Please help me describe a monster

[tamra bow]

Hey guys,
I have chosen to take on a writing genre using gothic romance.
My ideas are on a female monster who lures a male into her castle (typical gothic) and entraps him to fall in love with her. I have some really great ideas for a story to follow with twists BUT
I am really stumped on how to describe a monster and cant think what actually makes her so monstrous or scary.
Id ADORE some ideas, input or some imagery??
thanks so much guys
Tam

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Moved this to workshop. No one's going to write this for you, but if you're like most human beings you probably have a few monsters in the attics of your own mind that you can draw on. It's just that if she is to be really scary, the love angle may be awkward (or it may need to magically-aided). Good luck!

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

As knivesout so mentions, this shouldn't be too written out, but some advice IS in store here.

About the only way a scary, gothic style monster could actually ever cause a mortal human man to fall in actual love with her is to have some magical charm, and that points out to two different types: vampires and succubi.

It's really up to you to decide which to use, but I must point out that most of a succubus'/incubus' power derives from invading their victim's dreams and taking their minds over that way whilst vampires charm who they want to while their victim is awake. Still, seeing as how succubi and incubi really aren't used very often, I'd personally prefer to go that route. Vampire romance is getting very, very cliche and very, very teenage.

 

[Sparrow]

If I were you I would model your "female monster" after a real person.

Use this woman as a template...

http://www.secretsofsarahpalin.com/2008/09/01/10-pictures-sarah-palin-doesnt-want-you-to-see/

 

[The Judge]

If I were you I would model your "female monster" after a real person.

Use this woman as a template...

10 Pictures Sarah Palin Doesn’t Want You To See : Secrets Of Sarah Palin

But I thought the point was she had to be attractive in some way so the guy would fall in love with her...

My opinion for what it's worth Tamra (probably not much as I don't read horror) is to make her 'normal' in the sense of no scales, or big pointy teeth etc, and show the monster inside by her callousness and casual sadism. For some reason, as well, monsters in novels seem worse if they are highly intelligent (which means Sparrow's idea is a definite non-starter ).

J

 

[ctg]

Hey guys,

My ideas are on a female monster who lures a male into her castle (typical gothic) and entraps him to fall in love with her.

I am really stumped on how to describe a monster and cant think what actually makes her so monstrous or scary. I'd ADORE some ideas, input or some imagery??

So you actually know what you're talking about, but lack on ability to dress it on words. Thing is that you have already described your monster, meaning that she's either a shape-shifter, or then she uses 'servants' to lure in the potential lover.

What you can do is to play with either ideas. First, if she's a shape-shifter or a doppelgänger, then describe her to use in human terms. Meaning that what she looks and so on. But when you come to reveal her true identity, let the suspense come into the picture. Let the man to find out due either some unfortunate accident what she really looks like, or then let her monstrosity to ooze out as she hungers for him. When you do describe her a monster, then you can use visuals as fangs, rotting flesh, pestilence boxes, hanging skin etc.

But if you have decided to go for the hidden queen agenda, then give the readers from the beginning a hint of her monstrosity. Keep her hiding behind the curtains and falling in love with the man that her servant seduces.

However, you can always go back to third way, and use a simple twisted human to do all the monstrosities. You can always hint about something else, but when the twist comes, reveal to the readers that what they read was just a ruse that she'd organised.

 

[Vladd67]

Try reading The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski there is an interesting take on beauty and the beast in there. You may be able to work something from this.

 

[Sparrow]

Actually, Tamra, you're going to find it exceedingly difficult making a true monster out of your female lead character if all she's doing is killing male lovers. Most of us don't get overly emotional when a man is murdered by his female lover, even when blinded by love, it's just not very horrifying.

We cut women a lot of slack in this regard.

 

[Bontemps]

You could take a cue from Miss Havisham and her protege, Estella in Great Expectations for motivation.
I found her bitterness to men and alien way of regarding them to be very cold and creepy when I first read the book.
Gothic was more about internal monstrosity wasn't it? rather than a creature-feature.
(Mind you, when I first read your post I thought of a female spider, drawing in her prey!)
Perhaps a way of showing her evil nature is to let the reader see what happened to her last victim, what remains or how she deals with them. That way the reader could fear for the life of the new would-be victim as she begins her seduction.

