Writing & Worldbuilding 202: Monsters
Greetings and sebastiomania! ...Dagnamit! Okay, Dominion is a theocracy, but I promise sebastiomania is not a common occurrence! Anyway, welcome to this wonderously wonderful blogpost with me, your beloved and favourite alien Limax, VIVIAN! And some random super awesome sister named Anne.
What is a monster?
(Vivian:) We must ask ourselves the big question about this, were you the monster all along? Jokes aside, what is exactly a monster? Well, I will come with my definition and we’ll see if Anne feels like nagging about it.
A monster is a physical creature that either is or is believed to be part of the physical world. They are generally of such nature that, while in many senses believable, they have properties and appearances that in some ways defy the normal experienced natural order. They often also have motives that either are in direct conflict with people's desires or entirely foreign to humans.
(Anne:) Yeah, Vivian knows me too well, although I’m only jumping in with a clarification. Common usage of the term includes supernatural “monsters” or people who act in monstrous ways, which I naturally would have included as I tend to overcomplicate things, but for the purposes of this post, we’re talking about natural monsters only.
(Vivian:) Yeah, though given the definition above, a human can easily transition into becoming a monster. There are of course many methods to do this and some we will cover.
(Anne:) Even a limax could become a monster under the right conditions!
Types of monsters
(Vivian:) Monsters can of course be subdivided into many forms of classification, and Anne and I have divided them into three categories.
From the richness of the earth: Natural monsters
(Anne:) The natural world is a beautiful thing, isn’t it? So peaceful. You can go for a walk in the woods and marvel at the way the sunlight filters through the leaves and wait what was that?
If you’re unlucky, that might be our first category of monsters: those who are a part of nature. These might be ordinary predators who take on monstrous qualities in the dead of night as people listen to the noises around them…
They could be creatures with exaggerated features such as the Wendigo, the Native American cryptid whose malevolence is rivalled only by its need for human flesh…
Or they might be bizarre combinations of various forms, like this monster that combines elements of a dragon, an insect, and what I would argue is a caterpillar. Certainly not the type of creature you want to encounter!
The key element of these monsters is that everything about them is based in nature and could theoretically be true based on existing life.
From the depths of our nightmares: Abominations
(Vivian:) This word brings back some fond memories I have.
Good old days of Warcraft 3, back when warcraft was good! Alright this image is of an Abomination as they call it but it would fit more next section. When I talk about abomination here I mean creatures that defy what is known about life. Werewolves might be odd but it is a wolf and a man combined into one and is easy to understand. As Anne pointed out, they feel like part of nature.
Abominations however, do not. They don’t feel like they are part of nature. They are so weird, abhorrent and strange that there is no way that any deity or method of evolution could ever possibly produce this creature. Yet, here it stands, before you and you wonder, what is going through its mind?
This image is an example, we see legs, we see eyes… Is that a stinger? I have no clue how to really describe it in any meaningful way and looking at it makes me wonder what unholy thing has produced it. This is an abomination.
(Anne:) Come across a natural monster like a bear in the woods, you sorta know how to handle it. Come across this abomination? Yikes, good luck with that! I just hope you’re slower than me!
From the folly of humanity’s pride: Manufactured monsters
(Vivian:) It is one to have to endure the monsters that nature has conjured up through holy or unholy methods. We had no effect on their existence; without us, they would still terrorise the world and consume whatever came in our stead.
What is much worse is when the monster we face is of our own creation. They exist, not only because of our existence, but because of our folly. Our hubris, our curiosity, our defiance of nature, brought them into existence and now, we are their meal.
Existing vs legendary
(Vivian:) In the real world, monsters are either exaggerations of stories or misunderstanding of ordinary creatures. But when it comes to built worlds, they can be either legendary and myths like the real world, or they can be existing roaming the world… and sometimes even both.
“They say a great beast exists in the woods…”
I have on many occasions in my blogposts and in all my writing hammered in this:
Reality does not matter, what people believe matters.
