Writer's Notes: How to Smut a Monster

 A note: This is a Goblin Vault series I plan to keep updated on a roughly monthly or once-in-a-while basis, in which I... basically talk a bit stream-of-consciousness about my writing style and methods and practices. I thought it'd be fun, and it makes a good thing to write about when I can't get myself to write actual smut. Which is this morning.

Since the caveman days, we've been really, really good at thinking up monsters to explain the long shadows and rail cries of the twilight. From nightmares to rabies, we had explanations to put names and faces on everything that made our heart race. "Nothing is scary", as the saying goes, and by putting a face and name on the thing that frightened us, we could come up with ways to destroy it.

You can spend your whole life researching where monsters come from—the sociological roots of the changeling or the buda in othering people who were different from us, the scientific history of the "dragon" in explaining dinosaur fossils—and you'll never run out of questions. Working out why a monster develops in folklore is a lifelong labor.

Luckily, we're just trying to work out how we can fuck them.

The monster carries a lot of appeal in smut. First, it acts as a basic prompt, similar to how Jukebox uses song titles. But why don't we just want to fuck other humans? Couldn't I just give a human access to Thriae honey and call it a day, instead of coming up with a race of bubbly bee bimbo bullies?

A monster, I think, allows us to boil a very simple set of urges to something simple. Whereas a human might want to fuck, the lust sprite needs to fuck. A human might want to dominate, but a succubus is made to dominate. And whereas succumbing to a human's temptation to be an obedient plaything might be risky, succumbing to a demon's temptation can really only end one way.

Putting aside the lovely cosmetics of a beegirl or a catboy, the monster is simple. They will do something simple to you, and the consequences rarely change. Whereas we might feel guilty giving in to a human, who can help but give in to a Thriae? Even by mind control standards, it's a delicious and comforting fantasy.

Monsters have always existed to simplify our anxieties about the world. Well, sexy monsters aren't much different. As medieval succubi were invented to manage our guilt and shame over sex dreams, modern succubi exist, in part, to give us a way to delight in that shame. There's no shame over giving in. A succubus is irresistible. She'll be happy to take charge of you and give you pleasure freely. The monster becomes a symbol.

So, succubi are easy, but what about other monsters? How do we create new smutty monsters—or make established monsters smutty? It's quite a delightful process, really. Let's dig in. Just a note, I'm going to be leaning on female monsters throughout this piece. It's just easier to pick one for now.

Step One: Pick a Monster

So, we talked about monsters-as-prompts. Well, let's get prompted. There are roughly three options here:

• Create a brand-new monster
• Adapt an old non-sexy monster (dragon, troll)
• Adapt a sexy one (siren, succubus)

Now, if you're going to pick a sexy one, that makes it all a lot easier. It's very easy to make the alraune sexy, since someone else did the hard work of designing her. All you have to do is proceed to Step Two and start brainstorming what she's for.

But what if you're adapting an old monster that isn't meant to be sexy? What if you decide to adapt the manticore, or a D&D creature like the displacer beast? These are creatures that aren't even humanoid in their old versions. And what if you want to think of something totally new?

My dryads and beastfey make use of the same very basic premise: Pick a plant or animal and work out what it does that a humanoid creature could do.

My dryads are, in many respects, sort of a blurry area. Is a cherry dryad a new creature, or just an adaptation of the old dryad? Her powers—erotic kisses that render their recipient a dumb, lovey-dovey fool—are brand-new, and she doesn't do many of the things a dryad is supposed to, like attack woodsmen or protect her tree. But cherries are bright red, sweet, and associated with springtime and desserts. So my cherry dryad will be a seductress who kisses her victims until they're helplessly infatuated.

Meanwhile, my jellyfish mermaids are inspired by two main qualities: The delicate, lacy qualities of many jellyfish, and their stinging tentacles. The idea of a jellymaid being essentially a ghostly woman in a wedding dress, tickling her lovers with tiny 'stings', was just very appealing to me.

