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Lesson 2
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12 Replies
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Karen Crider’s Terrifying Monster
What I learned: Covering your bases enables foresight into what one is trying to achieve. Even early ideas can change, but having those ideas gives one a first base into story, chasing off the blank slate of uncertainty. Thanks.
Concept: An obscure clocksmith acquires a cursed, antique watch that determines his fate.
My monster is the watch.
2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:
How did this begin? A man with a metal detector digs out an old watch from a deep grave. When he retrieves a heavy watch, its hands cut his fingers.
Their Terror: The watch
The watch operates on evil, animated by the blood of past owners, ticking the minute it encounters new flesh to measure their longevity; especially, if they don’t measure up to the clock’s expectations.
Their mystery: How has the watch maintained this power? (It’s a fomite, an object that carries disease- producing bacteria, but in this case, also the curse of a vampire.)
Can it ever be gotten rid of? Yes, if placed back with the vampire, but then one risks his/her eternal soul if the vampire’s spirit or the vampire himself is still present.
Their fear-provoking appearance:
A corroded watch does not necessarily carry a fearful appearance. It can change color. It can tick oppressively loud. It can break its crystal allowing blood to drown its owner. An alarm sends it spewing.
Its ticking can become ominous, until those in its presence fear madness. The watch is like the vampire who owns it. It can pause life, but always returns like a bad penny. If the owner tries to destroy it, he/she dies.
The watch has the ability to fly apart and injure whoever has threatened it, and then miraculously adhere together to wait for its next victim…
Their rules:
Whoever finds the watch is locked into its power base and must cater to it. Its gears must be maintained, or its owner dies. Its appearance must be adhered to, or the owner dies.
The watch must be treated with utmost respect– not deserted to the elements, a dark alley or a deep basement, or the owner dies. It always surfaces where it can be found and becomes assumed by new owners.
Trying to leave the watch behind, the owner dies.
The watch demands to be wound daily, but it does it to test its owner. If he/she doesn’t wind it, they suffer, but each gets a total of three chances to get it right. And then they die.
The watch doesn’t really need winding. Its energy source is evil. The watch has the ability to defend itself and will.
Can it ever be gotten rid of? Yes, if placed back with the vampire, but then one risks his/her eternal soul if the vampire’s spirit or the vampire himself is still present.
Their mythology:
The watch belongs to a vampire who is, or is not, buried in the grave. The watch’s life has been paused, but like the vampire, it has the power to return and claim life, while continuing to wait for its master, the vampire who really owns it.
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Kevin Lobo’s Terrifying Monster :
I learned to focus on just the terror aspect itself. I learned to focus on just the entity and look at it from various deeper aspects rather than just a monster. I learned how to identify key elements of the monster and give it a detailed look.
1. Tell us what or who your monster is.
Unique: The monster is the resurrected evil spirit of a serial killer who was into demonic rituals in his actual life.
Unknown: The afflicted villagers initially only see this as an evil/possession of their teens. It is the method of killings, the ruptured grave and other clues that lead to the identity of the evil spirit.
Terrifying: When the spirit manifests itself in the teen it has taken possession of, it brutally assaults the teens in self-immolation and other physical self-harm. The brutal death that awaits the teen as they are crucified upside down is the final painful and most torturous act before death.
2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:
Their Terror: The vicious
possession, the demonic behavior, the physical torture, the fear in just
the victims, but their families and the village at large.
Their Mystery: There is a pattern
to the killings, the targeted messages from the spirit, all lead to the
mystery that this is not just a random possession of one or two teens,
rather it is the work of some spirit with a connection to the town,
Their Fear Provoking Appearance: The
spirit itself is never seen. It manifests itself through the teen it
possesses. The hideous ghostly transformation of the teens into zombie like
humans and their possessed behavior is the Fear Provoking Appearance.
Their Rules: The spirit moves from
teen to teen only. It completely enslaves the village when it blocks and
kills entire families that try to escape.
Their Mythology: Though not a
mythology in the true sense of the word, the spirit has a deep connection
to the town. In real life the killer operated with others that are still
alive, the spirit is after something it wants recovered and a sense of
revenge. -
What I learned: Following these guidelines can lead me to a unique and memorable monster and a fresh terrifying script.