And yeah, it is a truth with modification. Sure, the physical reality will not give two winchells of a hoot what people believe. Our existence does not affect the way that reality works or what exists and doesn’t exist. Let’s not be delusional and say otherwise.
What I mean with that is that when it comes to things related to society and anything related to people, what reality is is of no consequence. It is people's perception of reality that will form how they behave and react to literally everything.
Now, why does this matter in your monsters? Well, if you have monster stories that people genuinely believe in and think are real… they are going to act as if they are real. If they believe this is a monster in that forest hunting people who go alone, guess what? No one is going to go in there alone. They might simply run through the forest at day to escape it if it's nocturnal by the myth; if it's diurnal, they do the running during the next.
This is often a huge issue and mistake I see with a lot of fictional legendary monsters, people believe and talk about it and then… don’t seem to care. In a lot of cases it is treated well, and people are acting as if it is real… because it fucking ends up being real 🤦♀️
(Anne:) Also, if your characters in general treat a monster or myth as real, then it’s great to show that one jerk who makes a show of not believing in it and, naturally, show how they meet their grisly end. Or, if they survive going through the forest, maybe they’ll start to persuade others to do the same and the myth will fade away.
(Vivian:) A fun twist on this would be them dying, not by a monster but because of something incredibly mundane that is then blamed on the non-existent monster, that is how these stories survive. Confirmation bias and reinforcement by blaming the monster even if it makes no sense. People love AN explanation, no matter how wrong it is. Any explanation is better than no explanation.
“I’m telling you, I saw it!”
(Vivian:) So if it is myth, make people treat it as if it is real, but what if it is really real and people know it is real? Well, of course people will treat it as if it is real, just like modern humans treat mooses–why isn’t it meese? 😒–as real and put up signs and much else on roads to make people account for it. Insurance companies sure take them into account as well! That is an actually funny idea, have some insurance company that has, like, monster insurance in a world of monsters. It’d be hilarious, I think I got a story to finish listening to that is about some insurance like figure… I need to get back to it, it was silly but fun.
(Anne:) Real monsters can be great for storytelling no matter how you set them up, whether well-accepted and well-known by all, or whether most people still view it as a myth and only your character(s) know it’s real. Having your character nervously walking through woods said to be haunted by a spectral beast is fun, but when that beast emerges from the mist and towers before them? Way more fun!
Both approaches work. Having monsters be an established part of the world adds a lot of uniqueness to your world, because it will be a different sort of world than we have here. After all, there are monsters everywhere! Are there cookbooks of monster parts? Are monsters hunted for sport? But if you want to keep your monsters secret, that can also develop your world wonderfully, because it’s a world of myths come to life.
(Vivian:) I look away for 1 second to look at a joke and she has already written 145 words! Lady Verbosa! But yeah, the big thing with actual monsters is that people will treat it as an actual real thing, and how they react very much depends on the frequency of interactions and the nature of said interactions. The more frequent interactions are the more prepared they are for it, but it also scales with how actually dangerous said monsters are. There is also the possibility that the monster only LOOKS dangerous so people have assumed for centuries they are dangerous when in reality they are harmless if left alone and maybe in your world, the perception is finally starting to change? I always find it hilarious when a grotesque monster is the most innocent and harmless, never gets old in my book.
(Anne:) I totally second this, I love when the protagonist accidentally disturbs a monster that gets all angry and terrifying, then five seconds later calms down and starts purring. Or when the reason for the anger is because there’s a nest of absolutely adorable sweet little babies, and the monster quickly goes back to loving parent.
AI Generated
The unknown
(Vivian:) You know what the scariest thing in the world is? The unknown.
AI generated
It is said that all fears ultimately stem from the unknown. I don’t personally subscribe to this idea, but the idea is not entirely without merit. The unknown is very scary, and why is it scary? Because it just MIGHT be dangerous. The knowledge of something being dangerous greatly reduces how dangerous it is; after all, you can just avoid it as you understand it somewhat.
But if it is unknown? Does it even exist? Is it in the dark? Is it right behind you now? What if those creaks are not just random…but what if…something is watching you right now, unbeknownst to you?
