How to Write Fanfiction

Focus: Doctor Who | Creating Your Own Monsters/Antagonists

Topic Request:

Hello,
I'm starting to write a Doctor Who fanfiction and I'm finding it incredibly hard to come up with new monsters and storylines, 'Cause Deleks and Cybermen can only go for so many chapters. Is there any advice you can give for helping with this problem? Thank you!

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Creating Your Own Monsters/Antagonists
by TheLivingParadox

What scares you the most? What taps into your innermost feelings and sends chills running down your spine? For some, the answer is spiders, or snakes, or heights. For others, a traumatic experience or event comes to mind. Still others fear concepts like anger, or the absence of logic or mercy. Whatever yours is, think of it right now, because we're going to use it throughout the rest of this article.

Just a side note: although this is an article for creating monsters for Doctor Who, it can be applied to practically any antagonist in any story.

I won't give you cookie cutter villains for this, or specific things like scales or claws to make a freaky villain. My policy is that there are no rules for writing. There are only ingredients. There are some that may not work for your story just as garlic would not be added to chocolate cake, but that same garlic could be added to something different (like buttered pasta) to make a more fitting recipe - a more fitting story. Much of this article is conceptual and about stimulating new thoughts and ideas that will lead you to creating something incredible of your own.

There's three ingredients to a villain, in my opinion: the base, the intelligence, and the motivation.

The base is what we just talked about: what fear of yours (or, if you really think you can, you can base it on your readers fears.) is your monster rooted in?

Let's take the example of the Cybermen: humans who have been turned into human-like machines through a gruesome process. Why are they scary? They aren't fast, nor are they particularly foreign - they're just human forms covered in metal. They weren't even particularly intimidating until they were brought back on NewWho. The original costumes could probably be torn apart with your hands of a sturdy pair of scissors. So, why do we fear them?

You could argue that it is because they are unbeatable, since they can upgrade themselves to resist new threats, but they have been bested many times. You could say it is because they can turn casualties of the opposite side into a fresh batch of warriors, but they are not the only monsters in Doctor Who that have done that.

The answer is, because they're cyber. Humanity has a love for technology - they have, ever since the wheel was invented. But deep in that love, is the haunting fear that maybe, one day, technology might control us; the concern that maybe it already does, to a degree.

So, you see, the point is not to invent something that no one has ever seen before; in fact, if you make it all totally foreign, your audience will barely understand what they're supposed to be afraid of. All that is needed to make an effective villain are roots that are vaguely recognizable and make the audience feel unnerved.

Some examples could be: Heavenly figures with a dark side, a misunderstood but hideous creature, a peppy owner of an ice cream shop selling disturbing things that should not be sold in an ice cream shop.

However, don't take any of this as an invite to rewrite someone else's villain with a bit of a twist (although they can be your inspiration) - you still must create your monster yourself.