A Good Source for Anthropomorphic Writers

Anyone hoping to write novels with anthropomorphic animal characters would be greatly served by reading a bit of non-fiction first, namely Temple Grandin’s “Animals in Translation.”

Grandin has spent her career helping make slaughterhouses more humane. That may sound like an odd place to draw from for cutesy behavior in a fantasy novel, but Grandin has focused on animal behavior in her work, and that focus on behavior, particularly the section I’m reading now on what makes animals frightened in ways that humans might not recognize, ought to be a great help for any author wanting to make their anthropomorphic creations more realistic.

That may sound like a contradiction in terms, But wouldn’t it be fun to read more books where animals behave more like animals, even if they’re being used to tell a story humans might be interested in.

Richard Adams, in Watership Down, succeeds at this. He drew on non-fiction in the form of “The Private Life of the Rabbit,” by R.M. Lockley, to write his adventure story of rabbits on an adventure of survival.

I’ve read a lot of these kinds of books, from the early Beatrix Potter and “The Wind in the Willows” to more modern takes, and most of them fall into two categories (which I love very much):

1. Twee animals with clothes on. They are animals, and have a few animal traits, but generally behave like humans.

2. Animals in Tropetude. No clothes, more animal traits, but still wonking along as if they had half-human brains plotting conquest and revenge and whatnot.

A sharp writer with Grandin as a guide could augment the second and make the animals more animal-like as they struggle with the bigger bits of philosophy the writer cares to toss into that particular salad.

I’m reading right now about what Grandin has noticed causes fear in livestock. Don’t know if this translates across the species, but it gives me some things to think about as I write Doleful Creatures, as fear is a primary presence in the book. Reading and implementing what Grandin writes could help me move the book further from Camp 1 to Camp 2. Not that Camp 1 is bad; that’s where the book started out in the first place. But it’s moved to Camp 2 gradually, and I think I like it better there.

The book also gives me a few ideas for The Hermit of Iapetus. The more I think about that character, the more I think he is autistic. And while I have an autistic son to draw inspiration from (and enough from my own life) seeing it in print will also help me better in the translation.