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How do you write good death scenes? Any advice? Specifically, they're monster deaths.

A lot depends on whether the monsters have human-like hands to sign with.

Maybe you can write how the monster has adapted after being deaf.

Serious answer is hard to give without more context, honestly.

Well, I dunno. In my story there's meant to be a feeling of helplessness against these things. They're weird, eldritch creatures that can vary from humanoid abomination to tendril mass.

Should the deaths be gruesome? Direct assault? Ambush? I just want to know which kind of death-by-monster scares people the most.

Tell me more about these eldritch horrors...

well, they're the first creations of the gods. Savage, brutal killing machines that were created with base survival in mind rather than intelligence or society. They vary in shape based on the god that created them, but they all have grey skin.

Some of them don't even need to eat, and instead kill just because that's all they know.

The eldritch horrors are afraid of the sun (although it doesn't actually hurt them) and thus only a very rare few venture out of their hiding spots throughout the land to hunt during the day.

If a feeling of helplessness is what you're trying to get across, then any attempt to face them head on should definitely be fatal, perhaps getting more gruesome and punishing the more foolish and cocky the player gets.

Once they're locked into a bad end, having it take a few clicks still to get there might increase the effect; thinking they may still have a chance to escape only to have everything they try end in failure would have more impact than just immediately getting a game over.

People are more afraid of an unknown threat than a known threat. If you're trying to write horror, I would avoid a direct confrontation with the monster if possible. Having it stalk you would probably be scarier.

Monster deaths? So is the protagonist killing them? If that's the case, you make it interesting by adding tension to the scene while they're alive. Generally when you say death scene, you mean a major sympathetic character is dying, though.

Er, sorry. Bad phrasing. I meant that it's a death caused by monsters.

The method of death is less important than who's dying and why. How major a character is it, and what role does their death serve in the narrative?

... the protagonist. Because you made a wrong decision.

Oh... Yeah, good point, this is a CYOA site. Somehow I keep forgetting.

When I write dead ends where my protagonist gets killed in my VN, I try to string out the tension as long as possible by making it seem like she might be able to get out of the situation, but ultimately the bad decision is just too bad to overcome. I also think it's important that the decision not feel arbitrary, so I don't like to write choices like "do you stab it in the left eye or the right eye?" Instead I write choices more like "do you make the tactical decision to try this thing or not?"

I dunno, it's kind of hard to give advice without seeing exactly what you're trying to do.

It wasn't exactly obvious what she meant from the question, so you don't really need to apologize for being it clarified.

But yes, meaningless or random things leading to the player's death is a big peeve of mine. A bad end should always be because the player made a wrong decision or failed to consider something, not because they went left instead of right and were denied any info on either.

Yep, it should be clear from context what the right decision is if you're paying attention. Another thing I think a dead end should do is feel worthwhile. I like mine to try to convey some kind of new information to justify its inclusion in the story, whether about the characters or the plot, but it's really hard to do that for every single one. That failing, it should at least be a cool and interesting way to die.

If this is death by eldritch horror, then it should be pretty bad. Just a simple decapitation isn’t going to work.

You mentioned tentacles so let’s go with the obvious.

You run, but the writhing tentacled mass continues to keep up the pace despite its girth taking up the entire hallway which is seemingly endless at this point. You keep an eye out for a window or door, anything that could get you out of here, but there are no other exits except the one ahead of you.

You start to hear voices mocking you about past wrongs you have done or even wrongs you could have prevented. You feel a crushing sense of guilt, even from the ones you didn’t normally feel guilty about. This guilt quickly turns into despair. You cry out at these inhuman chattering voices to shut the hell up, but they just laugh and continue to mock you.

Meanwhile you start to feel the mass behind you getting very close. The exit is right there before you, but you’re so overcome by the sheer hopelessness of it all that you just stop and don’t open the door. What is the point? You can’t escape. You deserve to die and worse. You truly believe that now.

A single tentacle touches your arm and then another. Another then wraps around you leg and then around your waist. You feel it squeeze tightly around you and pull you in.

Your body is slowly absorbed by the tentacled mass, but it isn’t melting you or anything like that. It’s making you part of it. You’re being completely torn apart but left alive to feel the pain of all of it. The sounds of mad laughter flood what is left of your mind.

Everything about you is gone. You’re multiple bloody pieces of mush in constant flux of shifting and changing within this thing’s body which has long since forgotten about you, indeed if it even considered you as something to be thought of at all. You were an insignificant meal at best.

Years, decades, centuries pass, but you’d never know it because time is meaningless in your condition.

Every once in awhile though when the thing is in a state of dormancy, a sliver, a minuscule piece of you somehow regains something like a glimpse of a memory and an eye manages to make it to the surface of the thing’s outer skin.

A single tear weeps from it.

Followed by a thousand laughing screams.

Wow. That's a lot of 'you's. I see your point though. Thanks for the inspiration!

D:

STAPH

Don't spoil the story for them!!!

I didn't spoil anything important! Just what the monsters are, which you already know by like the fifth page of the game.

I won't spoil any plot details. Just synopsis details.

Ah... k