Ready to start designing monsters? Take a deep breathe and….go!
I like to draw my monsters when I’m designing. Not everybody has the skill, but even poorly rendered pictures can help the writer to conceive their creations more fully. Remember, the drawing is a tool, not a work of art.
Monsters work on a scale: They either resemble humans (except for some small monstrous difference) all the way to wholly different from humans. A vast array stretches between those two poles. Here are two examples: Dracula appears human in almost every respect. The fangs (which are a movie invention) are his one animalistic trait. But the vampire has advantages over humans: he can turn into a mist, a wolf, a bat, he is immortal. But he has negatives too: sunlight, wooden stakes, crosses, etc. Dracula is a human-esque (in fact, once human) monster.
On the other end of the spectrum we have the Lovecraftian monsters. The Fungi from Yuggoth will do for an example. These fungi/crab mixtures live on atmosphere-less Pluto. They don’t need space suits but possess a technology beyond ours. They talk in a buzzing voice and enjoy sticking human brains in jars. The Fungi have no real human traits. You could not discuss anything with them because their minds are so alien to our own. Like the Alien, from the film franchise, the Fungi resemble unfriendly animals and plants from our planet.
THREE CONSIDERATIONS IN MONSTER-BUILDING
WHEN I’m creating a monster I try to establish three elements:
1) physical peculiarities. What makes it different than just another beastie? What does it suggest if it’s hairy or thin-limbed or aquatic or ethereal? What frightening natural creatures is it similar to?
2) intelligence compared to a human, the shape of its mind and any possible culture it may have that differs from ours. How does it view its victims? How does killing make it feel?
3) thematic qualities. Does it represent guilt or hatred or rapaciousness or indifference? The theme within a story will often dictate this. Ghosts are a good example. Why has a ghost returned to Earth? What does it want, etc.?
Let’s do a sample creature to demonstrate these elements. I want to create a monster that is symbiotic. That’s its biological requirement. It lives on a human host. (People find parasites disturbing, so this is a bonus.) I don’t want anyone to know it’s there so it must hide. To do this it can assume the appearance of clothing, in fact, a beautiful white suit. (Ray Bradbury fans are nodding their heads.)
The suit creature is a parasite. It gives the wearer great fortune but consumes the body. So it selects a fat man to be its host. This will increase its time on the host. The parasite is intelligent, more intelligent than its victim (if not the reader). It can communicate with its host telepathically. Unfortunately it must find a new host every so often, so it is always on the look out for a successor.
Finally, the theme. The suit represents many things. One, its contract is a deal-with-the-devil type set up. It also represents the wages of sin, especially gluttony and greed. And lastly, it’s the vehicle for vengeance at the end of the story when the narrator unwittingly assumes the last victim’s prize.
You will find all these elements in my story “The Suit” (from The Book of the Black Sun). By planning all three elements, the monster adds something to the story over and beyond just peril. I mean the guy could get hit by a bus and be just as dead.
MONSTERS & GENRES
The monster figure has a certain purpose within fiction. What this role is depends partly on the genre in which you are writing. (I am speaking very generally here. Cross-genre fiction has rules of its own.) Let’s look at how Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror use their monster characters.
A Science Fiction tale (and there are as many definitions as there are monsters) generally is a story that is based on some scientific fact. Therefore the monsters will usually be an extrapolation from Science or Science-Gone-Wrong. If we assume Society breaks into two factions, one above ground, the other below, then the underground dweller might evolve over time into a small (since larger creatures would find living underground more difficult), white-colored creature with large eyes. These are, of course, H. G. Wells’ Morlocks. The fact that Wells was able to devise the Morlocks on a scientific basis and work in a Socialist parable as well, only makes it better. A Science Fiction writer seeks logic.
A Fantasy monster has a big advantage and a big disadvantage. The genre doesn’t have as rigid a background as SF, though writers often create their own “rules of magic”. The advantage is there aren’t any boundaries. You can have a creature made of smoke that walks in the air and gives out unlimited wishes. Science doesn’t matter here. The disadvantage is that since all rules are off, such beings are commonplace. A Fantasy character grows up knowing there are genii in the world. The Fantasy writer is not looking for shocks or logic, but wonder.
The Horror Writer works directly opposed to the other two. His or her creatures are impossible like a Fantasy writer’s but it is supposed as with a Science Fiction story, that the Universe is logical and not filled with unexplained monsters (which is a lie). So when a killer clown or a ghost shows up, the reaction is one of terror. The horror writer seeks to frighten over all else.
When these genres are crossed the mixture can be interesting. Sword & Sorcery is a combination of Fantasy & Horror. In a Sword & Sorcery world, monsters are known to exist but are never taken for granted. Science Fantasy is a term used to describe writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs. Once considered a Science Fiction writer, Science never gets in the way of a good story, so the result is logical but not always scientific. Horror SF (which has yet to get a cute name – Sci-Hor, perhaps?) is possible. “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell is considered a classic in both genres. Dark Fantasy is a Horror sub-genre that dwells less on shocks and more on dark realms. Other genres have been mixed with these three as well: the Horror-Western, the Supernatural Mystery, the Science Fiction Mystery, the Serial Killer sub-genre of Horror (part horror, part detective novel), as well as false-monster mysteries like The Hound of the Baskervilles. Writers are ingenious and new combinations are being created every day.
