The Mother of Monsters: How To Create Compelling Nightmare Fuel

Local operatic menace and part-time eldritch horror Kiera Nettelbladt takes you through her process for creating creatures that stay with you beyond the Witching Hour. 

"You find yourself in a room. There are two doors; the one you entered through, and another at the opposite end of the room. In the centre of the room is a table, and on it is a plain cardboard box.

And somewhere in this room is a monster."

I didn’t plan to become a Monster Mother, and it didn’t happen overnight. Yet here I am, offering up advice I’ve gathered over the last nine years from fellow Eldritch Parents, my work as a horror actor, and trial and error.

When asked how I create my malicious children I often handwave an answer, putting it down to something whimsical or in keeping with the reputation I have garnered. 

The truth is actually quite simple. 

You don’t need any qualifications in psychology to know how potent an emotion fear is. Think of your own fears; nothing that truly troubles you, but that one episode of a TV show that sends shivers down your spine. That eerie rumour that was spread around the school playground. Things that can, for a moment, stop us dead in our tracks when we recall them. 

These small terrors can inform our creative process. Repackaged well, and you can create bogeymen that will have your audience begging for another encounter. Repackaged badly, and you wind up either with something that falls flat, or will drive your audience away. 

I shall caveat this advice with three very important points;

1. In horror as in sex, consent is key. You don’t have to pull back the curtain, but make your audience aware of your intentions. People tend to enjoy horror more when they know it’s going to be there.

2. Know your crowd, and know yourself. You don’t have to create anything you don’t want to. This kind of horror should be fun for everyone, including you!

3. Writing and performing horror takes a lot out of you. Be compassionate with yourself during and after long sessions and performances. Seek out gentle, comfortable joys afterwards. 

Right. Let’s go back to our room. 

We know there’s a monster in here, but how do we know there’s a monster in here? You can inspire a sense of dread in four ways. You can use these on their own, or combine a few things;

1. Simplicity

Everyone’s idea of horror is different, so this part is the most creatively liberal. The trick is not to over-complicate your design. The less your audience knows about your beastie, the more they have to worry about. A couple of defining traits are all you need to let your audience know they’re up the creek. 

Hence why our room is simply furnished. There’s not a lot of obvious places for our monster to hide in, but a myriad of ways it could be concealing itself.

It’s good to suggest what kind of danger they could be in. Does your monster have claws and talons, or does it look like an average human? Does it have more than one form? You don’t have to tell them that, but have that secure in your own mind. It also gives your audience a modicum of hope that this thing can be beaten. Whether that is true is up to you.

2. Senses

The senses are the horror writer’s bread and butter. By either depriving or enhancing a sense, you’re forcing other things to be more heightened. For example, in our room we can’t see our monster. So do we hear the light fixtures fizz and buzz every time it moves? Does its aura leave a metallic taste in your mouth? Can you feel your shirt rustle as it encroaches?

If you are performing as a monster, think of how your own senses can be utilised. The monster may sound gravelly and hoarse, or may sound disarmingly charming. How close does it need to be to your audience to get its message across? Even wearing a particular item of clothing that you wouldn’t normally wear changes your relationship with your body, and can heighten that feeling of Otherness. 

3. Setting

Keep your setting well-defined, but just vague enough for an audience to fill in the blanks as they wish. Don’t be afraid to let the audience do the work. If the description of our room conjures the image of your grandmother’s living room, or a place of usual safety, you’ve got them in the palm of your hand. Monsters do well in places where either the audience is compromised, or the audience is confused. It’s why places like circuses or masked balls are so popular.

Our room for example could be anywhere. Does the time of day or season of the year affect the light, or what the monster can do? The audience will also feel compromised because they are exposed. 

4. Suggestion

Ah, the power of the overactive imagination. Dangle a thread of context before your audience and they will weave the tapestry for you. When answers cannot be found, more questions will be posed. When they can’t be answered, more questions come. Thus the cycle continues.

An important question that will come up is,

“What does it want?”

You don’t have to give it a motive for what it does. Fear makes no apologies, and monsters don’t always have to either. A better question to ponder as a writer is,

“Why is it here?”

Again, you don’t have to reveal any of this to your audience. If it was forced into this space, maybe that’s why it’s angry. Maybe this is its domain. Maybe it's hiding because it knows that sooner or later, the people in that room will make a decision. And that’s when it can strike. 

Another great way to set your audience into fits is to offer them a hint. For example, in our room there is a cardboard box on the table. Is the monster in the box? Is the monster the box itself? Is it a trap to lure them further inside the room? Why would there be nothing but a cardboard box in here? 

That hint doesn’t have to help them in any way, by the way. That’s the beauty of it. They’ll dig the pit of their own demise themselves. You’re just handing them a shovel. 

The Greek word “τέρας” (Teras) is where we get the words “monster” and “terrifying” from. It can also be translated as “marvel”. Something at once revolting, but something that also garners our attention. That is the innate nature of a well-written monster.