Yeah just the idea of something MAYBE being there can get us all start going no matter how irrational it is, just the possibility starts making the monkey brain go wild, it has to protect itself and better scared once to many, than once too few 💀
And this is one of the many pits writers fall into. They want to make monsters scary by giving them scary traits, but by giving them those traits, we understand them more, and the more we understand something, the less dangerous it becomes. So if you want to make people scared and even think it might be real…make it unknown. Lovecraft made his things inherently unknowable and beyond humanity.
Fear thrives in the unknown.
Monsters and their worlds
(Anne:) Monsters don’t just spring out of nowhere! Every single monster and monster myth has its foundations in the world itself and in the culture of the people who have those myths. So let’s look at those two fundamental areas that can spawn the monsters or myths that inhabit your world…
It crept from the culture
(Anne:) It’s amazing what crazy stuff the human mind can come up with, but all of that craziness is still bound to some extent by our culture. Vivian has a great post on culture, but I think a better explanation of how culture can give rise to monsters is discussed to some extent in our blogpost on scary stories. I even try my hand at writing a scary story about the Idwa, a monster from Tsxobjit lore! (What on earth is that?! Read about the Tsxobjezn to see how the Idwa fits into their culture). But surely we can have monsters that exist outside of culture! …Can we?
When it comes to monster myths, everything comes back to the unknown that Vivian talked about. The way we interpret the unknown is through the lens of what we do know, and what we know is shaped by culture. Vivian mentioned above a humorous scenario of someone dying from something random, but that confirms a monster myth of some sort. Well, that’s how some myths get started in the first place! Mysterious things happen to people under strangely similar circumstances, so clearly a monster is behind it! It might also give rise to other things like ghost stories or even religions, but monsters are up there in terms of how people interpret certain events.
If your monster is real, then not only is it important to know how the culture interprets the monster, but also how the monster has shaped the culture in turn. Those human-animal interactions can range from friendly to devouring-victims-upon-vaguest-sensory-input, but you need to analyze how different societies and cultures have changed to adapt to these monsters.
(Vivian:) As a quick example, dragons. In the West, they were generally a monster to be slaughtered, but in the East, dragons were different, and if I recall correctly, venerated.
(Anne:) In Korea, based on what my Korean friends have said, dragons are respected and seen as auspicious omens, and have associations with water and rain (always a good thing back when agriculture was getting started).
(Vivian:) Can someone make an Asian scifi story where it has switched, and now dragons are hated because the rain ruins smartphones? That’d be funny.
It slithered from science
(Vivian:) So maybe you want to do scientific monsters? Well I have various posts on senses, alien biology and much else to help! So no need more here!
(Anne:) Vivian!
(Vivian:) Fiiiineeee, geeze, you’d think she was my big sister or something 🙄 Jokes aside, if you want to design a monster that actually give people the creeps, a few biological rules to go by. These are rules to make it freaky to humans, nothing more. All animals you humans are used to are bilateral, meaning they are symmetrical around one axis (with some rare exceptions), so if you have the monster NOT be symmetrical, aka asymmetrical, then it starts unnerving humans; it is not as it should be!
Another element to add is a body shape that is utterly alien. Arthropods, insects, spiders, crabs, anything with exoskeletons, often fit here because to humans, their bodies are freaky. But octopi also work here; Cthulhu, anyone? Notice that all of these are evolutionarily very distant, so their body plan and being is totally different from humans. This makes it harder to anticipate how they will react and behave. Their limbs are not like yours! They bend at weird places and in the wrong way! It is the whole unknown again, except it is your intuition that has trouble understanding, and intuition is more relevant to fear than your intellect.
I went on a wee bit of a tangent there, but it is relevant, I swear! You want to create a monster that comes from science, you better know how the science of fear works! If I make a “monster” that looks like a puppy, it isn’t really a monster. Anyway, one of the oldest, if not THE oldest science monster is, can anyone guess? Frankenstein! After that, it is his Monster. It was based on the observation that electricity could make frog legs twitch, and with it, the idea of Vitalism, a life force, being present, and electricity was it. There are a lot of crazy ideas in the history of science. Anyway, Mary used this in her book and world and ran with it.
