I’ve started noticing it while doomscrolling YouTube Shorts.
A jealous werewolf king imprisons his fated mate on one app. A werewolf rejects his destined mate for someone else on another. A vampire billionaire plots revenge on yet another. A dragon prince discovers a secret heir before I’ve even finished refilling my latest obsession: a tumbler packed with pebble ice and water.
Half the time the names don’t even change. How many Alaras and Lucians can one industry produce?
The funny thing is, I don’t object to monsters.
I love fantasy. Science fiction. Horror when I’m in the mood for it. Give me dragons, vampires, werewolves, ghosts, fae, sea serpents, eldritch horrors lurking beneath forgotten waters, and I’m willing to hear your pitch.
What I object to is treating monsters as shortcuts. Because monsters are fascinating.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized the monsters aren’t why these stories feel repetitive.
The shortcuts are.
Which got me thinking less about the monsters themselves and more about what monsters have always represented.
Weekly Creative Prompt
Of Madness and Monsters
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
— Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.”
Dragons, vampires, and werewolves have survived for centuries because they speak to something deeper than scales, fangs, or fur. They’re personifications. Metaphors. Ways of giving shape to things we struggle to understand about ourselves.
Dragons guard treasure because greed guards treasure. Vampires consume because obsession consumes. Werewolves lose themselves because rage does the same.
The costume changes. The confession underneath it doesn’t.
But there is no rule that says greed must be a dragon, rage a werewolf, or loneliness a ghost.
What if loneliness has too many arms? What if shame sheds its skin everywhere it goes, leaving evidence behind? What if hope is the monster, dragging someone forward long after every sensible person would have given up? What if grief isn’t a ghost at all, but a creature that quietly nests in abandoned rooms and grows larger every time someone refuses to speak a name aloud?
Monsters endure because they give emotions, fears, desires, and flaws a body.
The best monsters aren’t frightening because they’re strange. They’re frightening because they’re familiar.
This Week’s Challenge
Build a monster.
Not a monster for the sake of a monster. Choose an emotion, fear, flaw, desire, obsession, regret, or longing and give it form.
- What does it look like?
- How does it move?
- What does it want?
- What does it consume?
- What makes it stronger?
- What weakens it?
- What traces does it leave behind?
- Most importantly, what makes it uniquely yours?
Forget the cookie cutter. Forget the dragons, vampires, and werewolves you’ve inherited from everyone else’s stories.
Start with the feeling; then discover what shape it wants to become.
Three Ways to Enter
The Personification
Choose a single emotion and make it physical. If jealousy walked into a room, what would it look like? If grief had a voice, what would it sound like? If hope left footprints, where would they lead?
The Unlikely Monster
Take a familiar emotion and resist the obvious choice. Greed doesn’t have to be a dragon. Rage doesn’t have to be a werewolf. Build something unexpected.
The Human Connection
Create the monster first, then write about the person who lives with it. Do they fear it? Feed it? Depend on it? Love it? Become it?
A small challenge: Resist explaining what your monster represents. Let readers discover it through behavior, details, and consequences. Trust them to make the connection.
Craft Tips
Not every question needs an answer. Sometimes the shadows around the monster are as important as the monster itself.
Give your monster rules.
Every memorable monster wants something. Every memorable monster has limits. The more specific the rules, the more believable the creature.
Think beyond appearance.
What does your monster smell like? What sounds does it make? What changes when it enters a room? What remains after it leaves?
Let the details carry the weight.
Let it reveal character.
The most interesting monster may not be the creature itself. It may be what people are willing to do because of it.
Enjoy prompts like this?
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