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.

I once wrote about vampires in Victorian New York in one of my fanfictions, but that wasn't all they were. They were a power-hungry alien race with conflicting morals caught in a civil war amongst themselves. I didn't just rewrite the antagonists from the Twilight series; I added my own personal twist. I gave the clichéd base a backstory and conflict, with an intense and frightening role in the story.

So think back to what fear you came up with at the beginning of this incredibly long article.

Was it heights? Anyone up for a stay at a fifty-storey hotel with walls that want to squeeze you off the balcony?

Was it spiders? Want to try battling an eight-legged wooden puppet the size of a toy store?

If you shivered at the thought of either of those, keep thinking along those lines.

The second guideline to creating villains is some kind of evil intelligence. Keep in mind, this doesn't mean that your wooden dolly needs to have the mental capacity of a Time Lord - intelligence shows up in many different ways.

Some examples of villain intelligence that I have narrowed down are:

Puppet Intelligence: your Dalek doesn't have to have a mind of its own; maybe the squishy guy inside has been removed. But as long as there's a higher power of someone who possesses Direct Intelligence piloting the shell, you could still consider it an intellectual villain. Similarly, a puppet, a robot controlled by a man in a wheelchair, or an innocent but gullible android getting all his ideas from an evil advisor could be considered examples of Puppet Intelligence. This could also go for a decent creature who is trapped or being blackmailed into doing something abominable.

Third-Eye Intelligence: by far the creepiest, in my opinion, is the kind of intelligence that doesn't yell, but whispers. Third-Eye Intelligence is inexplicable. It is seen in monsters that are blind but know exactly where the hero is, have no depth perception but move about a little too gracefully, or are deaf but miraculously understand every single word that is spoken. It can be summed up as whatever is physically impossible to know and works against the hero. A reveal of why the evil thing can do the unexplainable can be a great plot point, too, but you don't always have to explain.

Direct Intelligence: ah, the most common type. This is your "mwa ha ha, I discovered your plan, you puny hero" villain. These guys think relatively like a human, regardless of their IQ, and usually have malicious intent.

Since this question was asked concerning Doctor Who, here's a quick rundown of some Whovian villains using this format:

• Direct: Dalek, Mrs. Gillyflower, Cypermen
• Puppet: The pilgrims who served Mrs. Gillyflower in Crimson Horror
• Third-Eye: Krafayis from Vincent and The Doctor

There are, of course, other kinds of freaky or freaky-awesome intelligences to give your villains.

There are other ways to make your villains pop. Make them crazy, or impossible to reason with, or good-hearted with a dark twist. Ultimately, cruelty is not the only thing we fear in a villain; it is the qualities that cause them that make them scary. In the horror movie "The Shining", it is not Jack's violence that scares us, it is his descent into insanity that makes it chilling.

A villian's motivation is simple: it must be understandable to be scary. Even with the violent Krafayis who fought The Doctor and Vincent Van Gogh, we understood the fear and fury of being the one who is left behind. We understand why Davros, creator of the Daleks did what he did, regardless of our feelings about it. Your readers need to feel like they connect with the villain; like maybe they would do the same thing if they had been through what the antagonist has. Make us see ourselves in the villain just as we do in the hero.

In the end, pour yourself - your ideas, your quirks, your heart and soul - into your villains and monsters just as much as you would with your hero. Remember, the antagonist usually sees themselves as the good-guy, or the victim in their own, personal story.

By making their story worth reading, you make the hero's story worth loving.

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What is your favourite villain(s) in the Doctor Who Fandom?