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Is
Fiction Going to the Dogs?
Novelists Share Tips on Writing About Animals
By Brenda Scott Royce
Maybe it's because I work at a zoo, but it seems like more and more novels these
days feature animals in the storyline. Of course, dogs and cats are perennially
popular, but exotic pets are popping up with increasing frequency. There's a
kakapo (a nearly extinct flightless parrot) in Lani Diane Rich's Maybe Baby,
ferrets in Linda O. Johnston's Nothing to Fear But Ferrets and Harley
Jane Kozak's Dating Dead Men, and a monkey in my novel Monkey Love.
I recently asked Rich, Johnston, and Kozak to share their insights into this
furry phenomenon.
Kozak believes that giving a character a pet can be a shortcut to creating
reader empathy. "It adds an element of humanity to a character, and gets people
invested in them," she explains. In her debut, Dating Dead Men, a ferret
named Margaret figures into a plot involving stolen diamonds, the mob, and a
woman's quest to date 40 men in 60 days. While the ferret isn't central to the
mystery plot, it nonetheless tugs at the reader's heartstrings, especially as it
is the beloved pet of a temporarily mute child.
Characters with Bite
The type of animal can also help to define a character. Imagine a burly,
tattooed biker with a seven-foot boa constrictor draped around his shoulders.
Now envision that same character, but instead of the snake, he has a tiny mouse
tucked inside his pocket, to which he periodically sneaks morsels of food. While
the biker's physical description is the same, your impression of the character
changes dramatically based on his choice of pet. That's something to think about
when deciding whether to give your character a sad-sack Bassett hound, a
standoffish cat, or a mischievous macaw.
A hamster may seem an odd choice for a bounty hunter's pet, but Janet
Evanovich's Stephanie Plum is so busy chasing criminals and dodging explosions
that a low-maintenance pet makes perfect sense. Whenever Stephanie has to vacate
her apartment, she always brings Rex, his aquarium and soup can.
Of course some people are just suckers for animals of any type, and that fact
also says something about their character. Holly Heckerling, the heroine in
Monkey Love, is an animal magnet. Already a cat owner, during the course of
the book she acquires a snake, a rat, a goldfish, a bunny rabbit, and
(temporarily) a monkey. Saddling Holly with a boa constrictor when she's
desperately afraid of snakes was a way to show that she's compassionate to the
point of being a pushover. Her relationship with the monkey reveals more of her
adventurous nature.
Johnston says, "How a character relates to animals says a lot about who he or
she is deep down, and helps readers identify with-- or hate-- that person."
Sit, Stay, Slay, the first installment in Johnston's Kendra Ballantyne,
Pet-sitter Mystery Series, introduced readers to Lexie, a Cavalier King Charles
Spaniel modeled after Linda's own Cavalier (also named Lexie). Kendra is an
attorney-turned-pet-sitter whose animal adventures launch her into a series of
crime-solving capers. Among the myriad creatures that have made an appearance in
the series are dogs, cats, potbellied pigs, macaws, and a ball python.
Animals not only help illuminate character, they can also attract and maintain a
reader's interest. "Animals add an extra dimension to a story that simply adding
more human characters can't," Johnston says.
One of the most unusual creatures to inhabit a contemporary novel is the kakapo
in Rich's Maybe Baby, described in the book as "a big, stinky, green
chicken." Despite the creature's cacophonous calls and objectionable odor, Dana
Wiley and ex-lover Nick Maybe take the rare bird under their wing as they try to
outwit international bird thieves and fight their mounting attracting to each
other.
"Animals are such a part of our lives and souls," Rich says, "and it's fun when
writers can tap into those relationships as well as the human ones."
Care and Feeding of Fictional Animals
Kozak has advice for writers who populate their pages with animals: "Never kill
a pet." Characters can drop dead left and right, but readers will never forgive
you if you kill an animal. She recalls a bookseller who told her that if the
ferret in Dating Dead Men had died at the end of the story, he would have
refused to stock her book in his store!
Johnston agrees wholeheartedly. "I vicariously kill people in my Kendra
Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mystery series. But a pet? No way! Readers would hate it.
Even more important to me, as a writer, is that I'd hate it."
Another caveat: When writing about animals, don't forget to feed them! If your
heroine is whisked away for a whirlwind week in Paris (or held captive by bad
guys) and a friend or relative isn't caring for her pets, she shouldn't return
to find them content and unaffected by her absence. If she does, you'll lose
reader credibility. "Keep track of your pets," Kozak warns. "While solving
mysteries and dodging bullets, they still have to be fed and taken on walks.
Alas, just like life."
And just as writers take care to craft multidimensional human characters,
fictional animals shouldn't be cardboard cutouts. "As a writer, you have to be
willing to love and respect that animal character the same way you do the human
ones," Rich advises. "Animals are complex and individual, like people, and our
relationships to them are complex."
By creating believable and compelling characters-- both human and nonhuman--
you'll engender reader loyalty and support. Kozak says her readers' "intense and
unexpected interest" in Margaret took her by surprise.
"Very few people had ever heard of the kakapo before reading Maybe Baby,"
Rich relates, "and some readers told me they donated to the cause to help save
them-- which I think is pretty cool." One of Johnston's readers told her she
was so enamored by the Cavalier in Sit, Stay, Slay that she planned to
adopt one herself.
What's up next for these animal-loving authors? Animals are so integral to
Johnston's life and work that it's not surprising she has a whole slate of
Pet-Sitter mysteries lined up. Rich's new release, The Comeback Kiss,
features a telepathic dog, and the plot of my next novel centers around an
unruly duck. So far there are no animals in Kozak's novel-in-progress, but, she
quips, "I'm only on page 422!"
Brenda Scott Royce is the director of publications for the Los Angeles Zoo
and editor of the Zoo's award-winning magazine, Zoo View. She has written for
Writer's Digest, Women's Circle, Movie Marketplace, and many other magazines.
Her debut novel, Monkey Love, in which a stand-up comedienne becomes the
temporary guardian of a mischievous monkey, was published in February 2006 by
NAL. Visit her website at:
www.brendascottroyce.com.
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