Keeping Old Tropes Fresh

You might try not making those types of characters too one or two dimensional, and thus subsequently stereotypical and far too predictable. Don't focus on their otherness - give them some mundane issues to deal with, like having to pay their taxes on time, keeping up appearances, etc... It doesn't hurt to evoke a little reader sympathy for the monsters. In fact that can make the story more interesting.

Remember, hiding in plain sight is a full time job.

Probably been done somewhat, but maybe less

They only appear monstrous to those who fear them but look normal to everybody else ...

or

They appear monstrous to men or women, children or adults, not to the other.

I made a pretty lengthy post in the thread about the undead, which I think can apply to this too. It was about making zombies scarier than their usual trope stereotypes.

If you want scary, you've got to remember that what we don't see is scarier than what we do. Mystery and fear of the unknown are your best friends. If a reader has just enough cues to know that they're dealing with something unnatural and sinister, but don't know WHAT, then they will create their own image to fill in their own most terrifying interpretation, and that will always be more scary (to them) than anything that you as the writer (or any writer) could come up with. I'm not saying that your creature should be something totally unknown, but there should be certain ASPECTS of the creature that are.

For me, the best ways to create a disturbing tone are to rely on unsettling, uncanny small things just just seem off. Smells of rot and death that are totally unexplained; weird residues; unnatural things happening with nature; etc. Don't rely on empty, evidence-lacking cliches like "gut feelings," but don't flat out describe your monster (or what they do/want) either.

Also, if you're going for truly scary, you may want to consider changing the names of your zombies/vampires/werewolves. Just create another term that your characters call them by. This will help you avoid readers just inserting their own (non-scary trope) perception of what they understand zombies/werewolves/vampires to be.

The best way is to stop thinking about them as stock character. Think, instead, about what scares you about them - what do they spark in you and why? Then turn that up to high.

For me Zombies scare me because they never stop. You can outright them, outsmart them, but there are always more and they will never stop coming. You only need to mess up once. In that, to get psychological on you, they're akin to my natural fear of mortality and communicable disease.

Once you've done all that, sprinkle a few creatively-imagined differences on top (perhaps your vampires like to squash themselves tight into the shadowed corners of your room so they can watch you all night with their cracked and dusty eyes) and you should have something that makes people stiff with fear, not boredom.

Actually some of the freshest classic monster stories are the ones that go back to basics. The 'Fright Night' remake for instance, reminded me how downright terrifying vampires can be if done properly. Colin Farell's vampire is just a straightforward death machine, killing simply because it's his nature and he enjoys tormenting his victims, he doesn't stop to lament his condition, he relishes in it. Also see lost boys. Reading Bram Stokers Dracula is a must if you haven't already. Also, maybe it's because I don't read alot of this kind of fiction but I don't see alot of recent vampire stories that use the classic vampire abilities such as turning into mist, becoming a bat, summoning creatures of the night etc. Werewolves are probably easier to get into characterization as they are the most human therefore the most relatable. Shouldn't be a problem to make a werewolf interesting. As for zombies well... In my opinion there is no way a zombie can be anything other than a clichéd trope. There mindless undead after all.

ETA: I agree about revisiting classics. As for Fright Night, Colin Farrell was brilliant and the remake was far better than the original, but I'm not sure how the film would have been without him and as writers we can't count on actors to carry something.

The only way, I think, you'll keep tropes fresh is by having a solid story and strong, identifiable characters.
I'm extremely hard to frighten (gross out is another matter) and the only way I ever get engaged in a horror story is if the writing and tension is top notch, or I care about the person bad things might happen to.

As for zombies, I honestly think the outbreak/apocalypse thing has been done to death at this point so if there are zombies, imo, anything but an infectious plague as the cause of it. The last thing I read or watched in that vein was Planet Terror and that was only because it was Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino.

Werewolves seem the most difficult to keep fresh. They're just mindless animals that snarl and growl and chase you. Unless they're contagious, in which case there's the added horror that you'll turn into one, but the same threat is presented with a fast moving zombie. Or you got your demented werewolves that are evil even as in human form, which basically just gives a shape shifting serial killer.

Jacob_Wallace said:

Werewolves seem the most difficult to keep fresh. They're just mindless animals that snarl and growl and chase you. Unless they're contagious, in which case there's the added horror that you'll turn into one, but the same threat is presented with a fast moving zombie. Or you got your demented werewolves that are evil even as in human form, which basically just gives a shape shifting serial killer.

