Episode 161: Monster In The House Stories

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This week on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re leaning into spooky season by unpacking the Save the Cat “Monster in the House” storytelling genre.

Throughout the month of October and part of November, we’ll be talking about monster, supernatural, and spooky stories. Digging into some of the important things these stories have to tell, the psychological explorations they engage in, strong emotions they can bring to life within us, and the storytelling lessons we can take away from them.

Monster in the House stories tend to be primal and gripping and often are talked about mainly in terms of cinema, but they’re also well represented in books - ranging from Mary Shelley’s trailblazing classic Frankentein, to Stephen King’s psychological horror The Shining, to Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s unflinching and atmospheric Mexican Gothic.

In this conversation, we talk about how these stories make us feel - ratcheting up the tension within us over time and how the climax of these stories can help us have a moment of catharsis and release that energy that has built up over the course of the story - also allowing us to put our own fears and anxiety a little more in perspective.

The 3 essential parts of a Monster in the House story are:

1) A monster that is supernatural in its powers—even if its strength derives from insanity—and “evil” at its core.
2) A house, meaning an enclosed space that can include a family unit, an entire town, or even “the world.”
3) A sin. Someone is guilty of bringing the monster in the house… a transgression that can include ignorance.

We explore the nuances of these elements, how they’ve been used in stories and ways that they can be played with, and how paying attention to the levels of emotional and physiological tension you’re creating in the reader at specific points in the story can help make it stronger and the ending more satisfying.

Towards the end, we talk about some examples of subversions within the genre. For instance, the dissonance that an audience or reader feels when the physical setting is outside in daylight, but the ominous feeling is still present and overshadows it.

We hope you enjoy this conversation! It was such a treat to step back into films and books we know well and explore them through this lens.

Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

For this episode, our conversation is strongly connected with Save the Cat story types and storytelling frameworks. We directly reference information from:

  • Save the Cat! Writes a Novel: The Last Book On Novel Writing You'll Ever Need by Jessica Brody

  • Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need by Blake Synder

  • SavetheCat.com - Monster in the House

The Save the Cat website has beat sheets for many Monster in the House films. Here are a few from some the films we mention:

The Verbivore mentions a YouTube video that includes a conversation where Get Out writer and director Jordan Peele is talking about ensuring that Chris always has a why he stays amidst the increasingly creepy and weird things that are happening. That video essay is “Jordan Peele’s Advice on Writing Thrillers - edited by Tyler Mowery”.

The Verbivore references the Toy Story of Terror short animated film that follows this storytelling framework and the character Mr. Pricklepants directly calls out the beats and tropes. It’s available for purchase and to stream on Disney +. But, here also is a YouTube playlist link.

Here are a few other articles and videos we referenced for this conversation:

Books Mentioned:

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
‘Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Bethany Stedman