listen to the podcast

On October 19, 2024, Kasie and Rex continued their horror conversation by focusing on the monsters. Here are the show notes:

Theme for the day

Spooky Season: Monsters

Agenda

• Quick Catch Up
• Horror re-cap (last week)
• Monsters!

Segments 1/2

So in keeping with our spooky season October theme, we’re gonna focus on monsters this episode. And we’ve done this a few different ways in the past. With Thaddeus Jones on Episode 199 when Rex was gone and I invited filmmaker and horror fan Dr. Thad Jones into the studio. That was two years ago! So we’ll borrow some of that. 

But then, even earlier than that in our first pass at the Seven Deadly Sins on Episode 153, we took the “rage” sin to the monster level. 

In Episode 232 we looked at human monsters: mafia, gangsters, thugs, and monsters we see on TV. They’re often fueled by the same rage and revenge of our monster monsters. 

Lastly, in Episode 230 and 231 we took on writing in existing lore and all the pre-existing monster conditions you’re bound to if you choose to write werewolves, vampires, fairies, mermaids, or any other mythical creature.  

So this episode will be a little bit (best of?) all those. Capiche? We’re justice calling it “Monsters” because we haven’t actually done an episode focused on monsters.

Let’s start with the factors that make monsters compelling in a story:

• Get the blood pumping – there’s adrenaline in monsters: what will they do? How do we defeat them? Can we defeat them? Will they give chase? Will they be violent?
• Make the protagonist work for it – every monster has a vulnerability, but the heroine has to figure out what it is and that work is compelling.
• Exploit characters’ stupidity – every protagonist has a dumbstreak, monsters won’t let you get by with making dumb choices, the protagonist will fail. That’s compelling.
• Monsters scare everyone in the film – even the bravest hero (looking at you, Buffy) doubts their ability against a progressively-evil monster. That’s compelling.

Why do we love monster stories? This blog attempts to explain: “We have a way of organizing the world into predictable categories for easy understanding, cognition, and manipulation.” But monsters disrupt those neat definitions and confuse our sensibilities. 

As neuroscientist Mark Miller explained on the podcast The Gray Area, horror movies and monster stories give our brains a chance to rehearse (while not in danger) what we would do, feel, see, think, say, if we were in danger. It’s a space to practice being under threat without actually being under threat. It’s good for us.

Segment 3

Monsters can almost to-a-one be defined by their rage. They’ve reached a braking point and decided to act out – take revenge, murder someone. Where does the rage come from?

Some of the tropes associated with “Wrath” include:

• Hair-Trigger Temper: when the extremeness of anger is over the ease of provoking it.
• Tranquil Fury: when the extremeness of anger is made more dangerous by calmness of mind.
• Unstoppable Rage: when the extremeness of anger is left uncontrolled, and yet serves as a source of great power.

What motivates our monsters? What gets them to take action?

They might feel: (from this blog)

• Alienated
• Disillusioned
• Repressed/oppressed

They’re driven by:

• The desire to seek change
• A need to shake up societal norms
• The desired to seek revenge or retribution

Segment 4

So how do you do it? How do you create a monster?

This blog offers this advice:

• Physical characteristics are not just for show – they should all have a purpose either defense, offense, or repulsion or attraction
• Psychological traits should play on our fears – what are people afraid of and how can your monsters exploit those fears?
• Targets – monsters have a preferred prey, so what is your monster’s preferred prey? And, for that matter, what sets the monster off? What triggers it?
• Weaknesses – what makes it vulnerable? How can it be defeated?
• Provide some background – all monsters need an origin story; remember that the monster doesn’t know it’s a monster, it thinks it’s the hero
• Leave room for the imagination – not every detail needs to be described, let the reader fill in the blanks and add their own fears to it
• Give the monster a name – something to identify it, something we can call it
• Make the monster hard to kill – the harder they are to defeat, the scarier they become.