Monsters, and other things that inhabit your worlds

[Whytemanga]

@Kevlar - In truth, I pulled some random creature names from a hat to help back up my message with some examples. I ... think. I'm slightly dyslexic and highly ADHD riddled, so my text & thought patterns can sometimes be a li'l obscure.

I don't think very many people write fantastical things fretting that they need to "stay in-genre" and yet so many writers continue to write what they've read, and when asked why, they respond with something along the lines of, "it's the genre." That is why I think this is really a bigger battle.

A battle between genre and amateurisms.

If you're not writing with elves, orcs and dragons, is it really Fantasy? I think the answer is a definite "yes", and I'm sure many of you would agree. That is only the basis of my point, however, and not the point itself. Please, if I may...

I come from a background of drawing first and foremost. Although my life in high school focused more on writing for sure, I returned to art during my "brief flirtation" with post secondary education.

I tell you of my art exploits because in the art world of cartooning the amateurs always learn first and foremost by copying the great cartoonists who came before them -- logically, because those great artists "made it", and so have secrets in the craft that these young-in's can uncover. Logically. But in truth, we just draw their stuff because it's fricken' awesome, and I wanna draw more like those guys, and I wanna draw their characters, because I love them, and I want to see them do more awesome things.

In a sense, I wouldn't mind a certain percentage of who I am as a cartoonist to be replaced by a certain percentage of who those great creators were.

It's a good way to learn -- and it's very fun -- but it's not in the best interest of YOU or your GENRE.

I'm not about to tell you what you're genre is. I don't think anyone should (especially if "anyone" is a writer). Genre should really be a malleable, a dynamic thing, and not so tangible as to have staples, or traditional tropes & creatures.

It's in YOUR best interest, 'cuz what you really want is to be the next big thing, if you're like me. Maybe, to revitalize the genre, even, or, no, hopefully as I guess it's, no, it IS selfish not to try to do these things.

Consider. People may not realize it, but they don't want to read the same things over and over again. As a writer, this is just a truism you will eventually come to. But, then also consider, why should writers not go the whole ten miles and present entirely new creatures, races, and story tropes?

It'll take a while to dissect what makes these creatures, and these races, and these story tropes tick, definitely -- if you do it right, but I think it's the only way to really get what you really want. Given, you can't go SUPER left-field, because writing and art only work when based on things we've stored in our memories -- but they needn't be "my take on" pointy eared humans, or "my take on" bat winged lizards. Writing about those things is a lot of fun -- but it's essentially the same thing as drawing Naruto, Batman, or Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. A bit more diluted then Naruto or Johnny, but certainly Batman -- that ol' pointy-eared, bat-winged human. Indeed, DC continues to publish Batman because they like money -- and the core fanbase continues to buy Batman because they've already invested so much into the character, but the average person is, again, beginning to get a li'l fidgety when presented with a new Batman property. A li'l check-my-watch-every-five-minutes.

Make new stuff, just don't make it boring as all heck, or completely un-boring, aka: unbelievable. I'd like to consider elves a template now, rather than a tradition, if that makes sense.

We're standing in what people perceive as Tolkien's shadow otherwise. It's not a bad place to stand, 'tis true, especially with the sun blazing down on the scene as it does, but... I mean...

I want more than this. Why wouldn't you?

 

[Antaus]

There are tons of monsters in my fantasy world, it would be hard to list them all. I do use a lot of stock creatures though, goblins, orcs, trolls, dragons, and so on. The dragons in my story are intelligent and capable of speaking as well. As the world is still in development and I'm working on various aspects of things, I am working on several custom races right now though. Trying to think up stuff that's original isn't easy, a lot of times even 'original' critters have elements from other material.

 

[Shadoe]

I don't have a single goblin, orc, troll or dragon. I have flying tigers the size of elephants, though. They're the good guys. And there are flying jellyfish that behave like piranhas. They're NOT the good guys.

I've recently decided that there must be some kind of dangerous critters running about in the wilderness between the cities and settlements, otherwise the wilderness would be a lot more settled. I need to get some ideas on what those are....

