Talk to me about kaiju

underpope

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I'm working on a short story that involves a giant monster and a single mom who's dealing with it, as well as a kaiju novel.

What do you think? Do kaiju stories fall under the auspices of horror? Or some other genre entirely?
 

Shoeless

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Kaiju can definitely fall under the category of horror if you utilize horrific aspects. Depending on how much leeway you want to give to the definition, some of the more monstrous creatures of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos could be defined as Kaiju and they are terrifying. If your Kajiju induce fear, they're legitimately horror. If someone else wants to use Kaiju as a fun monster for some heroic kids to defeat through smarts and sass, then it's a fine middle grade story. It's all in the execution.
 

ShaunHorton

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A lot of it is about the execution. That being said, the Kaiju themselves are going to be pretty horrific in most scenarios. Even if they don't eat people, they're going to be massively destructive. The story you write around them will be the genre though. You could do a romance, "Love in the time of Kaiju" story. It could be humorous as people just try to live out their daily lives while the building across the street is being pancaked. It could be sci-fi as the Kaiju are studied and technology it built to fight them like in Pacific Rim. etc. etc.
 

underpope

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I've been thinking about it, and you all are right! It's all in the execution.

The story I'm working on started out as a fun romp, but quickly evolved into something more serious. I guess I was concerned because it seems that every plot I came up with for this story did the same thing.
 

Shoeless

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In the case of my story, the giant monster has come to represent depression.

Well, depression can be horrific if it goes to deep, dark places no one would rather look at or acknowledge. Make it Kaiju sized and that sounds like it could be interesting.
 

underpope

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Well, depression can be horrific if it goes to deep, dark places no one would rather look at or acknowledge. Make it Kaiju sized and that sounds like it could be interesting.

I definitely hope so. Now my main challenge is figuring out how a single depressed mother could defeat a giant monster single-handedly. My own mother struggled with severe depression, so I may ask her for some insight.
 

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I feel like it would be difficult to represent depression in kaiju form, so my advice would be to be sure to think the symbolism through very carefully and try to avoid the depressive realism concept altogether.
 

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I'm sure it can be done, I just think it would be tricky. You'd have to make a kaiju whose destruction doesn't come in bursts of violence and excitement for it to really work. Maybe one who forms an ongoing threat that people treat as being insurmountable and so they just kind of work around it or give into it. It could also be that it attacks and destroys things in the normal manner, but the places he destroys are made so toxic by his attacks (maybe he spreads a toxin or infectious disease in his wake) that the damage spreads and can't be rebuilt without addressing the long term effects.
 

underpope

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I'm sure it can be done, I just think it would be tricky. You'd have to make a kaiju whose destruction doesn't come in bursts of violence and excitement for it to really work. Maybe one who forms an ongoing threat that people treat as being insurmountable and so they just kind of work around it or give into it. It could also be that it attacks and destroys things in the normal manner, but the places he destroys are made so toxic by his attacks (maybe he spreads a toxin or infectious disease in his wake) that the damage spreads and can't be rebuilt without addressing the long term effects.

That's kind of the direction I was going with "Anamet". It's taken me over a month to get there, but the story is slowly coming together.
 

Poetical Gore

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I definitely hope so. Now my main challenge is figuring out how a single depressed mother could defeat a giant monster single-handedly. My own mother struggled with severe depression, so I may ask her for some insight.

She wins by letting her old self be killed by the monster.
 

Kalsik

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I realize that this idea may have been done before, but why not make the monster have some sort of extra sense that is attuned to something humans emit with emotional outbursts. Perhaps the creature is not overtly big, but big enough. Say no bigger than a T-rex at most.
Now say the creature's sense of smell was not only key to most scents, but particularly attuned to pheromones, or chemicals given off by emotional states, whatever the proper researched equivalent is. Perhaps the creature could be drawn in by positive, more passionate emotions, and as such, it more often attacks those happier in life at the moment.
So the mother's depression, and anybody else saddened at anything or the creature, would actually protect them, because the creature could perhaps associate the pheromones of sadder states with decay or sickness [getting metaphorical here].
The more the creature comes, the worst those who are depressed become, even if they are spared, because people who aren't depressed or sad are suffering for no seemingly fair reason.
So the mother has to overcome her depression to get the strength to help fight back against the creature, even if overcoming that depression makes her a target that she's avoided being until then.
As for how the creature's 'sense' is figured out, I'm sure that could be deduced by some outside investigator the mother comes to associate with to some degree.
The climax could be that, after luring the creature in to an isolated location, she relapses into a depression at being near the creature, and death, which ironically spares her. Now she's trapped with a creature who seemingly shows little interest in her, and more interest in getting out. Getting away from the 'sick smell', if you were to dive into its mindset for a moment.
 

underpope

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Well. Several months have passed, I'm back from my unintentional break from AW, and "Anamet" is complete. It went in a much darker place than I had intended, but that's partially because my mother and I got into a disagreement regarding my sister's wedding. Petty, but it happened. Anyway, it's done and on submission, and if anyone here is interested in reading it, send me a PM.