be hunted down and killed by the locals, and the same is even more true of a larger pack.

So you really need to think about ways to make it so that your vampires and werewolves have a reason to fight each other as well as ways to make the fight more interesting.

If the answer is "because I need an idea," forget it. It's cliched.

If the answer is "because vampires vs. werewolves is a neat idea," then forget it and go watch "Underworld" instead.

If the answer is "because no other vampire vs. werewolf examined this aspect...," then ask around if anyone has heard of such a story. If not, go for it. It's not cliched.

ck is pretty much on target. If I were you, I wouldn't worry too much about whether your idea for a plot is unique. Instead, decide if you care enough about the story to spend the time and energy to create really well-crafted characters, plot lines, etc. A well done story, with gripping characters or milieu, will find readership, regardless of how well-tread the story line.

I don't read horror stories (except the orginal Dracula, which I loved), but I think it would be cool for a story to take real wolf (or coyote) behavior and build the lycanthrope society and characters from there. That would take some research, but it would be rewarding.

One of the lodaing screens says that vampires are typically city dwellers due to a large supply of food (blood) and also in order to avoid werewolves because for some reason werewolves reside in rural areas.

If I could write in their milieu, it would make it a lot easier. Stock/familliar characters, milieu expectations and rules, etc. would be less of an issue. White Wolf also has a Werewolf line and crossing between the Vampires and Lupines could work well because there are established perameters.

CK, If you are looking for their clan novels, you might have trouble finding them at a regular bookstore. Gaming stores often carry them or you can order them on-line directly from White Wolf.

It's also better in terms of survival. A wolf in the city is going to run afoul of a lot of humans, along with cars, electrical lines, industrial hazards, you name it. If silver is an issue (traditional, like crosses for vampires), well, there's a lot more silver around too.

And it is common for werewolves, who (again, traditionally) did not ask for the curse that afflicts them, to feel some compunctions about any killing they might do while in wolf form. So seeking isolation is natural for them. This may not apply to all werewolves, but even those that don't mind any killing they might do must recognize that they don't actually benefit from it in any way.