The Struggle to a Create a Monster for My Short Story

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) post! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions.  In this post I have my answer to the IWSG question of the month and then I talk about a current fiction writing problem I’m having--creating a monster character for a short story.  

Making Books Into Audiobooks

So, the April 6 question is Have any of your books been made into audio books? If so, what is the main challenge in producing an audiobook? I have never had any of my books made into audiobooks but plan to do so eventually. I consider myself overdue for it since audiobooks have a lot of advantages. One advantage is that they draw a bigger audience to your work. There are a lot of people out there who would like more time to read but their busy schedules limit them and so listening to a recording of a book during other activity such as driving or exercising is a very useful option for them. Also, some people just don’t like to read and would rather listen to a story. 

The other and most important advantage is that audiobooks can be a form of accessibility for certain people. There are people who are sight impaired who may prefer listening to stories rather than reading them in braille. Other people who aren’t necessarily legally blind may still have a harder time reading text, which is the case with many dyslexics, and so find audiobooks very useful. So, putting my books on audio will be one of the items on my priority list. 

A Challenge of Creating a Monster in My Short Story

One of my biggest writing challenges to date has been creating a monster for a story that's to be included in my upcoming book of short fiction, "Bad Apps". "Bad Apps" will consist of stories about strange and deadly mobile apps, some that know too much about the users and others that can even lead to a person’s death. This story that I'm having a problem with is about an online music video that when danced to conjures up a demon. 

The challenge with this story has been in creating the demon's appearance and behaviourial traits. Because of the corrupt and perverted nature of the dance and the video that conveys it, I want the monster to look as repulsive and frightening as possible. I want it to look like nothing of this earth or even this universe. 

The problem is that being raised in a Catholic/Christian environment, most images of demons that come to my mind are very typical: pointy-eared, fanged, with a spear-shape-tipped tail and bat-like wings. For me that would be too close to my own religious upbringing of how personified evil is portrayed and so would stunt my development of the story as a fantastical one. It would also probably come across as too cliché for many avid horror readers. 

I may do a blog post in the near future where I explain more of the process of creating the demon character for my short story. With that, I’ll talk about how to create your own monster character. If I don’t do a blog post on it then I’ll do an article in my author’s newsletter. If you’re not subscribed to the newsletter, you can subscribe here. It’s free! 

So, have you had any of your books made into audiobooks? If not, are you planning to do so? What’s most challenging to you in creating an evil or hateful character for a story be it a monster or human?

Today’s IWSG is brought to you by these super co-hosts: Joylene Nowell Butler, Jemima Pett, Patricia Josephine, Louise - Fundy Blue, and Kim Lajevardi! IWSG was founded by awesome author Alex Cavanaugh, writer of the Cassa Series of novels! 

Until next time . . .