The Monster System

The Monster System is a way to look at a cartoon monster and interpret it as about 5 letters; then you can use that monster image to represent a concept. This is useful if the concept is not very visual. Sometimes a concept is very visual such as a politician in recent history: you can look at a photo of the person and then imagine that person in your mnemonics scene or story; but sometimes a concept is not very visual and yet you want to imagine an image within your mnemonic story that represents the concept. So you could use a monster image.

However, if you overuse this approach, you will end up with samey images. So think of it as a sparingly applied option in situations where you can not think of a good visual for something. A monster can represent about 5 letters but what if the concept is 10 letters long? In that case, the monster spells just the first 6 letters or so of the worf but that is still useful as a memory prompt for the concept.

Here is a table. It talks about sets. I made a set of 10 monster eyes; then I made another set of 10 monster eyes. In the end, I made 5 sets of 10 monster eyes. If the length of the word (the word that needs representing as a monster) is 5 then you would have to use eye set A. Look at the table where I state that.

There are three sets of mouths. Each mouth set is 3 mouth images. Within mouths set A, the first mouth represents leading digit 0. The second mouth represents digit 1. The third mouth represents digit 2. And each eye of set A has a digit from 0 to 9. So, you could pick any number from 00 to 29 and represent it as one of those mouths pictures followed by one of those eyes pictures. So, the 'eyes:mouth' pair is interpreted as mouth digit and then eye digit. E.g. "L" is colour 20. So the mouth needs to be a 2 and the eyes need to be a 0.

There are three sets of cheeks. Each cheeks image set is 3 images of cheeks. Within cheeks set A, the first cheek represents leading digit 0. The second cheek represents digit 2. The third cheek represents digit 3. And each nose of nose set A has a digit from 0 to 9. So, you could pick any number from 00 to 29 and represent it as one of those cheek picturee followed by one of those nose pictures.

The monster body can represent a letter of the alphabet if it is in the range: O I A E U N S C/K T R L. If the letter is not one of those then there is another body type that just lets you know that the letter is none of the ones I just listed.

There are 13 body types and 30 colour fills. Although the Colours article lists colours from 00 to 27 [total = 28 colours]. For the Monster system, Colour 22 is no longer optionally interpreted as H or as TH because 22 here only means H. So a body colour fill can indicate a letter.

If there are only enogh letters in the word to allow 5 monster features then body type defaults to body Word_Length_5 rather than a body that represents a spelling. If there is a 6th part but it is not one of the single letter body letters (A, E, R, S, etc.then there is Body_Other to represent that the 6th monster part is not a good spelling fit for the ore common letters.

The sequence in which I can interpret a monster as spellings is:

- Body colour

- Eye and mouth combination

- Nose and cheek combination

- Outfit colour fill

- Outfit

- Body type

- (BENOOB acrostic if you use the first letter of each line)

There is a body type that means "this body does not represent any spelling". So even though there are 6 spellings in BENOOB, that body type will lead to there being only 5 spellings. If the full length of the word you want to memorise is actually 5 letters or can be spelled using just 5 monster spelling prompts then you can use that special body type.

But as an example of how to typically use the BENOOB approach, "Crystallography" is C, R, Y, S, T, A and each letter is represented in the BENOOB order; starting with the "C" as a body colour.

The whole word's length is "12 or more" and so I need to use the image sets that occur at that row of the above table.

Next, we want to represent R. The eye and mouth combination are used to do that. You need to revisit the "Outfits 50" article to see how there are 30 spellings associated with 30 numbers from 00 to 29. In that article, R is 23. So you want the mouth that means 2 and the eye that means 3. Since word length is 12, set B is used for mouths and set C is used for eyes.

Next, we want Y to be represented as a Nose and cheek combination. Nose set B and cheek set D are used to represent Y. In the Outfits 50 article, Y is number 8 (or 08). So Cheek 0 is used and nose 8 is used.

Next, the letter S is represented by outfit colour.

Next, the letter T is represented by outfit from the Outfit 50 article. S = Fireman outfit. I am using the male outfits. I could use female outfits to add variety if different monsters look too similar.

Finally, the 'A' of CRYSTA can be represented by the body type that means 'A': the monster with cat-like ears.

A Monster Maker could be used where you type in a word and then it is represented as a monster!

As an example of the sort of concept you could represent with a monster: You could visualise a king from 100s of years ago as a monster. That is better than a vague bearded king picture from a history book drawing. You could represent part of a medical term. And then imagine that monster in a story in order to note other things about that medical term.