Legends of Windemere

Dungeons and Dragons

Creating monsters for a fantasy world can be done in a variety of ways.  None of them are better than the others, so the author can use the one that suits them best.  It doesn’t even have to be one method and that’s all.  You can have monsters coming from all styles of creation, which is probably the best tactic.  Mixing it up creates a lush and deep world where there is familiarity and new.  Keeps the audience on their toes.

Now, what are the methods?

1. Mythology/Folklore–  This is the simplest one to explain, but can be the hardest one to pull off.  You have to do research here.  Plenty of monsters have been created throughout human history, so there will inevitably be one that can fit what an author is looking for.  The trick is to get it right because these come with pre-existing expectations and knowledge.  You can only change these monsters so much before you’ve made something entirely new and piss off anyone who is a fan.  There’s also the issue of some monsters having multiple forms and versions, so you need to research the various aspects if you want to get it completely right.
2. Mother Nature Frankenstein– Creating monsters this way will take some time and you may need to keep notes.  The basic concept is that you take pieces and abilities of real animals then mash them together.  This is probably how many mythological creatures came about like the Peryton (winged stag) and centaurs (human/horse combo).  Again, it seems simple, but there is a danger.  Some authors may get too into adding parts and creature too big of an amalgamation.  The best way to use this method is to have a reason for each part and keeping it at 1-2 solely for aesthetic reasons.  Everything else should serve a purpose.  This makes sense because real animals tend to evolve adaptations that are useful instead of simply looking cool.
3. Straight from the Mental Depths–  There is no mythological or natural origin for what you’ve created.  It’s just a strange creature that you came up with.  These tend to be made up on the fly, which is why they can be so bizarre.  The author starts with a challenge and then designs the monster as soon as it appears.  Then, it is altered and changed as the scene is written.  Abilities are granted to counter the heroes until the fight has gone on long enough.  It’ll be redesigned at least once to accommodate any of these changes.  Think of this as being made entirely from clay, which will not dry until the final edits are complete.  Personally, I find this to be the most amount of fun and the most difficult out of the 3 methods.  You are a lot more likely to go overboard here because there’s no restriction of pre-existing information (mythology) or laws of nature (Mother Nature).

So, those are the 3 main ways that I can think of.  I’m sure there are more as well as some subcategories.  Still, you’re generally going to have these three because they each have different levels of reality/stability.  Mythology has the most since you’re working with creatures that have already been created.  Mother Nature is in the middle because you’re making something new, but using real beasts with a touch of magic at times.  SFTMD is pure imagination with nothing acting as a solid foundation until the author is done with the design.

The method that one chooses depends on entirely on what they want for the scene and your own comfort levels.  This means you can’t declare one method better than the others or shame people for taking what you see as the laziest path.  Everyone has their own way of doing things.  Some authors aren’t good at making monsters, so they’ll work solely with mythology.  Others are great at monsters, but aren’t good at other things.  We all have our own strengths and weaknesses, which monster creation can fall into.  As long as the beast works for the scene, one shouldn’t complain about its origin.

Young Frankenstein

Fairly certain that I’ve tackled this topic before.  I felt like doing it again because the question still comes up.  Since fantasy authors are known for having strange creatures in their stories, people wonder how they design them.  Is there a trick?  Do you need a special kind of mentality for it?

I’m going to be doing a 7 Tips post tomorrow and going over the 3 big methods of creation on Friday.  What does that leave for today?  Not much beyond a basic introduction to the topic.  Sorry that this won’t be that deep a dive, but monster creation isn’t that easy to explain.

Audiences take it for granted and think it’s easy to toss in a few dragons here and there.  I’ve seen people complain about fantasy depending so much on monsters too.  Well, they are a staple of the genre just like horses and cows are commonly found in Westerns.  It is strange how often fantasy gets criticized for its monsters being there and torn up for being unrealistic when that’s the genre.  The amount of times I’ve seen people explain how a dragon cannot exist in our world is frustrating.  Especially since:

These stories don’t happen in our world!

This is a key point to monster creation.  You don’t have to follow real world laws of nature if you need your monster to do something.  If it needs to breathe fire or eat metal then you have it do so.  No explanation needs to be given either because they simply could have evolved to be like that or been magically created.  With magic being around, it would be rather strange that there aren’t any weird animals.  At least one person would have tried to create new species and ‘improve’ on ones that existed.  So, a key point is to not let reality and the criticism of those who can’t step out of reality drive you to avoid adding monsters at all.

Monster creation is a key aspect of world building in high fantasy.  You can get away with not doing it in a world that is low magic, but it’s hard to resist.  The moment you introduce a non-human character, an animal that has a fantasy ability, or a beast that doesn’t exist, you’re doing monster creation.  Yes, even elves, dwarves, gnomes, and orcs would fall under this category.  They aren’t real beings, so they need to be created from imagination, which requires using the same methods as one would use for wilder monsters.  So, you can see that it is very hard to avoid this aspect, especially if you don’t want your fantasy story to come off as fairly empty.  People who enjoy the genre tend to expect at least one fictional being.

Personally, I like creating monsters.  It’s one of the more interesting parts of writing fantasy for me.  I can’t even explain why.  There’s just something fun and exciting about building a beast that doesn’t exist.  You mold it to what you need and unleash it on your characters.  Sure, it will probably have to get killed off, but you can bring back another for a later story.  Once you create a monster, it’s yours to use whenever you need it.  There’s no rule that every monster has to be one-of-a-kind, so you can gradually build up your own bestiary.  This adds a great dimension to the world because now it has its own unique flora and fauna.

So, what do you think about monster creation?