Hi all,
As promised, this week's blog post is going to talk about animal characters. I will be using excerpts of Blood and Water in this post, but it will be spoiler free and not mention the main story.
Like people, no two animals are alike. So, they need to have differing personalities and traits that make them stand out. I've read a lot of books with animal characters that fail to do this, so all the characters are just different versions of the same character. It's disappointing.
Animals are different too.
For example, my cats are very different to each other.
Rocky is lazy, and loves nothing more than to snuggle up on the sofa. However, when he goes outside he gets very protective of me and will follow me around the street to make sure I'm okay.
Mishka on the other hand, is nuts. She doesn't think before she acts, which often means that she ends up banging into something or timing a jump incorrectly. She hates to be picked up and cuddled, but will happily play for hours before falling asleep.
Two different cats, two different personalities. You can easily show the difference between animals in writing, such as this piece from Blood and Water:
Normie, the cat, is brash and confident until threatened. Aqueous tried to warn him of the situation by pulling his tail, being the voice of reason to his friend. Unfortunately Normie was too confident and got scared by Sadie. This showcases both ways of thinking and how they interact with each other.
Another way to showcase their personalities is through how other characters talk about them and their actions. For example:
This shows that Cerberus is a playful character, as Rocky doesn't say this with any malice. Instead he shakes his head, as if he's used to her doing stuff like this all the time.
Making animal characters alike is boring, they need their separate personalities. You want the audience to connect with them like any other character. People don't want to read about three animals that are the same personality as each other. It's boring. Treat animal characters like human ones, make them likeable and unique to other characters in the book.
That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed!
See you next week!