Hey y'all, I'm restructuring one of my novels -- it always kept getting way too complex and out of hand as a full-length "Hunger Games" style older YA novel, so I'm simplifying it and retelling it as a middle-grade novel with a shorter word count. This has solved all my plot problems and now I'm finally getting the damn thing done. YAY! In the original story, there are mutant creatures that the story's scientists have called "Highly Evolved Land Lifeforms," or Hells for short. I really loved this name in my YA version, but for the younger MG version I want to change it to something that people won't get offended by or think is inappropriate. I want to keep it as something that, like "Hells," is a longer scientific official name with an acronym that's something "scary"/sinister/intriguing/whatever. But something that won't have religious people and school librarians breathing up my neck about the word being inappropriate for children. Any thoughts?
If the MG takes place prior to the YA story, come up with something more 'primitive', like they don't yet know the creatures are highly evolved. Evolved Voracious Eaters?
It doesn't take place prior to it. The MG is instead of the YA. The story kept getting overcomplicated and full of plot holes as a longer YA, so I'm writing is as a simpler MG instead. It's only one story. I like that. A lot. I still want to explore more options, though. I think "evil" might be a bit too much "muahuahua evil sorcerer," and I'm going more for "scary animals in the wilderness that could rip you to shreds for lunch." They're like wild animals (of different types and forms), but bigger and fiercer and could eat humans easily. Humans are no longer at the top of the food chain.
^ Thank you for the suggestion. I'll consider that one. I like the wilderness ring to it. Still, I'm not sure if it's exactly quite right. "Feral" often brings to mind more harmless creatures: feral stray cats, feral unsupervised kids, etc. I'm looking for something that you'd associate with a creature that, if you saw it in the woods, would make your heart drop to your stomach in sheer horror. A one-syllable shorter would would be preferred to. In fact, once the acronym gets nailed down, I can come up with the official words for each letter on my own.
I dunno, to me, feral often brings to mind something that will, at the very least, hiss at you, and at the most, lunge at your face and shred it with its teeth and claws, your dried blood further matting its tangled hair. Feral has a neutral denotation more than a neutral connotation.