I Eat Monsters for Breakfast

I'm delicious.

Literally.

Have you ever had a Green Monster? I made mine using Oh She Glows recipe. It's awesome. Yes, I know it sounds disgustingly healthy (and it is) but it's pretty dang scrumptious. I used crunchy peanut butter in mine (because that's what I have) but other than that the recipe is the same.

But all this slurping of monsters got me thinking about monsters in writing. I'll admit, creating monsters and villains is one of my favorite pastimes. I let my imagination go wild, oftentimes even illustrating my creations on paper. I had a lot of fun drawing some of the characters in DRAGON QUEEN, for sure.

What's difficult, however, is making a monster that hasn't been done before. One that is familiar enough to be recognized, but unique enough to be original (and fitting to the story).

Take Twilight's vampires for example (yes, I did go there). Vampires have been done and done again. They all have something in common: they drink blood. Variations ensue from there. Some are soulless. Some are evil. Some are ugly (I really liked how Evie in Paranormalcy could see what they really looked like--rotting corpses). Some are beautiful. Some are friendly towards humans (even to the point of spawning half-human half-vamp babies) and some look at humans merely as take-out. But sometimes you have to make a vamp sparkle to make your story sparkle. (Har har.) Admit it, even if you haven't read the books or seen the movies, chances are you've still heard about Meyers' sparkling vampires. Love it, hate it--it's memorable.

Tangent: I just realized that none of the bad vamps are caught "sparkling." Why is that I wonder? Because Ms. Meyers didn't want to connect evil with beautiful? I smell a missed opportunity for some depth there. Okay, yeah, depth wasn't the point of any of the books.

But back to what I was exploring: It's not just monsters that need your extra attention. Villains, too, need to be more than just the epitome of evil. They need to have motivations. They need to have desires. Sometimes, they even need to believe that they are the ones who are good. (Nothing is creepier than a bad guy who thinks he's the hero, truly.)

Because I'm nice (and busy eating monsters) here are some links to articles on how to create villains and what makes a good/bad one. Very cool. Very helpful. Enjoy!

How Not to Create a Villain

Make the Villain the Hero

Cardboard Cutouts Make Rotten Villains (I found this one especially interesting!)