The Word Cloud

Hey all,

I was pretty impressed with Alien...

What monster makes a scary? Not revealing your monster!

A lot of what is 'scary' is down to the personal preference of the reader. One of my favourite authors is HP Lovecraft - his stories scare not so much through his 'monsters', but more through his premises; that we are but a blip in the grand scale of the universe, and the truths out there are just so huge we cannot comprehend them. (Most of his tales end up with his protagonists going totally insane, btw). The other thing to remember is 'a bucket of blood is funny - a trickle is scary' (I think it was Peter Jackson who said that). Drip, drip, drip feed the fear factor, and almost anything can be scary - you don't need a specific 'monster' to do that.

I write horror, and I rarely have a 'monster' in mind (mainly 'cos I follow my spiritual mentor - good ole Lovecraft - and write what is called 'cosmic horror', which is more about the nature of reality). That's not to say I don't use them - I have used werewolves, vampires, many-tentacled nasties from the back of beyond, prehistoric creatures, gross looking fish-men - but just that there is a lot more to creating a terrifying tale than having a cool 'monster'.

I agree with Elysia. It's the way the story is constructed that brings the chill, not the monster itself. When it comes to actual monsters, it's how we meet them that is often the crunch. An eye through a letter box is more scary than a red-eyed gorilla walking down the street. Or a hand, rising through the earth... a tongue, licking into a hiding place. Why bother to reveal the whole monster at all?

Have you thought of using art as inspiration? The images of Hieronymus Bosch can be monsterish.
The danger with creating monsters is that you will only cause laughter. A good example is Alien, where, after all the tension, the creature is shown in the final scene, thus wrecking the sense of terror. Yes, it was just a man-in-a-suit, and a silly one at that.
You should read. Try Lovecraft, as Elysia suggests.

Thanks for all your help, guys- it really does help. I've invented a bit of a atmosphere inducer for my monsterish creature. For my plot, though, it's kind of central that it comes in quite early in the story, so theres not much time to build up the creepiness level... So I'm kind of planning to do that later, since it turns out its not quite as dead as it would seem for various reasons I promise are better than I'm making them sound =.= But anyway, thanks very much for your advice ;)

Total agree, it way the story construction and atmosphere. Also it trick with what words that you use.