TOM’S TERRIFYING MONSTER
How does the monster terrorize? By being able to appear out of nowhere and kill violently
How does the monster pursue? Shape-shifts into something (or someone) familiar to the crew
How does the monster isolate? It finds a victim and tracks it until its alone, then strikes
What is the terrible thing they do? It enters the human body through an orifice; an eye, an ear, a nostril, an anus, any opening. Then it eats its way through the organs to obtain the glands it craves
How does the monster cause death? Eating its way through the organs inevitably causes an agonizing death.
What makes this inescapable? It can disguise itself as anything: equipment, flooring, furniture, even a crew member.
MYSTERY
What is the secret, question, or puzzle that must be solved to survive this monster?
· How do we find it when it can change shapes to blend into the submarine, or even mimic crew members?
· Once we find it, how do we kill it before it reveals our location to the enemy?
FEAR PROVOKING APPEARANCE
What makes your monster look terrifying? Once we actually see it, it’s a sort of lamprey-like creature, with backward-facing barbs on its head to prevent removal, and round rows of teeth that spin like a hole saw drill bit. Even if you chop it in half with an axe, it can regenerate the missing piece, like a starfish.
MYTHOLOGY
This creature was a Gray’s “pet” from a crashed underwater UAP, the reason they always leave behind a series of cattle mutilations.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by Tom Freyer.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by Tom Freyer.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by
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Subject line: Eve Williams’ Terrifying Monster
“What I learned doing this assignment is…?” Keep it simple. I initially thought that I’d have a variety of entities scaring my main characters but it’s better to have one multi-tasking monster.
And not everything that goes bump in the night (or day) is paranormal. Howling winds, strange creatures, mirages, and the abject emptiness of the desert are unnerving for most people.
1. Tell us what or who your monster is. My monster is an elemental related to the earth. An elemental originates from the earth, but can attach itself to humans.
Elementals are referenced in the Bible, and are most prevalent in the UK.
2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:
Their Terror: The ability to shape shift into animal or human.
It also can mimic a particular human or animal. By appearance and by sound.
It can manifest as a mirage. Or a doppelganger.
It can cause poltergeist activity. And attack people.
Their Mystery: Elementals are not alive, and have not ever lived. They are one of the four components primary elements: earth, fire, water, or air. But they draw power from earth forces, the dead, and living people.
Their Fear Provoking Appearance: Less often seen than sensed. They can shape shift into many things, including Black eyed children, dogs or coyotes, or manifest into fierce winds, storms,
Their Rules: Initial contact with the living is subtle. The monster slowly accelerates the action through paranormal activity until the living flee. Those who don’t flee are in mortal danger.
Their Mythology: The elemental was created with the earth, and was dormant until man started building and defiling their home. My monster was content with Native American’s minimal modification of the land, but angered when a developer began grading and constructing infrastructure and homes.
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R Whitney Terrifying Monster
Tell us what or who your monster is. It’s a 5 foot Praying Mantis (many)
Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:
Their Terror: Praying Mantis catch their prey with fast powerful front legs and SLOWLY nibble and tear their prey apart with mandibles and also drinking their blood
Their Mystery: Praying Mantis’s hang upside down and snatches it’s prey off it’s feet.
<font face=”inherit”>Their Fear Provoking Appearance: These green </font>triangle<font face=”inherit”> </font>shaded<font face=”inherit”> heads have empty green bug eyes.</font>
Their Rules: They will eat any and everything living. They hunt, eat, and hunt more.
Their Mythology: Perhaps they evolve due to climate change?
What I learned doing this assignment is how to create a good solid monster
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Mike’s Terrifying Monster
What I learned doing this assignment is…?
While analyzing details of the monster, I had this breakthrough to have the researchers and the teens terrorized by something like a protector with haunting tales from the local folklore of the story world. I’m also not entire set, yet, on what I want this monster to be, or if this the kind of story I’m excited to write, but I’m sure all that will develop as the details become sharper throughout this course.
Monster = The Feral Phantom
Terror:
Through a mastery of silence, phantom-like appearance using a phosphorescent make-up, mimicry, hand and footprints, and psychological fear, like taking the natural beauty of the forest and making it threat to life, so, ultimately, dread; this being pursues them with stealth and creativity to play upon their fears; isolates with disorientation, a labyrinthine cave, and the fear of a real Sasquatch making them feel trapped; subjects them to mind games, amplifies their fears, mimics voices, lures them into perilous situations, gaslight’s them (What’s real?); lots of ways for things to go wrong when the reactions of those being toyed with can make a dangerous situation lethal; there’s no escape, this being is an expert of this area, nowhere to hide and it wears the victims down.
