Choosing Violence

The secret to writing animal characters.

- Jeff Somers

Many, many years ago my wife, The Duchess, wanted to get a dog. I'd never had a dog, and my concept of dog ownership was limited to the knowledge that dogs needed to be walked, and The Duchess, being fancy, was never going to do the dogwalking. I pictured myself out in the midst of a blizzard picking up dog poop while she lounged at home in front of a raging fire, probably drinking brandy or something. So, I advocated for a cat instead: I'd had a cat as a child, a marshmallow-esque tabby inexplicably named Missy who was so low-maintenance it's possible I imagined her. So, once again, I thought I'd outsmarted my wife.²

We adopted a sickly tuxedo cat we named Pierre. Not long after, The Duchess turned to me and said, "We've had one cat, yes. What about the second cat?" And that is the story of how I came to have five chaotic cats prowling around my house instead of one orderly dog.³

A few years ago, I decided to finally find ways to monetize those cats. My initial efforts involving a Cat Circus ended in failure and property damage. So, I pivoted to my only skill and started writing stories about the furry little demons. I wound up writing an entire story cycle featuring cat detectives solving dark, violent crimes; I've published a few of them.5 All writing is also a learning experience, and what I realized while working on these stories is simple: Writing animal characters can go wrong in many, many ways.

Neither Cute Nor Cuddly

There's an ancient tradition of animal characters in literature, and some folks automatically think of Disney animation and the cozy creatures found in children's stories like Winnie-the-Pooh. But you'll find animals from all over the anthropomorphic scale throughout literature, some quite dark and many amounting to very realistic depictions.