# How to describe dragons in fantasy stories.



## WazpByte (Jun 4, 2016)

Hello, I'm Wazp and I've been building a fantasy world and writing it's story for a little while now, and need some help. Namely, I've been creating a "Dragon" charcter, and I'm wondering how to make this charcter sound large, intimidating, and "Dragon-ish". Here's what I have now (keep in mind, "Shkal", the name of the dragon, was mentioned earlier; the readers already know it).

Shkal stood above the burnt forest, eyes engulfed in a firey red glow. He slid his wings along the destroyed treeline, pleased with the destruction he had wrought forth. It was only power and might that he felt, as he looked upon his endless carnage. In a blaze of anger he had burnt the entire anchient forest down to the ground.​
After reading this, I don't feel like Shkal sounds all that scary. He seems like a normal, run-of-the-mill, Dragon. That's not what I want. I want him to sound big, mean, and mad. So, if you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.


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## CupofJoe (Jun 5, 2016)

Okay, as far as I'm concerned a "run-of-the-mill dragon" is probably going to be pretty dammed scary no matter what. So dialling everything up to 11 doesn't really add anything.
For me what I've read lacks any scale/time/size, a point to mark Shkal against...
How big was the ancient forest? How high is he flying? Is his carnage really endless?
Maybe a counter point for the one bit of a castle/mountain/forest that survived his wrath that he swats away?


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## K.S. Crooks (Jun 5, 2016)

Perhaps to appear cruel, which I think is what you're after, have Shkal go out of his way to burn down a structure or creature, perhaps out of spite or revenge or simply because he is bigger and badder than anyone else around. Another idea is to have Shkal walk through the carnage admiring his work and have his skin catch on fire. Dragons are already viewed as being physically powerful, what you need t do is create a psychological aspect that brings it from being a strong predator to being a vicious hunter.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jun 5, 2016)

I think your problem is that, in this short excerpt, there is only Shkal. 

Does Shkal consider himself scary? Are you afraid of yourself? Probably not.

However, if you were a character (human, elf, fuzzy bunny, etc.) hiding behind a tree on the edge of the burning forest, watching this dragon scan the countryside as the fire burned closer & closer, hotter & hotter, knowing that time ran short before you'd have to make a run for it...that would be terrifying. 

My advice:
If you want your dragon to terrify, have your reader experience Shkal through the eyes (and other senses) of a terrified character.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jun 5, 2016)

Let's take a glance at what you are doing. 

First sentence is a photo, no action, and what does "engulfed in fiery red glow" even mean? If the eyes are glowing themselves, you are describing it in a passive (telling) manner, as written it is a non-action without an actor. It could be reflection, we don't know. 

Second Sentence: We get a little action, sliding wings along a tree line, and he is pleased... first, "he had wrought forth" is awkward, simplify. Next, there's nothing here to inspire fear, it's tame. Heck, this whole nonevent could've been self-defense as far we know right now.

Third sentence: Again, nothing is happening, he looks, which is about as weak of a verb as you can get. And carnage, what carnage?We've got trees with no implication of bodies whatsoever, unless the trees were sentient. Carnage should be more than destruction, it really requires dead people. As is, it's an overstatement of the violence.

Fourth sentence: Not one lick of action, a brief and uninspiring flashback to action. Total tell, no show. Here you tell us what the scene should have been.

Conclusion, this paragraph starts after the interesting bit, with zero action and heavy dose of telling. If you want to grip a reader in any character, not just as "intimidating", anything, show them being that don't tell us about it. 



WazpByte said:


> Hello, I'm Wazp and I've been building a fantasy world and writing it's story for a little while now, and need some help. Namely, I've been creating a "Dragon" charcter, and I'm wondering how to make this charcter sound large, intimidating, and "Dragon-ish". Here's what I have now (keep in mind, "Shkal", the name of the dragon, was mentioned earlier; the readers already know it).
> 
> Shkal stood above the burnt forest, eyes engulfed in a firey red glow. He slid his wings along the destroyed treeline, pleased with the destruction he had wrought forth. It was only power and might that he felt, as he looked upon his endless carnage. In a blaze of anger he had burnt the entire anchient forest down to the ground.​
> After reading this, I don't feel like Shkal sounds all that scary. He seems like a normal, run-of-the-mill, Dragon. That's not what I want. I want him to sound big, mean, and mad. So, if you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.


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## psychotick (Jun 5, 2016)

Hi,

Going to rewrite this a little bit:

Shkal stood in front of the burning forest, his eyes glowing red with flame and a cruel smile curling up the edges of his scaly lips. He was pleased with the destruction he had wrought, especially when he saw the town in the distance still burning brightly, and could hear the distant shrieks of the people in them. They sounded like cheers to him. In a blaze of anger he had burnt the entire ancient forest down to the ground and the world of fire in front of him was testament to his power.

