Monster Writing Guide: Page 1
A general guideline on how to write the descriptions.
Imagine a creature. We shall not talk about what this creature is named, or how it behaves. That does not quite matter yet. No, we will be talking about what this creature looks like.
"This creature has feathers on its head, and a beak, and avian eyes."
No errors there, no mistakes. But. Would you have been able to imagine the
creature? Perhaps. Roughly. You'd definitely get the image of a bird's head
popping up in your brain. But most importantly: Is it the same birdhead that the
writer of the creature intended you to see? Probably not. It is way too vague.
And that is a problem.
So, when writing monsters, here is the first, most important general rule:
Write the creature so that people looking at it, not knowing its name, see (almost) the same image in their head as you do.
It's a simple rule, but it is one that many writers do not think about. Which is
natural; The writer has the image of the critter in their head, they write a
description, and upon reading it, they naturally think of the image they had in
their head in the first place as it's still sitting there.
So do this: After writing the description, take a break. Forget all about the
creature's image you were thinking of. Distract yourself. Later, just read the
description, and simply using it paint an image in your mind. Now compare it. Is
it the same creature? Actually actively try to imagine the creature differently
from your original idea, as far as the description allows you to. Is it still
recognizable as the same creature you imagined? If not, your description is way
too vague. The more your description allows people to imagine the creature
differently than your original idea, the more it lacks detail.
"The creature's head is sleek and elegantly avian. A long, black and slightly
curved beak protudes from its face. It's a dark coal in color, and solid enough
to deliver hard blows, the tip coming to a pointy, slightly downward turned end.
The black feathers that cover the head are subtly shiny in their blackness,
depending on how the light falls on them. They are short, but frame the head
closely an densly, flowing backwards elegantly around the creature's equally
dark eyes."
Chances are, you just imagined a crow or raven head. All by adding details,
'fluff' to the same creature's description.
So, again: The less wiggle room the description leaves other player's
imagination to be different from the image you had in your head when you were
imagining the creature, the better. Do not let this drive you into being
overdetailed. You don't need to specify exact lengths, nor exact amounts, or ten
words to describe the color. In the end it does not matter if the raven, that
people are imagining, is 7 feet or 7 feet and 2 inches, or has a little more or
less feathers or muscles in their mind. But they should imagine that raven,
with its cold, cunning expression and those wicked, curved and nasty talons.
Page 1 - General description guideline
Page 3 - The Hills Have Eyes; Your Arms Don't.
Page 5 - Keeping Things Interesting