Mystery:
What is this phantom? What’s its relationship to the Sasquatch? (Duty?Love? Penance?)
Fear Provoking Appearance: grotesque/disturbing – Haunting blend of human and nature, skin has bark-like appearance, camouflaged in forest settings; mask – bioluminescent make-up blended with sap and resin and foliage, matted hair, eyes, almost remorseful (also, hides deeper feelings on what makes the being do what it does); weapon of choice – environment, presuppositional fears; gnarled, twisted tree root for a staff embedded with stones and bones; ironic visual – a necklace, a special amulet; embodiment of wrath of forest, any entering this protected domain risk death.Rules:
Bound by intention, limited to territory of Sasquatch, what’s in the amulet and what it means can weaken the being, or just make it more wrathful.
Mythos:
Based on folklore traditions, the Feral Phantom is thought to be a protector of the forest and a hater of humans who threaten it. Lone wanderers or those who go astray may be visited or murdered by it.
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Terrifying Monster
Their terror: you deserve to die this way … and even death isn’t an out
Mystery: How do you escape what you deserve?
Appearance: they look like you — looking in a mirror — then expression changes to what fear/pain/anguish/regret you will feel as you are dying then being tortured in underworld … so you get a PREVIEW of how horrific it’s going to be. Then it laughs.
Their rules: relentless and implacable. Even the god Ba’al faked his own death to get away from Mot. They always survive … can’t be killed, but can be “held”
Mythology: part of the Ugaritic pantheon. Last seen in ancient Egypt during the reign (and overthrow) of Apophis the Hyksos king. No one knows where they went, but all the gods were relieved they were missing …
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Brett Born’s Terrifying Monster
What I learned doing this assignment is a new way to analyze the character of the monster to maximize its impact on the audience.
The Monster:
Buck Kilgore – Psychopath who practices a twisted form of mysticism
Muse / The Ghost – Muse is a psychopath who has been haunted and driven mad by The Ghost.
The Ghost was one of Buck’s victims.
Their Terror:
Buck engages in conversations with his victims and toys with them before he attacks.
Muse performs a slow danse macabre before the kill.
Buck approaches his victims as if he means no harm. He enjoys the slow burn as his victims realize the dire situation.
Muse forewarns of an attack by sending videos of drive-in theatre intermission ads to the victims’ phones.
Victims are isolated in their homes. The drive-in hasn’t reopened and is located on the outskirts of town. The phones are blocked. Vehicles are booby trapped.
Buck and Muse both brutally murder their victims. Spirits may become trapped in the haunting intermission ads that play on the big screens.
Buck likes to kill up close and personal. His weapon of choice is a Butterfly Switchblade.
Muse is an opportunist and doesn’t have a specific weapon, although they do orchestrate a very special final kill.
Once Buck sets his sights on you, he’s relentless in his pursuit, whether it takes 30 minutes or 30 years.
Muse has a poltergeist for a partner. Muse has gone to great lengths to make sure that once you enter the drive-in, there is no way out alive.
Their Mystery:
With seemingly no way out, how do we escape this drive-in before being murdered by Buck or Muse?
Their Fear Provoking Appearance:
Buck paints the top of half his face with a red greasepaint. He streaks white lines (like wings) from the outside corners of his eyes.
Muse wears a mask featuring the faces of comedy and tragedy fused together like a monstrous conjoined twin.
Their Rules:
Buck hates disrespect, and he doesn’t want anyone at the drive-in, which he considers his property. Cross him, and he kills you… sometimes worse.
Muse doesn’t want the drive-in open for business ever again. If you’re trying to reopen the theatre, you die.
Their Mythology:
Buck was born into an abusive family. When he was young, they lived in a trailer on the land that is now the drive-in theatre. Buck’s only good childhood memory is a trip to the movies with his father. When Buck was a teen, his father was murdered. Buck wanted to perform a ceremony to release his father’s spirit, and he wanted to do it at the drive-in, which is land that he considered to belong to his family. The ceremony doesn’t go to plan and Buck murders one of the drive-in employees. Buck is locked away for nearly 30 years, patiently waiting for the day he can return and finally release his father’s spirit from this world.
Muse was very young and at the drive-in on the night Buck murders the employee. Muse was traumatized by the events and is haunted by the ghost of the young man that Buck murdered.
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Tasha’s Terrifying Monster
What I learned doing this assignment is that mystery and mythology are not the same thing.
1. Tell us what or who your monster is.
My monster is a vengeful spirit.