 

[Argentum]

I have to agree with Whytemanga that elves are basically a template now. Most people don't really do much with it, but there are so many possibilities if writers would just take them and make them into something entirely new. I think it is fun to take stock creatures/creatures/races and turn them into something different.

All the creatures and monsters I made are humanoid in some way. All races are either plain human or half human, half lizard/mouse/mole/wolf/deer. I think it'll work out well. It should anyway. They're human enough to be considered simply a variation of human, but different enough to be considered inhuman/monster. I don't think I could create a race entirely new and un-humanoid and make it believable and interesting at the same time.

 

[Aegle]

Snorlax. The greatest monster of all. (I call my dad Snorlax every Sunday when he naps on the sofa.)


Winged elves intrigue me greatly. I'd love to wrap a story 'round their phases of creation.

 

[Argentum]

Ha ha! Snorlax! Brilliant!

Personally, I never cared much for stories where authors tried to create their own entirely different race. Not very many of them can pull it off without seeming to say, "LOOK! I created a whole new race! Aren't I original?" Now that I think about it, I don't think those writers put much effort into the creation of their non-human races. Of course, some of them can pull it off brilliantly.

 

[Aegle]

Yeah, and I developed a 'ghetto pixie' race, where the pixie is so bountiful in the 'backside' that her backside drags the ground, and she barely stays afloat.

I agree wholeheartedly, too. I still haven't given up on the human race for unique contrasts, etc. There are still stories to be told!

 

[Draconian]

Yeah I agree, but you would be surprised by how ideas people haven't thought which makes me wonder if i will think some of those ideas.

 

[Codey Amprim]

Well, I'm not going to go through the list of creatures that inhabit my realms, but I'll give you some advice.

Having all of these awesome and cool and badass creatures in your realm (while being creative with each, mind you.) isn't necessarily a bad thing! But, it isn't exactly realistic, either. Look at our world, we have sharks, lions and tigers and bears OH MY! but what do they all have in common?
Prey.
Your world can be filled with all of these terrifying, awesome, fantastic creatures, but they all need things to eat besides your heroes and villains! Unless your heroes and villains are cows... or pigs... or basically anything that says "eat me." And I doubt your characters are said things. Your world needs grazers, herbivores, gentle giants... the beings that are on the nice side of your world.

I feel like I'm being a tad harsh, but believe me I'm trying to help haha.
Hope I helped!

 

[Whytemanga]

Draw up one of those "this eats that" maps -- that'd be neat, and useful. An ecosystem, basically, is what you're saying. An ecosystem per bio--uh--sphere/dome/distinct landscape area. Your misty mountains, your webbed wood, & your rocky-filled-with-horses planes.

Eh, though I suppose most "insert magical creature here" are at the top of the food chain, this exercise might give yah the chance to stick them somewhere else, or devise that there is something more dangerous above them, or maybe even below them (to humans, maybe from poison) but this creature is immune, so it's able to eat it, etc. Lot's of options.Lot's of fun.

You don't need to be able to draw at all, either. Just write the name of the creature, circle it, then draw an arrow to whatever creatures it eats.

While your at it, hey, why should all creatures just eat each other? Maybe one HERE needs to only suck the marrow out of other creatures bones in order to build up it's shell for the winter time (or, etc). Maybe it only tends to hunt a certain large-boned creatures for that purpose, but sticks to smaller creatures for food.

Also, here's another idea, why can't some creatures domesticate their food sources? If they're actually smart, and not completely obsessed with their own culture's tradition of hunt (or etc), then I'd expect some bests to keep their own livestock in an escapable cave drop-down, or...well, you get the idea.

Ideas. WOOT. I post.

 

[grahamguitarman]

I agree that you need to think about the ecosystem as a whole and not just the predators, when I'm creating worlds for a novel (done plenty of that - just never got round to actually writing the novel till now) I always think about the little creatures as well as the big, what about the native birds, rabbits and other small creatures that make up the background of the world - that is what makes an invented world believable (assuming that is what you are after) the film Avatar is a good example of how a fantastic world seems more real for the wealth of wildlife living there.