A more modern example of this is radioactive waste and how it mutates creatures into monsters. I’ve seen it in so many shows since the 60s. One that got popular since the 2000s are viruses and their abilities to influence cells and biology. We all know about the zombie viruses. A recent addition to the many sciences that create monsters are fungi. The Last of Us is based on an actual fungus that infects ants and turns them into functional zombies that commit seppuku to help spread the fungi. What will the next step be in science creating monsters? Maybe it is the parasite that brain-controls spiders as it rests on their backs; imagine one of those stuck to your neck doing things to your braaaaiiiiin 🧠
Writing monsters
(Anne:) When you decide to include a monster in your story, you want to do so for good cause. Consider what narrative role you want them to take; in other words, how will they interact with the various conflicts in the story? Will they create conflict, make it worse, make it better, solve the conflict? The Tyrannosaurus Rex is a monster and creates a lot of conflict in Jurassic Park, but when she bursts into the welcome center to chomp on the raptor threatening the protagonists, she solves that conflict quite neatly! Usually, monsters are used to create conflict or heighten the tension of a scene, but if you can manage a way to pull them into the climax (for good or for ill), it can be very satisfying for the audience.
If done well, then as your protagonists wander along their path distracted by the flowers of subplots, an ominous, malevolent force can be lurking, waiting, and making plans to lure your protagonists in and pounce. And if the monster devours a few friends or foes along the way, all the better!
Grandmother, what big arms you have!
(Anne:) Physicality is a huge part of monsters. Their appearance should invoke fear, or whatever emotion you want to evoke. Their appearance also has to match their purpose in the story and their role in the world. Make sure you don’t stray too far from physical descriptions from the natural world even if you’re venturing into abominations. People need specific, concrete details about your creature that they can understand. We understand the world as it exists; mix and match and twist and distort, but make sure there’s enough there for readers to hold on to.
Another key thing to remember is that you have five senses–use them! If you’re not sure how, check out the post on senses that I made. Monsters aren’t just visible, and you can do more than feel them slither along your arm as they pull you closer, more than hear the siren whispers as they absorb your soul. Maybe an acrid taste floods your mouth, maybe the putrid stench brings tears to your eyes, or maybe, just maybe, they smell like delicious cinnamon rolls. You never know with monsters!
Grandmother, what big eyes you have!
(Anne:) Eyes are the window to the soul, so let’s look at the interiority of your monsters! By our definition, their motives are often either in direct conflict with that of your protagonist(s) or totally foreign. Monsters have a type of intelligence, some more than others, and they have intent, whether conscious or instinctive. You want to get across your specific monster’s motivations, intelligence, and intent, because all of those things build the sense of malevolence you want to create. Whatever kind of monster you’ve created, let your reader really feel it!
(Vivian:) Anything capable of being a monster has motives of some sort. Even insects have motives in what they do. They are incredibly simple motives without much thought behind them, but it is still there! Even Lovecraft’s cat, uh, no, I mean his elder gods, have some motives to them. The motives might be fundamentally beyond human comprehension, but again, it is there. In Lovecraft’s case, the motives generally do not involve humans, not even as an obstacle to get around; humans are just a random ant that got under the boot. But they still have motives!
So at very least, if you don’t want to give them obvious motives, decide at least where on the scale humans/protags are. After all, even for humans with motives, ants and insects rarely go into our decision making and motivations unless they are excessive nuisances, but the insects are still affected by us no matter what we do.
(Anne:) I guess the real question is, in your story, is your protagonist the human or the insect? 😱 🐛
Grandmother, what big ears you have!
(Anne:) As I’m sure you can imagine, the most important part of your monster is their ears. What shape are they? What texture? What is the auditory range– Oh wait, no, that’s not what I meant here at all, is it… No, ears might be important in some monsters, sure, but it’s hardly the distinguishing characteristic.