Prompts help. But if you really want a proper prompt for your brand-new creature, proceed to Step Two for now...

Step Two: Pick a Kink

Okay, that title is a little tongue-in-cheek, but it's true. You need to make sure you're designing a monster that you like. The Monster Girl Encyclopedia is full of entries that might be very clever but aren't very appealing—especially with its extremely unsavory tendencies.

Think about what you enjoy in your smut. Think about what you'd like to see a character go through. I subjected Alrek to a jellymaid because I thought him being paralyzed and tickled for hours would make a good story—especially since the jellyfish maid's personality is one of innocent fun, playing well off his gruff exterior. When he starts to giggle helplessly from her tickling, and she concludes from this that he's actually happy, it's a very effective and humiliating scene for him.

When it comes to "kinks" or "fetishes" to be inspired by, there are three main categories:

You can, of course, focus on the acts themselves—kissing, tickling, poisons, lactation, hypnosis. A "milk kitten" is a vampiric undead that turns her victim into a horny, lactating hucow with nightly suckling sessions. A goblin maid plies her target with poison to make them horny and hypnotized. A catgirl can make her victims unbearably sensitive to her rough tongue and playful fingers. A fairy hypnotizes her target with flashing lights.

You can also focus on the aesthetics—body type, size, hair color, cat ears. The milk kitten has plump lips, solid red eyes, and crawls on all fours much of the time. The goblin maid is a green shortstack, often heavily made-up and hyperfeminine. The catgirl has cute cat ears and a twitching tail, and might mew or purr. The fairy is minuscule and has gigantic compound eyes and diaphanous wings, and her voice is vibrant and hypnotic.

Finally, you can consider the personality—and this can be the most important. A monster's personality should be unique and enjoyable. The milk kitten is almost animalistic, cooing sweet promises as she crawls over her prey and latches on. She plays at being submissive because I enjoy the "mock-submissive" trope. The goblin maid is usually sweet and sly, because I enjoy flirty monsters who steadily wear their blushing victim down. The catgirl is often bubbly and scattered, endearing and playful—and yet a little sadistic, because there's nothing so much fun as a giggling bimbo who's still got the upper hand over her playmate. And the fairy is usually quite friendly and reasonable, because sometimes it's nice for the seductress to seem normal at first before she surprises you.

This step can also come first, because really, working out what this monster exists for is important. They should stand out and be unique and exciting while still fulfilling tropes you enjoy. The two can go together hand-in-hand.

When I consider a new monster, I look at them in the lens of what I like. Say I decided to create a beastfey based on the squirrel. I'd consider what squirrels do—eat nuts, bury their food in the ground, forget where it is, scurry and climb around, steal birds' food—then consider what they look like—fluffy, bushy tail, pointy ears, small, often small and plump like rodents—and finally consider what personality I can extract from the above.

Then I'd try to work out what's enjoyable to me. I could make them, say, bury people so they can fuck them later, but that's not really my jam. But what if they live in trees and assemble harems to "keep warm with" during the winter? What if their fluffy tails and hypnotic, or soft enough to make people get sleepy just from touching them? What if they cook pecan pies that keep their victims drugged and pliant all the time?

Maybe I'll decide I don't like ordinary squirrels, and switch to something else, like sugar gliders (squirrel girls that love honey and nectar are super easy to make sexy for me). Overall, this is the key step. But we're not quite done!

Step Three: Put It All Together

Okay, this is more a filler step, but once you know how to make the monster sexy, it's time to put the monster together. Decide what they look like, how they talk, and what they do to people. Decide why they exist.

What's the difference between an alraune and a Thriae? They're both bubbly, and they both drown their victims in sweet nectar. Well, the Thriae are militaristic, all-women, act like cliched "Mean Girls", and dangerously addictive. An alraune is alone, can be any gender, is usually fairly friendly—if still wicked—and only addictive while you're inside her. She wants you to stay with her forever, whereas a Thriae is happy to toy with you for a bit, order you to edge, then leave you whimpering on her bed for the week while she plays with other slaves in front of you. Unlike a nymph, though, she always "makes it up to you". Eventually.

