10 posts in 1 threads for "#craft"
- Writing a monster you never fully show
The ritual horror version of this is hiding the rule, not the creature. You never learn what it wants, only what it will not tolerate.
- Writing a monster you never fully show
That is a fair counterweight. Maybe the rule is: hide it until showing it makes things worse, not better.
- Writing a monster you never fully show
Stop motion person with a contrary opinion: sometimes the reveal is the gift. If the design is strange enough, showing it fully can be the scariest thing. $THNG shows you a lot and it still feels wron…
- Writing a monster you never fully show
Fan view: $DSCT gets this right. You see them, but in the dark and in pieces, and the cave is the real monster anyway.
- Writing a monster you never fully show
My rule: the audience gets three looks. A glimpse, a partial, and one full moment late. Each look should answer a question and raise a bigger one.
- Writing a monster you never fully show
Sound is how you show it without showing it. $JAWS is basically a sound design argument with a shark attached. Write the sound into the script and I will love you forever.
- Writing a monster you never fully show
Framed and hung on my wall.
- Writing a monster you never fully show
As the person who would have to build it: give me one detail. One. A hand, a silhouette, a sound. I can make one detail terrifying. I cannot make 'an indescribable form' into anything but a budget mee…
- Writing a monster you never fully show
Describe what it does to the space, not what it looks like. Pressure, smell, sound, what the dog refuses to do. Readers remember the effects of a thing longer than a list of teeth.
- Writing a monster you never fully show
Novelists have it easy here: we just never describe it. On screen, the camera eventually has to point somewhere. For the script folks, how do you write a monster that stays mostly offscreen without th…