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If you go down the werewolves-as-horror route, part of it is the horror of being the werewolf. You black out and then wake up, covered in blood. WHo did you kill? You can't control it, you hurt people. "Even a man who prays every night is a demon under the full moon's light" and all that. It's hard to sustain that horror overly long, but that's the sympathetic terror part and the traditional horror elements.

Another element is that you don't know who the werewolf is. It could be anyone. And the werewolf may not even know it. There may not even be a way to "test" people. So you have paranoia.

One way to use this is to have a group of characters stuck in a small location. There's a werewolf among them, they know it, and the full moon is scheduled for that night. Suddenly you have a ticking clock until the werewolf bursts out and kills everyone. What do they do? The horror here is the slowly approaching imminent death, the panic to avoid it, and the paranoia of who's the werewolf.

Finally, the werewolf offers the opportunity to do something you don't see a lot in "big monster that eats everyone" stories: it could be intelligent. Rather than a crazy feral beast, it could have cunning and the ability to plan. It could destroy vehicles or firearms, knowing they're a threat. It could use lures, fakeouts, misdirection, it could herd people towards a dead-end. Suddenly it's not just another monster, but the alien from Predator without technology: it wants to Hunt you. To separate this from the "demented shapeshifting serial killer", the werewolf is only like this when it's wolfed out. This way the human doesn't know it, it can't shift back and forth, and it's not going to say, build traps or work locks.

Vampires, there are different things you can do. Fright Night is a great example of one avenue, of taking the "it passes as human but he's a superpowered serial killer". What about going in the other direction? They can't pass for human, and they act like monsters.

They could look or behave like self-aware zombies; corpse-like, grotesque. They could be bound to sleeping in graves, or other sorts of filth.

Instead of drinking the blood of the living, maybe they have to drink the blood or eat the flesh of the dead. Treat them like ghouls.

They could even behave like corporeal ghosts. And by that, I mean they could "haunt" and terrorize those they knew in life. Think about it, you just buried your dad, and suddenly he's there night after night in your window, or standing across the street. Perhaps the vampire is intentionally draining the blood of all his relatives.

Finally, the vampire could be causing side-effects. Some lore blames vampires for disease and other misfortunes. So the vampire could be spreading plague or blighting crops just by simply being in the area. Or they could be consciously able to spread disease and urban decay, so they're undead Typhoid Mary's. It could instead be something curse-like.

P.S. Oh, and there's also the idea of playing with various vampire's powers. Like there's an idea if a vampire's fed on you, it can control you/call to you. So the horror or focus could be the mental control, the fact the vampire is in your head, it's dragging You towards It, the desire to fight the impulse to walk right into the monster's arms.

Rechan said:

Vampires, there are different things you can do. Fright Night is a great example of one avenue, of taking the "it passes as human but he's a superpowered serial killer". What about going in the other direction? They can't pass for human, and they act like monsters.

They could look or behave like self-aware zombies; corpse-like, grotesque. They could be bound to sleeping in graves, or other sorts of filth.

Instead of drinking the blood of the living, maybe they have to drink the blood or eat the flesh of the dead. Treat them like ghouls.

They could even behave like corporeal ghosts. And by that, I mean they could "haunt" and terrorize those they knew in life. Think about it, you just buried your dad, and suddenly he's there night after night in your window, or standing across the street. Perhaps the vampire is intentionally draining the blood of all his relatives.

Finally, the vampire could be causing side-effects. Some lore blames vampires for disease and other misfortunes. So the vampire could be spreading plague or blighting crops just by simply being in the area. Or they could be consciously able to spread disease and urban decay, so they're undead Typhoid Mary's. It could instead be something curse-like.

P.S. Oh, and there's also the idea of playing with various vampire's powers. Like there's an idea if a vampire's fed on you, it can control you/call to you. So the horror or focus could be the mental control, the fact the vampire is in your head, it's dragging You towards It, the desire to fight the impulse to walk right into the monster's arms.

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You do realize what you described is pre-Stoker vampire lore, right? We may think of Dracula type vamps as normal now, but they were once inovative in their own right.

Lillith1991 said:

You do realize what you described is pre-Stoker vampire lore, right? We may think of Dracula type vamps as normal now, but they were once inovative in their own right.

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I do, yes.

I think this part is the part you need to keep foremost in your thinking:

Beasley said:

The supernatural creatures are allegory for the monsters we hide inside. Or something. Maybe its not that deep.

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I think, bearing that in mind, that the horrifying part is not that they're monsters--it's that we're all monsters, just to varying degrees.

If I finish your story and I find myself looking around me at the people I work with, and start seeing the monsters in them... That's victory.