So I want to write about eldritch abominations!

Only problem is none of my ideas are particularly creative, and are inspired by already existing ideas I didn't even know existed.

A horrifying gigantic destroyer who once used to be an angel? Done by Magic The Gathering via Emrakul. Turning Angels into abominable eldritch hybrids, as a way to showcase how your beings can defile all that is beautiful and celestial? Done by Magic The Gathering via Brisela Voice of Nightmares. Darker lonely character finds out she's the maiden of the apocalypse and her father is a doomsday bringer who produced her solely to bring the end? Done by Teen Titans with Raven and Trigon. Horrifying monster released from a vault in the earth that proceeds to mutate townsfolk and animals into paralyzed globs of boneless meat? Isaac Asimov's "The Horror in the Vault". Abominable monstrosity covered in eyes and mouths who is an ever growing amorphous mess? Shoggoths from HP Lovecraft himself.

Every thing I want to put into my story I want to put in because it's what I like and love to write about, but is overshadowed by far more popular works who did it first. Is this going to be a problem? Has this been a problem or concern for any of yall? Is it okay to create my own spin on these ideas in my WIP comic if I am distant enough from it?

Edited by Gaddammitkyle on Sep 28th 2019 at 7:25:29 AM

Then just look at every day things and let your mind wander off in directions sane people really shouldn't let them.

For example: "What is that thing in your shadow that's glaring at you every time you look away from it?"

Just a minor example, but that said, archetypes in terms of eldritch abominations are a given at this point. However, the trick is how to play them without tipping people off with the familiarity of it being done before.

For example, try not to describe a eldritch abomination with any nouns, but with verbs instead. Be creative with the adjectives as well.

For example: "The moldy, worming, luminescent traces of fragrance slithered across the ceiling straight towards me, its whirling currents of cancerous bleeding color throbbing every second as it homed in on me. In the span of a moment, it dropped and wrapped itself tightly over my face akin of plastic film, suffocating me in the vibrant pulse of corrosive cyan and maleficent magenta, reeking as the unwashed obligations of forgotten beer left beneath the couch."

Just one example of a minor eldritch abomination from the perspective of the narrative.

Also, keep its motives vague, human beings aren't supposed to understand their desires if they posses any, as that is what makes them eldritch.

Sometimes, you can actually just have them invade a average day of the narrative for no seemingly logical reason whatsoever, as "bad things happen" every day.

If you want to write, then feel free to write what you love the most, if you don't fear the critics of your tales, so to speak. If you write it for yourself and your love of the topic, then what satisfaction you can get from doing so will come as you write and the completion of your work.

feedback and reviews is a secondary thing in those cases really, and any constructive criticism will only help you grow as a writer the next time you write something for yourself, until you feel the desire to show it to others.

Write what you love as a start.

Just a friendly advice from a fellow (unpublished) writer.

Take a look at your surroundings and just find something that could be twisted into an incomprehensible nightmare. Take Uzumaki for example— the evil in that story is the very concept of the spiral, and it's written in such a way that it not only works, but excels to make spirals seem eldritch and unnatural and horrifying.

You could do something similar. Just take an idea and run with it.

And Titan is right; don't worry about motivation, or backstory, or tragedy. The Eldritch Abomination are about the sheer horror of the strange, so we shouldn't worry about understanding them. The examples you cite rely on lore and backstory, making them somehow relateable. But abominations in the true sense deny all human understanding, act in ways completely alien to us, and would make us go insane if we try to understand them.

So my advice: Focus on the confusion, the chaos, the reaction of the protagonists when faced with something so abnormal. If you need inspiration or concept, try twisting something ordinary into something horrifying. It worked for Junji Ito.

Edited by WarJay77 on Sep 28th 2019 at 5:35:21 AM