Hi Gang. Craig with you for my first post of the new year. I was lamenting a lack of ideas for Story Empire content, when one of my colleagues suggested something about creating monsters. I might be able to milk this for a few posts if I’m lucky. It gave me several ideas.

I’m going to focus more on the creation aspect here, because I use a lot of creatures that aren’t exactly monsters. One of my recent ones is a pet character called Noodles. This guy is a combination of Rottweiler and or pitbull, combined with a snapping turtle.

His creation was simple. I haunt Pinterest every day and something appeared that sparked my imagination. You can do the same thing. Noodles had to be a water creature somehow, so I created a pond in his yard that he can spend a lot of time in. Then I made him manic crazy, but capable of expressing other emotions on occasions. He’s a pet, so I don’t get totally deep into him. He reappears in an unpublished work where he gets to destroy a computer sever farm. All fun and games for him.

This combination of creatures can work for you, too.

I simply mentioned owlcats in one of my fantasy stories as a way of expanding the wilderness. Characters heard them, but none showed up on the page. This lets readers know they aren’t in Kansas anymore.

If you’ve glanced at my recent posts, I try to avoid low hanging fruit. I’m not going to write any flying monkeys any time soon. Aliens are another place where you can stretch your imagination, but there are a lot of reptile men, bird men, etc.

Our ancestors did a lot of this, too. Refer to mythology and you’ll find sphinx characters, the cockatrice, Minotaurs, and even a flying snake or two.

Size is another thing you can play with. There are characters all the way from gigantic to pixie sized. You might be able to combine creatures, then resize them to come up with something unique.

Take a tour of mythology. Enter a few of those creations into Pinterest and flip through a couple of pages. You might find something that sparks your Muse to create something new and fresh.

Have you ever created some new creature you’re proud of? Maybe there’s one that fell flat for you. Let me hear from you. I’ll be over at the Planet of Poodle Girls trying to stop them from chewing up their overpriced pumps.


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