How to Write a Monster That Will Scare Your Readers

The word ‘monster’ stirs up various ideas of traits and psychological aspects of creepy creatures people fear, but there are a number of ways monsters can be portrayed:

• Physical characteristics. Monsters can be massive and powerful, like King Kong or Mothra. It can have slimy body parts, rows of sharp teeth, tentacles, a coat of thick armor, or be a completely small and unassuming sort of thing. The physical characteristics of your monster aren’t just for effect, either. Your monster character design should make sense with the background you’ve provided. For example, if it has wings, it should use them to fly. Monsters aren’t decorative—they're reflections of peoples’ deepest rooted fears.
  
• Psychological traits. Some believe that the true monsters are the ones that lurk inside our own minds. Monsters can scare us when they play into phobias, like Pennywise from Stephen King’s It (1986), who appeared as a vicious clown but also took the form of the main characters’ greatest fears. Monsters can also be symbolic or emotional manifestations. Sometimes monsters don’t need to interact with the characters at all—the characters build the fear around the idea of the monster themselves—which can amplify the terror that readers and viewers feel along with them.
• Who it targets. Does it feed on children? Is it attracted to despair? Does it get violent at the scent of blood? What triggers your monster? When does it appear, and why? Knowing what motivates your monster is the key to figuring out why it behaves the way it does and creates a sense of understanding for your audience.
• What it’s weak to. Is there anything that can vanquish your monster? Is it able to be defeated? Does it hate daylight? Giving your monster its own rules and limits can help establish a believable creature. However, lacking a weakness can also be part of your monster’s horror as well.

Monsters can be science fiction creations with gaping maws and poisonous fangs, but they can also be like human beings as well, like a rogue android or possessed parent. Below is a list of famous literary, television, and film monsters:

1. 1. Count Dracula: Infamous vampire from Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897).
2. 2. Balrogs: Menacing monsters of fire and shadow in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series (1937).
3. 3. Mr. Hyde: Evil alter-ego of the character Dr. Jekyll, from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886).
4. 4. The Giant Squid: The monster from the depths in Jules Verne’s classic, Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1872).
5. 5. Jack Torrance: The alcoholic father from Stephen King’s The Shining (1977).

If you’re looking for how to make a monster of your own, there are a few guidelines you can follow to make your new monster feel like a real monster:

1. 1. Provide a little background. Your monster may not exist in the real world, but it still needs some logical follow-through. Where did it come from? Why does it look the way it does? Is it man-made like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1823)? Or is it a natural creature like Beowulf’s Grendel? You don’t have to answer every question about your monster in your writing (sometimes the unknown is just as scary), however, the audience should know a little background information to envision a full enough picture.
2. 2. Leave space for the imagination. Even though you want the audience to get a complete picture of your monstrosity, a person’s own imagination can always be scarier than anything someone else could create, like the Jabberwock from Lewis Carroll’s nonsense poem The Jabberwocky (1871). Leaving room for your reader to fill in the gaps may result in them imagining their own worst personal fears in conjunction with whatever horrors you’ve already laid out.
3. 3. Give it a name. Personifying a monster draws it a little closer into real-life, and giving something a name makes it feel more tangible. Sometimes the fear of a name lies in its ambiguity, like John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing,’ or it can be a name that feels scary and powerful, like Tomoyuki Tanaka’s ‘Godzilla.’ Or sometimes, it’s the existing name of a horrific mythological villain like ‘Typhon.’
4. 4. Make it hard to kill. Sometimes a monster is relentless and needs to be physically fought, and sometimes there’s a secret or trick to killing it that is unknown until later on in the story. Monsters that cannot be defeated easily create big moments of tension and anticipation for readers and viewers alike. The harder to kill, the scarier they become.

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