As for elves & dwarves ect. they have become pretty much a template these days (a very tolkienian template at that) but they don't have to be! try going beyond Tolkien to the original tales that inspired him.

Did you know for example that in Norse/Old english mythology (which Tolkien took as his starting point for middle earth) Dwarves were dark creatures that lived underground - but not the richly carved great hall of middle earth, these were small damp & opressive caves and the dwarves were thought of as barely living creatures infused with much deep magic, capable of crafting wondrous magical rings & weapons but certainly not the heroic battle ready warriors we know from modern fantasy.

I'm still developing my world ecology (I decided to start writing the book before the world was complete this time) but there will be unusual beasts of burden, small flying mammals, and other benign herbivores that simply live their lives without having an impact on the world around them (other than eating the trees of course) then there will be some beast like humanoid races (with a storyline that explains the origins of some of those races) and trees that because of their unusual growth patterns make good living spaces for ordinary people if encouraged to grow in a certain way.

there will be elves and dwarves too but these will be my own interpretation of the tropes not the typical tolkien style elves & dwarves people are used to seeing, maybe even the stonelike unliving dwarves of norse mythology.

As an artist I also intend to have B&W illustrations throughout the book to show what things look like - partially because I cant resist drawing them but also because by doing so I hope to break the preconceptions that people have of how certain things should look (elves & dwarves especially)

 

[grahamguitarman]

Here is a preliminary sketch of the main mount in my world - a Loakir



Drawing sketches of the creatures in my world helps me to create more solid descriptions and often influences the way I write about them. the large ears for example came about because I decided I liked the look of them that way, this then lead on to descriptions of the animals care such as having to keep the ears clean and free of parasites, and the fact that Loakirs have excellent hearing. You don't even need to be good at drawing - even a bad sketch can help make a more solid description of your creation.

I'm also thinking of having an appendix with illustrations of the beasts / constructions of my world for which the sketches will be helpful.

 

[Codey Amprim]

That's a nice drawing, and a cool concept! Love the name, too!

 

[Whytemanga]

I'd love to read a good book that knows how to incorporate visual aids well. Very rare, though. Little more than maps and rune languages ever really make it past that powerful, initial "campy" feel for me, and there are many ways to screw up in the eyes of the reader a good map or glyph syllabify. Take Artemis Fowl for example. Liked the overall book; hated the fictional language's visuals (and I still do today ).

What's more worrying than image quality (to me, as there's little I think one can do about it) is how well one's potential demographics will receive the art for it's style or otherwise.

It could be the strongest art in the world (like Lackadaisycats.com) or the weakest (xkcd.com), but, if the overall audience you are pitching too isn't into your art, yah just won't find yur livelihood in their meek monetary response. (The beautiful Lackadaisy doesn't make enough profit to sustain the creator, but the simple efforts of xkcd has seen that it's creator lives a well-off existence. I get why, but it still frustrates many of the artists I know to no ends )

I don't think I've yet seen illustrations accompany the quickly-becoming-common fantasy index at the back of the books, but what I'd really like to see is a sort of encyclopedia-like insert (featuring illustrations) at the back of the book rather than a simple visual accompaniment to the index. I'm talking in-depth; stuff like word break-downs. I find it fascinating (and since many fantasy readers are total nerds (take a drink ) I'm sure many of them would agree!

In the end, just like how text inserts (see the Comic, Watchmen) can really kill a reader's enjoyment of their visual story experience, I kind'a more-than-surmise that images throughout a prose narrative would, likewise, do more damage than heal. My inexperienced opinion. You can find out for yourself, though. :>

Boy, I sure do adress off-topic stuffs. Take this awkwardly meta'ed lampshade hanging for example.

