Sexy vampires make me want to vomit

I have no tolerance for vampire stories. I refuse to read novels about them, won't watch any of the twelve thousand new TV shows about teenage 90210 vampires and wouldn't dream of paying ten bucks to see beautiful twenty-something British actors biting each other's necks on the big screen.

I will be so bold as to say I hate the vampire movement. It bugs the crap out of me. Some people will accuse me of being a realist, of lacking imagination, even of not being fun. But I don't care.

I prefer drama of the mortal world. I like law and order. I mean I really like Law and Order. All through my adult life, my roaring twenties when I thought I was the first person ever to discover the beauty of Van Morrison and wearing Doc Martens made me anti-establishment (please!) I have watched this show. In my early thirties where I saw myself as some sort of sophisticated urbanite because I ate expensive food and drank good wine and into my late thirties where I've finally started to uncover the me I like, I've always loved Law and Order.

There is something simple about the formula. A person discovers a body. The cops come in, take cues from the crime scene to uncover what happened. The lawyers prosecute those responsible. There is nothing glamorous. There is no plot. We rarely get a personal look into the bedrooms or even the kitchens of the characters unless it is crucial to the story of the crime. And my favourite part?

It's real.

In Dick Wolf's world, there are no gratuitous sex scenes, no seductive teenagers committing the crimes to drive up ratings, no superhero detective named H swooping in to save the day, wearing clothes he likely couldn't afford on a real life cop's salary, no solving the crime within the hour time frame, no good guys always winning. The bum on the street, looks like a bum on the street, not a beautiful guest actor with strategically placed 'bum' makeup above his eye.



And the story unfolds as it would in life. In his memoirs, Stephen King says that he rarely ever writes a novel with a preconceived plot. He starts out with an idea or situation and then lets the story uncover itself - he likens it to digging up a dinosaur skeleton. Done right with the appropriate tools, he says, the story will show itself.

It's not unusual for the DA's office to lose their case on a tiny technicality. Sometimes the person we spent 45 minutes blaming for the crime ends up being innocent. Children die. Women get raped and don't get justice. Innocent men spend ten years behind bars. People are refused medical care because they can't pay.

Real life. Ugly and messy.

I'm participating with Mama Kat using the prompts simple and bold. Check out some of the other entries.