Monsters

Today the Laie Young Writers came up with a list of do's and don'ts when it comes to monsters:

DO

Make them powerful. Give them awesome weapons. Or claws. Claws are good.

Give them a weakness, but not something too easy to exploit. Make them hard to defeat.

Understand the monster's motives. Don't make their behavior a matter of convenience to the plot. Know what the monster wants and keep it consistent.

Make sure the monster is consistent with the overall tone of the story.

DON'T

Do not use bug-eyed aliens.

Do not overdo it with the freakish traits. The closer a monster is to reality, the scarier it can be.

Do not undermine the sense of danger by having your monster threaten your character and then back off.

We also talked about three different ways to build a monster.

First, you can use a familiar monster, like a vampire or a Yeti. These monsters are familiar to the reader. They have a history you can research. Readers will understand what they look like and act like with very little effort on your part. But that takes away some of the fun of using your own creativity. If you use a familiar monster, you may want to give it a unique trait that marks your version of that monster as your very own.

Second, you can come up with your own monster, something completely new that's never been seen before. This can be more work as you'll need to come up with its whole mythology on your own, but some of us think that's the fun part.

Third, you can combine two or more creatures that already exist into a new monster. There are several mythical beings that are half one thing and half another, like mermaids, satyrs, griffins, and the like. Pick two things and stick them together, and you get something that's easy to describe and visualize, but that's also unique and completely monstrous.

In conclusion, monsters are fun, but think it through.