Hope that helps.

Cheers, Greg.


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## chrispenycate (Jun 7, 2016)

I talked to my dragons about the matter (other people get voices, I get dragons) and they reckoned that setting a forest fire is no indication of anger or cruelty. It's the sort of thing a young fledgling can do by accident and get mildly scolded for - dragons are none too ecological. Similarly their extended lifespan means that the antiquity of the site is less important given a bit of time, trees grow back. If you burn out a town you've hardly got time to turn around and survey your results before they're rebuilding (although here, humans at least will be sending out killers to prevent you from doing it again - at least a recognition of your acts). To be a worthwhile gesture it has to be aimed at someone (or class of someones) specific. Revenge for an insult, or at least focused irritability.

Trouble is, when you come down to it, dragons have a lot of excuses to destroy human works and things humans enjoy (and humans themselves). If you start going in to motives they don't look all that evil, even if they do expect an annual tribute maiden…


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## bdcharles (Jun 8, 2016)

WazpByte said:


> Hello, I'm Wazp and I've been building a fantasy world and writing it's story for a little while now, and need some help. Namely, I've been creating a "Dragon" charcter, and I'm wondering how to make this charcter sound large, intimidating, and "Dragon-ish". Here's what I have now (keep in mind, "Shkal", the name of the dragon, was mentioned earlier; the readers already know it).
> 
> Shkal stood above the burnt forest, eyes engulfed in a firey red glow. He slid his wings along the destroyed treeline, pleased with the destruction he had wrought forth. It was only power and might that he felt, as he looked upon his endless carnage. In a blaze of anger he had burnt the entire anchient forest down to the ground.​
> After reading this, I don't feel like Shkal sounds all that scary. He seems like a normal, run-of-the-mill, Dragon. That's not what I want. I want him to sound big, mean, and mad. So, if you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.



Hi,

I wonder if the issue is one of word choices. I can see you have some good ones - engulfed, fiery glow, destroyed, wrought forth and so on. But you need more. Your words must carry violence with them. Words like "slid" and pleased" and all that about his internal mindset. Rather than being Shkal POV-wise, who probably did nothing more innocent than a quiet sit down hehe, be a warrior, standing near this burned-out village, surveying it all, knowing that your loved ones have perished in the rosy conflagration. Dig deep and think about the terrible things this dragon has done (though I'm sure they were all perfectly justified!  ). Also think about what you want to convey? Shkal's size, or his destructive actions. Your answer to that should feed into the words you use. There are loads available, plus all manner of images and metaphors your mind can come up with. If you'll forgive a little rewrite, let's focus on Shkal's size. Think massive scale and huge impact beyond the boundaries of Shkal himself. And make it vivid. Let's say the trees are not "burnt", they are "burning" because this terrible situation is not at an end.



> Shkal stood above the burning forest. Flames, more than thee times the size of the tallest redwood, leapt skyward but they barely touched his great snout as it guffed smoke so black it seemed it must be shot through with the direst spears of lightning. Above his head swirled a rim of angry clouds as if the firmament itself was pulling back at the arrival of this catastrophic beast. One leathered wingtip swept across the charred treetops, knocking swathes of trees to the conflagration below and as they tumbled, Shkal lent voice to a roar of such abysmal ferocity that the very air seemed to shake at the destruction wrought forth.



So there, I've really let go (probably over-the-top) with monster words like great, guffing (!), direst lightning, angry clouds, catastrophic, devastation, abysmal ferocity, and all of that to really try and push forth the power that this beast emits with its sheer presence. Let no tree, no element, no building nor the smallest daisy remain ignorant of the anger of this dragon. I have the world, the very nature of the place, seem to interact with him, to contextualise his power. Think about a person. They might be normal. Now think about a second person interacting with that person. That second person might bow, they might be on their knees, gibbering prayers in a dead language. The walls may bend away at this person's presence. Yet nothing about that person has changed. their environment has -_ in response_ to them. Give that a try  Good luck!


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## Russ (Jun 8, 2016)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> My advice:
> If you want your dragon to terrify, have your reader experience Shkal through the eyes (and other senses) of a terrified character.



While there is other good advice in this thread, I think this point is the core of your struggle.

POV is key in projecting emotion effectively.  Being the in dragon's POv just cannot do what you need it to do.  A dragon is not going to feel terrified, or be awed by himself, that is just their everyday world.  

This situation cries out for another point of view that can perceive those things about your dragon in a meaningful way.

You need a normal(ish) character to provide scale and impact to  your big beast.

I don't know what your POV plan for the whole book is, but to achieve what you suggest in your OP you need another POV.


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