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Research on coffin

ValkyrieRaven88

ValkyrieRaven88

New Member
Some of you may have read the clip of my vampire novel I put up on the Writer's Showcase forum. If you didn't, it doesn't matter as it is not pertinent. Here's the thing: I have a scene where the girl wakes up in her coffin and realizes she's been turned into a vampire. She then has to break out of her coffin and get to the surface with a crowbar her creator snuck into the coffin during her visitation.
OK, that's the story as is. I put it there because I needed something down on paper, so to speak. Problem is, I don't know enough about coffins to know if that would actually work, if there's some mechanism to open it from the inside or what. I read books on live burial, but it was all incidents prior to the 1950's. I need information about modern coffins.
My best bet is to go to either a coffin-making company or a funeral home. But how do I set something like that up? I can call and say I'm a writer doing research, but if they ask what kind of story I'm doing they may be hesitant to have me there. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions? Please?
 
This is what I know

ValkyrieRaven88 said:
Some of you may have read the clip of my vampire novel I put up on the Writer's Showcase forum. If you didn't, it doesn't matter as it is not pertinent. Here's the thing: I have a scene where the girl wakes up in her coffin and realizes she's been turned into a vampire. She then has to break out of her coffin and get to the surface with a crowbar her creator snuck into the coffin during her visitation.
OK, that's the story as is. I put it there because I needed something down on paper, so to speak. Problem is, I don't know enough about coffins to know if that would actually work, if there's some mechanism to open it from the inside or what. I read books on live burial, but it was all incidents prior to the 1950's. I need information about modern coffins.
My best bet is to go to either a coffin-making company or a funeral home. But how do I set something like that up? I can call and say I'm a writer doing research, but if they ask what kind of story I'm doing they may be hesitant to have me there. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions? Please?
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Modern coffins are either plain pine boxes with separate covers or fancier caskets with hinged lids. Either way the coffin is nailed down. Two nails are usually used to shut it before burial. I never heard of mechanisms to open it from the inside which doesn´t mean they don´t exist. The crowbar sounds like a good way for your heroine to dug herself out of her grave. Although in theory a vampire can cross walls therefore she could leave the casket as a cloud of smoke.
And you could call a funeral home and ask. You just say you are writing a novel. You don´t have to be specific.
 
Question: Is the coffin burried? If so, a crowbar may be useless. Tons of earth on top, six feet deep... that ordeal.

A pine box coffin would be easy enough to break out of using a crowbar, although the limited space inside a coffin would handicap one's strength/agility. A modern coffin (if not a pine box) would take person a great deal of time to break through (and I'm pretty sure they latch shut), thanks to the thickness and type of woods used to build fancy coffins. So, we have a latch to worry about, the nails mentioned by the previous poster, some pretty thick wood (don't forget the fluffy coffin interior your prisoner must rip through)...

Part of my first novel deals with a boy in a coffin trying to get out... if you were wondering. Research the best you can; make up the rest.
 
As part of your research, visit a mortuary or funeral home and check out some coffins. Tell them (they most likely won't ask) it's for a project you're working on.
 
sirmyk said:
As part of your research, visit a mortuary or funeral home and check out some coffins. Tell them (they most likely won't ask) it's for a project you're working on.
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LOL, yes it could lead to some funny looks if you didn't give some explanation :D
 
Poppy1 said:
LOL, yes it could lead to some funny looks if you didn't give some explanation :D
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"Yeah, umm... I have some questions about these here coffin devices... umm... can I climb inside one and you close it on me... just for a second... it's for research..."
 
"Yeah, and if I buried someone alive in one, ya know, err, would there we any chance, like, of them getting out, if you know what I mean?"
 
LOL. Yes, the coffin was buried. I needed to ensure that no one would be back for Erin's body or looking for it after she was turned into a vampire. If she left the coffin before burial, people would wonder where it went and worry. If she was turned immediately without a death, people would be searching for her or for a body...so I said that it takes three days after death to become a vampire.
 
In Darren Shan, his creator simply returns to dig him up himself; this adds to the drama, as Darren has to wait in the dark and trust that someone (whom he really doesn't like much) is coming for him.

I've not seen Kill Bill 2, but Uma Thurman's character has to escape from a buried coffin in that. Might be worth checking out.

As to the crowbar; I doubt that's the best tool. You couldn't lever the lid open against all that earth, you'd have to break the lid piece by piece. Maybe if the creator left an entire carpenter's toolbox inside, including jigsaw and drill ;)

Occam's Razor suggests that you simply make your vampire strong enough and determined enough to burrow out of there using only her razor claws and her thirst for moonlight... or something.
 
GreenKnight said:
In Darren Shan, his creator simply returns to dig him up himself; this adds to the drama, as Darren has to wait in the dark and trust that someone (whom he really doesn't like much) is coming for him.

I've not seen Kill Bill 2, but Uma Thurman's character has to escape from a buried coffin in that. Might be worth checking out.

As to the crowbar; I doubt that's the best tool. You couldn't lever the lid open against all that earth, you'd have to break the lid piece by piece. Maybe if the creator left an entire carpenter's toolbox inside, including jigsaw and drill ;)

Occam's Razor suggests that you simply make your vampire strong enough and determined enough to burrow out of there using only her razor claws and her thirst for moonlight... or something.
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Well, that'd be an excuse to rent Kill Bill. My friends had been pestering me to see it.
I had thought about something like making the vampire stronger, but I said that the superstrength came very gradually to the Undead in my book, so I didn't think that would work out. There is a reason for that, I assure you, but Erin needs another way...
But yeah, Nikolai slips the crowbar into the coffin at the visitation for Erin. He hides it under her body. I don't know if a whole toolbox would fit, LOL. And Nikolai's too much of a jerk to pull her out himself. Poor Erin.
 
Update: GreenKnight PM-ed me with a solution. Worked out GREAT. It will be on display in the writer's showcase forum if anyone is interested.
 
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