 

[mosaix]

There was a thread on this last year...

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/45009-description-of-a-monster.html

 

[chrispenycate]

It might be more piquante if the monsteress looked every bit as deformed and dangerous as she was, but managed to make the intruding males feel pity for her, which she converted first to sympathy, and finally to love, not merely sexual attraction; the kind of love that can hear no wrong about the object of desire.

Hmm. Doing this for one sucker sounds possible; for a sequence of them would take a special talent…

 

[Izmir Mike]

I would take my cue from Nature. There are no actual monsters in Nature but there are plenty of frightening beasts and critters. Each of them act in a way logical to its survival or its reproduction.
There are many species of insects, for example, that combine the art of love and the art of murder. Imagine for a minute a praying mantis human sized and you are her victim. There is something about the coldness and fixed intent, the thing without pity.

That might be a fairly good place to start. A sudden metamorphosis from comely human female to homicidal insect is a possibility. I admit it is slightly outside of the typical Gothic category of monster but think of it as a test of your skills.

 

[dreamhunter]

Hey guys,
I have chosen to take on a writing genre using gothic romance.

My ideas are on a female monster who lures a male into her castle (typical gothic) and entraps him to fall in love with her.

Id ADORE some ideas, input or some imagery??

It's the Black Widow, of course. CTG has got it all ready for ya. It's in her avatar. LOL.

Dont know, if you'd adore my ideas, but it's easy, Tam. 8 (or 24) pairs of huge, scaly, prickly, stumpy legs, 4 pairs of big, bulbous eyes popping out of her head like car headlights, plenty of really long, greasy, creepy-crawly hair all over her slimy body, 2 pairs of enormous, poisonous, vice-like scorpion-like pincers (she's a mutant spider, you see) and a pungent, stinking, fuming breath that she could ignite into a flaming fireball at will, when she focuses her irredeemably evil mind with murderous intensity.

Oh, she's like 10 foot tall, or long (depending on whether she's standing or crawling), n maybe like 600 lb in weight. How about ya make her a shape-shifting female cyborg, under a 1,000 year curse, at the end of which she reverts to full human form, as a beautiful princess, heiress to a fallen ancient empire?

Speaking of female cyborgs, Natasha Henstridge in the movie 'Species' comes to mind. Though she was an alien rather than a cyborg, still she was good, I thought.

But if your monster looks anything like Natasha when she shifts into human form, I shall volunteer myself as her willing-unwilling victim, time n time again. Now then, there's a good opportunity for some dark, scary, mysterious but irresistible Gothic romance.

 

[Nik]

My protagonist in Long Weekend is a female monster. The Bitch Queen has desirability and Gothic trimmings. Displays casual, but calculated cruelty. Has an Archean Arean Insectoid avatar. Would have seduced the innocent Page --"... be mine, body and soul, before he knew what had happened..."-- if necessary...

Twist, of course, is mistaken identity...

 

[MistingWolf]

Why is it that "scary" monsters are usually scaled? Why can't there be a freakish creature with ragged feathers or something?

Anyway, take a look at a couple of drawings by Pallanoph from DeviantArt:

Terror Unwinding by *pallanoph on deviantART

Chimaera Sketch by *pallanoph on deviantART

Kelpie head study by *pallanoph on deviantART

Yl sketch no. 1 by *pallanoph on deviantART [the character I created but can't draw so well. I love Yl ^^]

[She also has other, not-so-creepy drawings. Indeed, most of her gallery is lovely]

A couple of good takes on some "common" creatures [the chimera and kelpie]. Take a look around Wiki for a list of mythical beasts. There's quite a few in which you're describing. Perhaps make a combination of one or two or four. Perhaps your creature can create an illusion or make the male hallucinate into making him think she is physically beautiful when she wouldn't really be? I'm sure typing in "monster" in your search bar will turn up lots and lots of goodies.