Meow...

I know you’re wondering why I picked a subject called “Meow.” Well I didn’t actually pick it. Yesterday I asked my little girl kitty, Puff for a blog topic and she said, “Meow.” She didn’t say, “Meow, meow,” or “Mew,” or just purr like she does quite a bit when she’s getting attention, she just said, “Meow.” I had to give this matter a lot of thought. How is “Meow” a pertinent theme for a writer’s blog entry then it came to me this afternoon. It’s not just about “Meow”, it’s about how we depict animals in the stories we write.  

Yep, I adore animals. Always have, always will. From the beginning I’ve gravitated to reading stories about animals as I’ve mentioned in the introduction on the home page of this website. I doubt I’ve read every book that is centered around animals, but I’ve read as many of them as I can. Does this make me an expert when it comes to including animals in the stories I write? No, but I hope it helps, since animals will have a place in most any novel I write.

It isn’t only in reading novels about animals that will hopefully make me good at including them in my novels. I have also had lots of hands on experiences with animals throughout my life. Not just in passing with the occasional pat. No actual interactions with them, getting to know them as well as any human can ever really know an animal. 

I could tell many stories about the animals I’ve gotten to know. And maybe someday I will. In fact I have written out a few of these stories already. But this blog entry isn’t about that. It’s about depicting them in our writing. Making sure we respect them as characters as we do our human characters or alien life form characters as the case might be.

If you have a cat in your novel is it always welcome to the main characters attention or is it stand offish at times? What about a dog? Is he always loyal to his master? Or does he turn against his owner if the owner does something to hurt him? How do you make them express themselves? A wag of the tail? A growl? Contented purring? A mouse scurrying across the floor when a light is turned on?

I know I plan on reading a couple new novels I bought recently that have main character animals to get even more of an idea of how to respect animals as characters in a novel. Not that I don’t feel I’ve done a good job of that so far in the stories I’ve had them in. But I never get tired of reading a good novel where an animal takes center stage.

For my writing friends. If you want to. I’d love to know, if you’ve included animals in any of your stories, and how good you feel you did?