Creating Mythical Monsters

As I’ve been plotting my fantasy novel, I realized I need to ramp up the tension a bit. Adding a few vicious monsters seems like a good way to make life difficult for my characters.

A quick google search led to over an hour surfing the net. I stared wide-eyed at the pictures of animals I’ve never heard of, like the axolotl. Seriously, it looks it belongs in an episode of Barney. He’d fit right in with that purple dinosaur.

Axolotl doesn’t exactly fit my idea of a scary monster, so I kept looking.

Then I found the star-nosed mole.

With a little modification, I think this critter would horrify my protagonists as they hide from their pursuers in a cave. Imagine meeting a six-foot long version of this beast in an underground tunnel, one with spikes around its mouth?

While the warthog isn’t quite so exotic, he sure is ugly.

What if I make him twice as big, and add some spikes on his tail? That could add some terror to my heroine’s flight through the mountains while she’s being pursued by bounty hunters.

Who knew writing a novel could be so much fun?