What is important with your monsters is language! Which is something you hear, so… it fits here! (Hey, the Little Red Riding Hood thing seemed like a good idea when I started!) Anyway, the way you talk about your monster determines a lot, and you want to examine the little details that you do or don’t include. With voice, pay attention to the specific language that you use. What is the tone you use? Are you portraying the monster as a mystical and holy creature? A hideous, twisted abomination? The language you use will be different, and you want to be consistent. Well, consistent within the context. Different characters may feel differently and treat the monster differently, and a character’s views may change over time.
In terms of the little details you include, you want to be deliberate. You might have certain key terms associated with a monster that you try to incorporate every time the monster shows up, whether descriptions of their physicality that always crop up, like the way goop gathers and drips from the third eye, or even something like the owls hooting ominously if the only time the owls hoot that way is when this particular monster is nearby. Sound works too, or scent–again, don’t forget to incorporate all of your senses!
One note: if you’re making a movie and you use sound to indicate a monster nearby, please don’t make it the most annoying sound in existence…
Grandmother, what big teeth you have!
(Vivian:) Imma steal some attention here! When it comes to monsters it is important to understand what story you are telling. If it is action or if it is horror, the events related to the monster will differ greatly. In true horror, helplessness and futility has to be the majority of situations. If you do more action packed pew pew style, then scary monsters isn’t really the point but the explosions and actions.
(Anne:) This difference illustrates a great difference between suspense and surprise, and, to go back to our Little Red Riding Hood theme for this section, how exactly the teeth snap shut. Alfred Hitchcock had a great example when talking to Francois Truffaut. Essentially, two people are having a conversation and there’s a bomb under the table. If the audience knows about the bomb, it’s suspense as the conversation continues and they wait for it to explode. If the audience doesn’t know about it, then it’s surprise as it comes completely out of nowhere. Hitchcock advocates for suspense when possible, so that the audience knows what’s coming and is on the edge of their seat.
However, whether you want suspense or surprise depends on the genre and what you’re going for. How information about the monster is revealed will dramatically impact the way the audience reacts to them. Suspense creates the helplessness and futility that Vivian talked about above, and surprise lends itself to the pew pews of action. Even within those genres, though, there are differences, and even within a given work, there are times when you want each. I think Hitchcock would advocate for the unknown in terms of monsters, where things are implicated and hinted at so the audience knows the monster is there but doesn’t know when exactly it will strike, versus the known, where you’ve seen the monster and know its details. However, sometimes knowing all about the monster creates the suspense you want, as you know about that bomb and are just waiting for it to go off… As I said, it’s complicated. There’s no right answer, but you want to be aware of what the audience knows about the teeth that are about to snap shut on them.
Summa summarum
(Anne:) I’m claiming dibs on going first, even though I know I’ve been talking a lot. I just have a few words (miraculous for Lady Verbosa!). We’ve had a fun Spooky October, and I hope you’re able to fill your stories with monsters both real and imagined! As always, have fun!
(Vivian:) What have we learned this ghostly season? A lot, and it is great to finish it off with monsters! Monsters are interesting entities because the definition for them has to be so broad. But when it comes to monsters, know why you want them to exist, why they exist in your universe, or not. Sometimes it is better if you don’t know also. But when it comes to fear and monsters meant to invoke it, always remember this: the unknown is your friend.
And this is coming from the mistress of worldbuilding 😀 Zhi who loves answering all! And when zhi says unknown is good, you know it is!
Reach into the depth of the soul and find what truly terrifies us.
AI Generated
Anyway…BOOO!! 👻
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Copyright ©️ 2024 Vivian Sayan and Anne Winchell. Original ideas belong to the respective authors. Generic concepts such as monsters, their traits, and strategies for writing them are copyrighted under Creative Commons with attribution, and any derivatives must also be Creative Commons. However, specific language and exact phrasing is individually copyrighted by the respective authors. Contact them for information on usage and questions if uncertain what falls under Creative Commons. We’re almost always happy to give permission. Please contact the authors through this website’s contact page.
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