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WriteOn! Ghosties an' Ghoulies an' Long-leggity Beasties an' Things That Go Bump In the Night [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-10-26
Every culture has them. The invisibles, the bad things that inhabit the scary darkness (which is objectively scary mostly because predators might get you). The creatures that adults use to scare children into obedience. (With doubtful success)
"Jenny Greenteeth will eat you if you play in the stream!" To try to keep the kid from drowning themselves.
The evil forces that beguile you to do evil with them.
The remnants of the dead, in some form or other.
The OTHER, the Fair Folk, the Little Folk, the adjacent reality, the incomprehensible, that might do you a favor, or might turn you into something disgusting.
For those who missed it, Here is Clio2's marvelous compendium of Japanese otherworldly creatures.
And in traditional stories, they are stereotypes. Only recently and occasionally does anyone treat them as fully real beings with emotions and agendas and histories of their own. They just follow a script that humanity made up for them. (C.S.Lewis did a remarkable job of making demons into bureaucrats in the Screwtape Letters. And vampire romance is a thing now. Disney Pixar has also done stellar work. I just recently watched Elemental, which is great fun.)
Where do they come from? Do they have genders? Do they turn humans into more of themselves? (I suspect the werewolf legend is predicated on rabies). Do they mate, marry, beget children, or do they bud off clones, or what the heck?
Do baby werewolves exist? Babies by day, and little fuzzy wolf cubs by night? Or is an alpha female just like a mob boss, keeping the other werewolves in the locality from fighting with each other (or with rival werewolf gangs), and if they transgress, she gives them “the mom look”? (Hat tip to originalcinner)
Are they immortal, unkillable? Most stories seem to depend on the monster having some kind of weakness or vulnerability that humans can exploit. At least to banish, if not to destroy, needs to be possible for a storyline to be acceptable to human listeners.
Challenge: Monsters are people too! Write a scene based on the domestic or political life of a monster/supernatural species of your choice. OR: write a scene inspired by one of the pictures in the diary.
AND ALSO TOO,
Next week starts NaNoWriMo! Are you participating? You can set your own goals here, just like DaKoWriMo in January, if you wish. Let us know in the comments what you would like to achieve in November, and I will update a goal box so we can cheer each other on.
GOAL BOX what do you want to achieve next month? Here's what has been said so far. Aashirs nani -- get this novel together. bonetti -- complete a story and associated world-building, could be 90,000 words or so. dconrad -- 50,000 words, also work on some trunk novels. elenacarlena -- write every day. mettle fatigue -- a zero draft. mockingbird1971 -- finish what I've started. NoBlinkers -- hit daily par, finish romantasy, get farther on epic fantasy. Strawbale - 250 words a day, no matter how good or bad.
READERS & BOOK LOVERS SERIES SCHEDULE
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