Decide how the monster fits into your world. I recently came up with a woman with a who lives inside a peach flower and drugs her prey. Is she an alraune, a dryad, or a hamadryad? Or is she a demon? Do I give her a name based on the scientific name for "peach", or do I get cute and name her Georgia, or do I come up with new naming conventions altogether? It all depends on how clever I want to be. This is your monster, and your character! I tend to give Thriae Greek-ish names, while dragons get Biblical references, and catgirls get various puns ("Valina" isn't entirely my own invention).

Let's do one more easy example: The holstaur.

Holstaurs already exist, of course, so my big priority was, "How much do I change?"

First, I obviously decided I wanted to write a "cowgirl" creature. I like suckling and I like drugged sweetness, so holstaurs were a naturally attractive idea to me. "Holstaur" was already common parlance.

Second, I examined the kinks closely. I wanted holstaurs to be nice and calm and motherly, to scratch a little Mommy Domme itch I knew some of my readers would have. For me, this wasn't about anything literal—it was about the power exchange of being eased to willingly call someone "Mommy", the combination of devotion and self-abasement. I also wanted holstaurs to be mostly humanoid, as that's my own taste on the matter. Horns, a tail and big tits were permissible. Hair color didn't matter. Eyes could be a deep brown, to evoke those of a cow.

Furthermore, I decided that while you could fuck a holstaur normally, it just wasn't their favorite pastime compared to being suckled, so I made their breasts hyper-erogenous and their pussies a little less so. I loved the idea of a victim just being allowed to suckle sleepily forever, with little need to even move. Plus, I thought it would be interesting if the holstaur just steadily stroked a man or woman with her fingers while they suckled—"milking" her pet while they milked her.

Aside from keeping the drinker horny, the milk itself would be soporific and gradually addictive, meaning the holstaur could calmly release her plaything and be confident they would eventually willingly return to suckle themselves even deeper under her spell. Finally, it would be sweet—but a little spicy, like eggnog, or warm milk with cinnamon.

Finally, I had to decide where holstaurs fit into my world. They were a natural pick for fey—mellow and sweet but wickedly, subtly seductive, only interested in their own pleasure rather than any ambitious scheme. In fact, I decided they were so simplistic, they would work fine as sprites, and so they gained their second name: "Udder sprites".

As for names, references to thirst, milk and matriarchy suited me fine, and so the first holstaur was known simply as "Mommy"—or "Laca", to her enemies. The holstaur was born.

Conclusion

Why do we smut monsters? It's a way to get a little weird and call it creative. It's a way to play with established tropes differently—meet the new alraune, no longer a troubled soulless woman of the 20th century but a sultry seductress inviting you into her sweet embrace, a fey whose only wish is to make you happy. By making herself happy. It's a way to expand the fantasy, to push the limits, to try something new.

Ever since we started making up monsters, we started inventing ways to fuck them. Succubi, vampires, mandrake roots, hags and witches and sirens and satyrs. The Bacchanalia, festivals of depravity and indecency, conspiracy against the state.

But the Bacchanalia were real. The wet dreams were real. There is a grain of truth, of genuine fear or repressed desire, in every sexy monster story. It's a good idea to understand what truth is on display when you stumble upon a new creature.

If the lavender dryad is dumb, rude, and eager to drain your intelligence with every kiss until you fall into her arms, a ditzy, horny mess, to beg the grace of her superior intellect, what does it say about you to have invented her? Just how did she land that first kiss?

 What Next?

So, if you enjoyed this what should I write about next? Leave your comments below, and let me know if this column was fun or useful to you!

• Writing character-driven smut
• Writing smutty struggles with a lesson or a theme
• When to break the rules of writing
• Maintaining a steady pace (or, "How to write 2-4 books a year and still feel like you're slacking")
• My writing regrets (or, "Sexualizing R*pe Pt. 2")
• What I've learned from crowdfunding fiction