As for the original tales that inspired Mr. Tolkien -- many writers have already done that too--gone the way of the original, I mean, and I suppose ... still are

Nothing wrong with elves, orcs, or etc; tolkien's twist, the documented versions of the myth's twist, or your twist -- nothing wrong -- I'm just certain it would be more profitable (in the long-term) for us to ditch 'em like cold dirt and go for the real gold that lies buried beneath our land.

I say "long term" 'cuz, well... The more people see your work as uniquely your brand, the more fans, and subsequent chance at creating and maintaining a livelihood in this zanny creative endeavour, will you have.

Sure, this is your elves, maybe your worgen (if you're Blizzard-Activision Entertainment), but you could have something entirely yours. Humour me a moment longer and I'll explain.

Short-term gain would be the "built-in audience" for elves, and worgen (Blizzy's werewolves). Built-in audiences are people who'll automatically buy your work 'cuz they remember having a good experience with an elf and a werewolf in the last series they read. It sounds profitable, but here's the catch: in the end, I think it only really works as far as advertising. You see, once this audience is done with your elves and your werewolves, they're off to read someone else's. Your bold new take on gryphons and trogs is left in their dust. That's 'cuz this group is monetarily invested in elves and werewolves, not specifically your work.

You'll keep your core audience who like more than just your traditional tropes of course--I don't want to make anyone think they won't--but they sadly pale, when you're just starting out, in comparison to the already-massive demographic of elfwolf shippers.

People want ledges they can grab onto -- which tends to be the types of ledges they know to be grab-able and not at all slick, sticky or prickly -- certainly elves, werewolves, trolls, dwarves, dragons, and the likewise -- I'm just pretty sure you can build a more outstanding, and ultimately more rewarding house if you create your own bricks, rather than add purple dye to the brick mix; or going back to original mud-brick and hay design if you know what I mean.

If you can invent something that stands out of the current crowd entirely, without any noticeable drop in content quality, you will draw in many more readers than if you start with purple walls and hay roofs, 'cuz in the end, unfortunately, it's not skill that wins an artist or writer his or her livelihood. It's how many people you can spoon-feed with G̶a̶r̶f̶i̶e̶l̶d or...no, wait... your brand of vegetables.

 

[Anomander]

Creating everything in your world might be very difficult. You'd have to come up with something that seems authentic in that world, and not completly absurd or laughable. The creatures need names, description, backstoy maybe etc. That's why there is so much borrowing of material in the fantasy genre. Making something that is completely revolutionizing is really hard. That's why we so often see elves, dwarves, dragons etc. in different fantasy books. It's much easier taking certain things from other books and then making some new creatures that are original.

 

[Misusscarlet]

I have the regular old creatures in my story. I have some 3-tailed cow looking creatures. Gigantic painted mustangs. Dragons of course. Shapeshifters, of course I haven't read about anyone creating a blue fox shapeshifter. My main character though, her species I thought of. The best way to describe her is a butterfly. She metamoprhs into something new as she grows older and gains more experience. Her hair color and eye color changes as her power increases, a subtle change.

 

[mythique890]

As for drawings within books, anyone read Sanderson's The Way of Kings? I only read a sample, but my mom had it, so I saw the book. Pretty cool, IMO.

There's something to be said for tropes, they're repeated for a reason: people like them. Books written about familiar creatures with twists tend to sell better. People like what is familiar. That said, I like it when an author takes a less 'done' fantasy creature and makes something out of them. Speaking of, has anyone noticed the run on angels lately? Kind of made me mad, because back in 2008 I was trying to come up with a good race that hadn't been overdone, and I was like, "Hey! Angels!" Cassandra Clare totally put me out of business. At least her story is decent. The other two authors I know of who used angels, one is 'meh' and the other is plain terrible-bad-awful.

Anyway... I have dragons. In defense of my dragons, they do have a twist and they don't live in a high fantasy realm. They live in Montana. The twist is a secret. In my other story, the one that started out with angels, I also have magic-using humans, winged deer (peryton, from real mythology), unicorns, and some kind of shape-shifter I haven't defined yet (benign). I hadn't really thought of monsters... that could add something to my plot...