2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:
Their Terror: It stalks its prey, moves objects, makes spots cold, shows up in mirrors, photos, hallways, eventually it manipulates a serial killer to carry out the terror and murder its prey
Their Mystery: Eventually, the vengeful spirit uses a serial killer to carry out their vengeance, so the group has to find and stop the serial killer
Their Fear Provoking Appearance: Dead girl phantom – the state the serial killer left her in
Their Rules: no real supernatural powers other than appearance, some object movement, cold spots, typical ghost stuff but she knows the identity of a serial killer and can logically think – also can’t/ isn’t allowed to cross over until she avenges herself
Their Mythology: The vengeful spirit was a girl that the group had a chance to rescue from certain death at the hands of a serial killer but chose not to because she could not give the group anything to save her (no money, no smokes, etc)
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Ryan’s Terrifying Monster
What I learned doing this assignment is that monsters are layered creatures.
1. Tell us what or who your monster is.
LAMIA – based on the Greek mythological child eating monster that lives in the woods. She is a shapeshifter and often appears as half woman and half snake. In my story, Lamia is living in the forest, as a witch type. She seduces men to bring her children to feast on.
2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:
Their Terror: Feeding on the flesh of young children to satisfy her crazed grief. Often using killing techniques of snakes.
Their Mystery: How to save an abducted child from the wrath of Lamia and survive?
Their Fear Provoking Appearance: Black eyes that can be taken out and reinserted. A beautiful woman that seduces and then shape shifts into a snake, sometimes appears as half snake, half woman.
Their Rules: Insomnia but only gets rest when she takes out her eyes. Feeds on children. Seduces young men.
Their Mythology: Greek mythological monster. Lamia and Zues had a love affair. When Zues’ wife Hera discovered this, she murdered or kidnapped Lamia and Zues’ offspring. Hera cursed Lamia with insomnia so that she would never have relief from her grief. This drove Lamia insane and she began to kidnap and eat other children. Zeus gave Lamia the power of shapeshifting and the ability to take out and reinsert her eyes to help ease the pain of her curse. She is also known in some mythology to seduce young men to appease her sexual appetite and then feast on their flesh afterwards.
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Rich Bradley’s Terrifying Monster
What I learned doing this assignment is you need to really envision and tap into the fear and terror your monster needs to evoke in the audience. Not just on the surface, you need to feel it.
Create an early version of your monster.
1. Tell us what or who your monster is. The Luminous Palms Society is a secret group. They are a group of powerful citizens (in the public’s eye) whose lives would be ruined if it was revealed who they were. They would be shunned, imprisoned, and executed. Anyone in the group who brings attention or suspicion to the group disappears. The high priests are no exception.
2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:
Their Terror: The Society members continually need fresh blood, literally. The members use a cabal to identify, kidnap, and cover the sacrifices.<div>
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Their Mystery: When sacrifice victims are kidnapped and held in the sanctum, they don’t know why and don’t know what will happen. It is only at the last moment during the ceremony is it revealed to them what is about to happen. They see the ghoulish faces in the hooded robes as the blood drains from their body. One member may even be the secret leader, higher than the priest, alive for centuries.
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Their Fear Provoking Appearance: The society members wear hooded robes during the ceremony. They can appear ghoulish and frail until they get a taste of fresh blood, when they become animated and alive.
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Their Rules: 1. They must be upstanding citizens in involved in the community. 2. They are bound by a lifelong blood oath. This becomes a curse if they try to leave. 3. There is a council of elders who hold the most power and knowledge within the society. NEEDS MORE
Their Mythology: The society believes that their blood rituals grant them extended lifespans and the ability to resist aging. They are driven by the fear of mortality and a desire to achieve immortality through their practices.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by Rich Bradley.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by
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Bent’s terrifying monster
what I learned doing this assignment is I found more layers in the evil character as a wrote this all out.
- Their Terror: Inside their mind they are calculating something evil while outside they come across as normal …. they sit at home or at a coffee shop writing and it is full of hate towards others.
- Their Mystery: who is this author whose writing mimics the crimes committed. The book gets published after the crimes happen so how can it be the author doing the deeds.
- Their Fear Provoking Appearance: there is deep anger in the face that people see when he is writing alone in a public place.
- Their Rules: crimes must be committed before they can be written into the novel
- Their Mythology: how can this author write about crimes that have already happened. Yet what people don’t get is the books take a long time to write. People think there is a copycat killer stealing from the book to get murder ideas.
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