Hey everyone, so I'm doing some development work for a new story I'm starting on. It's a middle-grade/YA urban fantasy with an alternate dimension where the fantasy aspect takes place. The alternate dimension has negative entity creatures, etc. and is where the antagonistic forces live. I envision it having some parts that are more urban, and some parts that are more forest-like, for different types of adventures the characters have. (However, urban/forest don't have to be similar to the cities/forests of our world, just equivalent if that makes sense.) I've developed the plot flow, but haven't yet developed the setting, and this is what I'm needing to do and would love some ideas if anyone has good ones. The alternate dimension is similar enough in function to the Upside-Down from Stranger Things, the "Other" world in Coraline, etc. but I don't want it to seem cliche or too similar to those types of places. I'm trying to come up with a creepy, eerie alternate dimension setting without it being full of overused tropes, so i'm trying to stay away from things like "everything is gray and shadowy," "Labyrinth-like maze," "Almost just like our real world but with creepy details just slightly off," "like outer space with a pitch-black background" or anything else that's been done before. Anyone have ideas? I'm not asking anyone to develop an actual setting in full, just give some ideas that could help get me going. Thanks so much!! (I give rep points for responses too haha)
Well I was going to suggest that you have it as an almost mirrored dimension. So the urban surrounds in the original dimension is the same as in the new dimension, however the city is desolate and is overrun by nature so forests, trees, etc. The city has been abandoned and the surroundings are derelict ruins. You could have the antagonist living in a derelict version of the white house or Buckingham palace!
Whatever is creepy in ‘our’ universe will be creepy in any other. So decide what you think is creepy, and then place that in the other universe. A really good example in my opinion is Fringe. The parallel universe felt very different and quite threatening, but in a really non-specific and intangible way. I’d recommend watching all of it from start to finish if you’re interested in parallel universes.
To me, the creepiest descriptions of alternate dimensions are limited. The best descriptions are metaphoric because it invokes the uncanny valley where things may seem normalish, but there is something off that you can't put your finger on. These other worldly spaces tend to be beyond the realm of human understanding which is exactly what makes them so terrifying. Lovecraft was brilliant at describing things that humans are meant to know and couldn't comprehend, so perhaps take some inspiration from there?
When I was doing this recently, I had a picture that I found eerie, and I extrapolated from there. I made a list of specific details that I liked about it, found similar pictures, kept expanding my list until I had a world in mind. There's no shortcut here. The way you avoid generic and cliche settings is by spending time making them your own. I'm very "tuned in" to creepy stuff (being a horror fan and someone who's easily scared), and I keep a running list of things I find scary or unsettling, ranging from tiny out-of-place details to descriptions of horrifying monsters. Like @mashers said, decide what creeps you out. The more specific you can be, the better.
I'm always a fan of bright evil things. The movie version of Coraline went to lengths to show that the other world was colorful and lively and fun, and though it degraded as it became more overtly bad for a reason that makes sense in context, I thought it would have been cool if it remained all cheerful-looking. Things that genuinely seem innocuous or even good, with no unsettling undertones at all -- I like that. It makes the creepy things that happen or live in that setting seem worse and more jarring from the contrast.
Have you seen Pan's Labryinth? Super creepy. You should also look into Japanese media - masters of horror! Even in anime meant for families and children, you see moments when the horror creeps in. Absolute masters of doing that "just a little bit off" feeling that really really gets under your skin. It's almost never overt, just a tiniest bit... wrong. With narrative, a lot of it would be in the atmosphere you build over time. I've not written creepy/horror things very much, and I don't read those genres (get scared too easily), but I guess it's about setting up expectations or bending expectations. Like, I remember in Pan's Labryinth, [SPOILERS] the little girl makes the mistake of eating from the table of the Pale Man and almost didn't make it, and she goes back to the faun who had been her ally. I'd expected the faun to be forgiving, or perhaps he'd give her a reprimand and tell her she has to pay and prove her worth, prove she won't make the same mistake again or something. But no, the faun just lost it and told her she shall never return home and then he disappeared into the darkness and left the girl crying. It wasn't creepy per se but it shocked me so much that it made me wonder if the faun might have done something worse than simply walking away - till the end of the film I still couldn't believe he never came back. I just couldn't believe there was no forgiveness whatsoever. (the ending of the film is up for debate)
If you want something to be creepy, just make a situation that's almost normal, and then change it in a way that could never actually happen. We naturally fear the unknown, so if something familiar (AKA our safe zone) suddenly just isn't, people get creeped out. For example, the movie Coraline. Side note on that movie, I know it's meant for small children but it's legitimately scary.
You said its similar to the function of the world from Coraline. Coralines alternate dimension seemed like something like a dream to me. You could make your story out of the same framework. So in coraline, Subjective thoughts that would appear in her physical world (uselessness of the dad, controlling nature of the mom, the former glory of Coralines neighbors) came together and formed another world in another dimension. You could have the same manifested dreamworld in your story. A physical world of an alternate dimension created from subjective material completely unique to the actual physical world that created it. It would make an interesting story setting for sure(in my opinion) and still have plenty of logical premise for existing.
Use the uncanny valley trope. What it means is that usually the most creepy things are what's almost humanh but with something "off". People without eyes, real life picasso paintings, people with the same expression stuck on their faces. @WaffleWhale mentioned Coraline which is a great example of this tropes used marvelously. Same goes for scenery. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
When I think of alternate dimensions I think of weird stuff like Alice in wonderland, or even the anime Pandora Hearts, (I should really finish watching that). Also another good source of inspiration is the Evil Within Video game series. Take a normal town and twist it in impossible ways, or make something so weird even your characters will think it's insane. Also having an interesting mechanic to entering the other realm helps.
I don't think it is enough to describe an alternate dimension, but you could try explaining why it is there. If it is where all the bad entities in the city congregate, maybe try looking into the history of urban development and pick out some truly horrendous scenes of events that may not exist in the real world, but left such a scar that a version of them exists in the alternate dimension. Think of places like sanitoriums or the site of a great tragedy.
