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How to Write a Monster
- Samantha Sextonson
- 5 days ago
- 6 min read
How do you picture a “Freak of the Night”? Does he loom over you and haunt your nightmares? Is he made of someone else’s (or several someone else’s) flesh and blood? Does he go bump in the night or lurk in sewers? Does he have sharp teeth and red eyes? Or is he human and that’s what makes him scary? How ever you may have chosen to imagine this character, certain expectations were set up for him right? He must be scary and he must be different from you.
Monster stories are found in just about every genre and in any form of media. What differs is how the monster is represented. In horror stories, the monster is meant to be terrifying in every way possible, but in a comedy that same monster could be the butt of a joke. In a drama or romance, the monster could be something or someone that is misunderstood and desired. In a fantasy, a lot of times what we might deem a monster in other genres is the hero of the story. To write a monster story, you must know what kind of monster you want to write and how to avoid negative stereotypes. There's also a downloadable cheat sheet at the end!
The Monster as Metaphor
This type of monster story has been around for ages ranging from stories like Frankenstein to Medusa all the way to certain Scooby-Doo villains. If you aim to write a monster story that says something about the world, a good way to do it is through a metaphoric monster.
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, “the Creature” also known as Adam, forces the audience to question identity, birth, death, feminism, and whether something made from a human is inherently human itself. Shelley wrote Adam to be essentially an infant, dependent on the care of his creator, who fails him. What’s interesting about Shelley’s metaphoric monster is that the monster ultimately becomes the doctor himself.
In Medusa stories, Medusa is typically the monster, though recently she’s shifted into becoming a more sympathetic character. We have no way of knowing if she was created to be a sympathetic monster, but many women understand her story and see her not as a monster but as a woman who has been hurt by men. With snakes on her head and eyes that turn anyone to stone, she is certainly crafted to be scary, but context gives her humanity. The monster you write may look scary, but that doesn’t mean she has to be.
Something as silly as Scooby-Doo can even have strong metaphors connected with its monsters. While the show and its various spin-offs were aimed at kids, some of the messages found in the unmasking of the monsters had very adult themes. Starting with the unmasking themselves, Scooby-Doo’s monsters were (almost) never real, which taught the message that the real villain was always going to be another person and just about every time that person was motivated by greed. When the gang unmasked the villain at the end of an episode and Velma explained how it must have been him, more often than not it was some business owner looking to make money or keep his business alive by preying on others. Scooby-Doo used monsters as a metaphor to prove a point about the ethics of consumerism and political ideals. If you want to say something about the state of the world, get nitpicky with specifics and craft yourself a monster!
The Romantic Monster
It’s likely you’ve seen some version of this particular monster story, where the monster falls in love with a human, or vice versa. This type of story has become increasingly popular with a specific monster: vampires. This recent flush in popularity stems from the story of Dracula but recent authors have put new twists on this classic. For example, the popular series Twilight deals with vampires and werewolves as sympathetic and worthy of desire. The commonality in making these stories work however is a sense of the monster being misunderstood by the general population. If the monster is too mean, too scary, or too vile, they wouldn’t be redeemable into a suitable love interest. When people read these sorts of stories they read to identify not just with a human character seeing the good in someone different, but also as the monster worthy of being loved.
While I may not personally enjoy this genre, in recent years it has flourished because of new ways to publish. Fanfiction and the self-publishing industry have increased access to all forms of monster romance stories. If you are interested in writing one of these stories there is a lot of reference material!
The Grotesque Monster
Likely, when you think of a stereotypical “monster” story, this is the type of story you’re thinking of. This type of monster story is meant to scare, to terrify, to blend reality with fiction and say something about what people should be afraid of. This type of story is also inherently a social commentary because it says that this is what fear is. This creature you’ve created is supposed to be scary for a reason and that reason is a commentary. Maybe your monster is scary because he doesn’t fit social norms or because he purposefully breaks them. Or maybe this monster is scary because he looks different, other than human.
When writing these types of monsters, be sure to think through how this monster is meant to be scary because there is a lot of room for insensitivity for minority groups. Many monsters in the past were written to be scary because they represented groups from other cultures with traditions deemed “unseemly”. For example many monster stories were created around Native American culture and traditions because they were “different”. These traditions were twisted and manipulated until they became monstrous. When writing a grotesque monster, make sure to analyze possible biases and move away from them where you can. It can be effective to find a commentary on something political or societal rather than cultural or religious that you want to focus on before even starting to form this monster.
Along this line, sometimes monsters are scary because they look different, but people all look different from each other as well. Keep in mind that there are insensitive practices and behaviors that your monster probably should not mirror. In the past, some monster appearances and behaviors have been formed around exacerbated stereotypes of disabled individuals or people of color. For your monster story, a good practice might be to take a look at different animals to merge and mix until you create the best (and nonoffensive) grotesque monster you can.
The Sympathetic Monster
Sometimes the monster is the good guy. The best example of this concept is Shrek, where the hero of the story is an ogre who presents in every way but appearance as human. The main focus of the film is to prove that humanity is more than looks, which was best represented through the perspective of a misunderstood monster. This type of monster story utilizes the misunderstood concept like the romantic monster and the sympathetic element like the monster as metaphor. These three types generally work hand in hand.
You’ll see a lot of this type of monster in children’s stories, but it’s prevalent in superhero stories and sci-fi media as well. When writing a sympathetic monster, you want to consider what trait sets him apart from others and why that is wrong. Research into disability studies, queer theory, and cultural norms is a great way to contextualize the commentary you want your monster story to make. Why is your monster treated unjustly, and how can the characters in the story (and thus people in real life) fix it?
There are certainly biases to consider when writing this type of monster as well. Be sure you are not attempting to represent a culture or experience that is not your own because even with good intentions there is still misrepresentation. It also might be worth having a peer read for sensitivity. Another thing to watch out for in this type of monster story is avoiding the “Mary Sue” character. A “Mary Sue” is a perfect character: no flaws, no spats or arguments, no personality. If you want to humanize a monster, make them really human, flaws and all.
A Monstrous Ending
Building a monster doesn’t automatically mean you have a fully fleshed-out monster story, but it does mean you have a start. Creating every detail you can about your monster, their backstory, and how they operate more often than not leads you to the rest of your plot. Say you’ve just created a vampire who kills because he can’t remember who he is, the natural plot might be him trying to find out his backstory.
When you know your primary character, hero or villain of the story, the plot will follow. Trust yourself to give your monster the freedom to tell its story. Write your “Freak of the Night” how you believe their story should be told. After all, every monster story is jarring, scary, funny, and unique in its own right.
Click or tap this quick tips guide to expand and download it!
About the author: Samantha Sextonson is a senior Creative Writing major at Murray State University with a minor in humanities. As a teen, she was published in Teen Ink Magazine and has focused her efforts on writing thought provoking queer and feminist prose and poetry since her early teens. When she's not writing, Samantha enjoys crocheting, consuming crime shows, and various other hobbies one might find their grandmother doing.