 

[Elishimar]

In my project I want to eliminate elves and dwarves, so I made hill-men, forest-men and the main race, The Eilan. They are your basic humans except they have stones set in their chests given to them by their deity that gives them extra power, each stone is unique, etc. I also have your run of the mill earth animals, and some tormented, demented, and tortured animals, that will make up evil creatures and demons, etc. For instance a black leathery wolf type creature with a flat, smashed in face and a long slashing tongue with white cloudy bulging eyes. For a baddy race, I am working on a disfigured humanoid thing that feeds on rage, fear, and hatred, that resembles human-animal hybrids.

 

[ScipioSmith]

I tend to use a lot of traditional names for things, simply because I suck at making up names, but the extent to which they match up to the traditional meaning varies. My Elves are High Elvish, apart from the ones who are pointy-eared Nazis, but my Fire Drakes are bipedal sentient fire-breathing lizard-people and my Leviathan is the largest land creature (I think the biblical original was a sea monster). The one time I didn't do this was for the air element bird-people, where because I couldn't think of a mythological race I called them Aestivals, and have easily the worst name in the series.

 

[JCFarnham]

The discussion about "grabable ledges" or tropes is a difficult one really. I know of one author [who happens to have a book on writing speculative fiction, I'm sure some of you will know who I'm talking about] who pretty much flat out says if you're going to have Elves just have elves, calling it a schmerp or whatever is just going to piss people off. The authors thought being that if you include something "with a twist" it'll annoying a larger readership than it intrigues. Of course, I'm not so sure about that. There is certainly something to be said for the use of easy relatable tropes in building something that people can get their teeth in to, but as Whyte said, I'm not sure if that's really the way to go.

Conversely I don't necessarily advocate completely new everything, because I'm sure that would also alienate a lot of people who would rather have something they can relax and read in one sit [for example].

I believe the real trick that us writers should be pulling, is to create worlds that make sense first, then populate them with creatures second. Because lets be honest, elves, dwarves and dragons most certainly CANNOT and probably SHOULD NOT be shoehorned into every fantasy setting under the sun. What I'm getting at is... If you're story NEEDs elves [rather than just a "point-eared human" analogue to fill the role of "a foil for normal people"] to work then by all means include them in whatever Tolkien/D&D capacity you wish, or don't wish for that matter.

Graham's method of creating an "ecology" seems to play into this idea. His creatures, beast of burden, rabbit analogues and so on, have their place, and certainly [I'm guessing] won't be there just to call attention to "Hey guys, look over here I'm writing fantasy!".

I think I'm of the writing camp that would rather stick with humans [or similar whatever that may mean] unless something a bit more wacky is needed [at least in the sense of main characters]. A similar problem is with including characters who aren't really necessary. A good point that Card brings up in his books on writing is knowing your structure [though I tend not to agree with his execution of this idea]. If you create a world from scratch, with a very detailed and very alien feel then chances are you'll be wanting to explore this fantastic new world, and not ignore it in favour of a character driven "I need to change my life/grow up" type story. In my opinion there is more leeway than Card suggests in mixing these various structures, so what I take from this idea is ...

If you want a certain creature, species, elf-analogue, etc. then you'll probably need to be able to find a way to explore this world even if only in passing. It would be a shame to have created lots of neat monsters for example if there is no possible way you can get them into your narrative [without breaking something ]

That being said in my science fiction universe I have many Alien species who are pretty much there to be mentioned in sweeping, generalised political statements like "the Avonion Hegemony is angry" [okay not such a good example, 1 because its lame and 2 because they're actually quite important... though not directly for the novel]. and I think using creatures in this way is a good [though maybe cheap if done badly] way to populate a world and not let it feel incomplete, you know giving it a sense of "there's more happening in this world than our story, because its a real place, but that doesn't matter right now, what matters is what Alice is getting up to with those Schmerps" [hurr hurr hurrrr]

Logic is mightily under-used in amatuer fiction, I believe.