How Knowing Your Monsters Will Help Thrill Your Readers

By Caroline Donahue — THE BOOK DOCTOR

There is a sci-fi horror movie that came out in the 90s or early aughties, that promised to be terrifying. Tall letters on the poster screamed “INFINITE SPACE, INFINITE TERROR.” I have absolutely no idea how I was talked into seeing this film in the theater, given that I am not a big horror fan. However, see it I did and as we followed the space crew into a ship that had disappeared years before and the tension built around something absolutely bloodcurdlingly awful that had happened there, with no crew left behind to tell the tale.

I’ll admit, I was scared for a while. I was even regretting being there because I have a strong proclivity for nightmares, but then the movie made one fatal mistake.

They showed the monster.

In this case, it was video footage of some violent ritual the crew had gotten sucked into before they died, but still. To me, it looked like a bunch of people covered in ketchup. As soon as I saw the monster, I knew I’d sleep just fine.

What does this have to do with writing, you may well ask?

Everything.

We are constantly being given writing advice about how it’s essential to be specific, how writing what we know and getting it down as…