Dogs: the emotional power house
Hello Dear Reader!
Since we just started with Dustin’s bestiary series on creatures in Galhadria it seemed like a great Segway into the topic I wanted to discuss today. I want to talk about dogs. As a self proclaimed animal lover, I love all animals (except maybe most insects…). But I have a very special place in my heart for dogs. I would wager to say I’m not alone in that.
Dogs are pretty spectacular animals. Aside from bring so much joy to our lives as pets, they can be trained to be service dogs and perform tasks for people with disabilities or alert people with chronic health conditions, they can be trained to find people after a disaster, they can pull sleds, they can guard or heard livestock, they can comfort people who are sick in the hospital or help calm people with anxiety and PTSD. Really, they’re amazing little creatures.
Dustin and I were talking the other day about the next book in his Sellsword Saga and I believe it was his wife who suggested that Cas’s company adopt a dog. I jokingly told Dustin that adopting an animal into his writing was a big responsibility. He was going to have to feed and care for it and look out for it’s well-being and understand that if he ever allowed any harm to come to the the dog that he would immediately earn the enmity of his entire fanbase. If there is one cardinal rule in storytelling, it is that you do not kill the dog.
This of course took us down a bit of a rabbit hole. Dustin and my husband Nick have been role playing for nearly 30 years now, both of them having long stints as GMs. Dustin pointed out that even in role playing, generally speaking, as the GM you can hurt or even kill off your party’s level zero follower(s) or companion(s) and/or kill off an NPC and usually the party doesn’t bat an eye. But God help you if you hurt, or worse unalive, the party’s dog. (Or similar adorable animal companion.)
And really, it makes sense. If anyone ever tried to hurt either of my dogs I’m pretty sure that hell would tremble at the fury I would unleash upon them.
How can we apply this knowledge to our storytelling?
Storytellers often use animals to help build sympathy for a character. Even if you have an unlikable character, if they are kind to animals, we tend to dislike them just a little bit less. On the flip side, if someone is cruel or abusive to an animal we immediately have negative feelings towards that character and distrust them.
(In my experience, even people who don’t like animals don’t go out of their way to be cruel to them unless they’re just some kind of psychopath.)
One of the more popular books on mapping out your story structure is called Save the Cat, and describes a particular beat in a story called the “Save the Cat moment” when your protagonist does something that builds sympathy for them in the eyes of the audience. Animals are such emotional powerhouses in storytelling that one of the most sympathetic things your character can do is save one.
Keeping in mind that readers are smart, and know when they’re being blatantly manipulated. If you have a character interact with an animal a certain way, it needs to feel true to that character’s nature. The animal that they interact with also needs to make sense. There isn’t always a good opportunity in every story to work an animal in, and readers will be able to tell if it feels forced. So make sure it fits in with the setting, theme, and plot of your story. But if it makes sense to include an animal in your work, treat it with care and respect. As good old Uncle Ben said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Weaving an animal into your story comes with great emotional responsibility to your readers.
Now, we all know that authors are just a little bit demented and love nothing more than to toy with the emotions of their readers. So if you are a storyteller, consider that putting an animal in danger or having a character be mean to an animal will absolutely illicit a powerful emotional response from your audience. Consider how having someone be kind to an animal with color the audience’s opinion of them. Use this knowledge wisely.
** Spoilers for Daughter’s War ahead **
One of the most powerful emotional scenes I’ve ever read in a book was in Daughter’s War, Chapter 38, when Galva’s own brother has her war crow senselessly murdered in front of her.
This happens about three quarters of the way through the book, and while these giant, goblin eating crows are dangerous, we can see how deeply Galva cares for her pair of crows and how much they mean to her. They may be the key to winning this awful, miserable, bloody, war against the goblins. Earlier in the book, we see her have to put down a fellow comrade’s crow which starts attacking humans and how deeply it distresses her and how she frets about what it would be like to have her own crows put down. She cares about her animals, so we care about her animals.
Galva’s half brother believes that she has stolen their grandfather’s magical shield from him, which is not the case. He comes to question her while she is training her giant war crows. His soldiers try to arrest her and one of her birds, Bellu, tries to defend her because he does not understand what is going on. Bellu hurts some soldiers in the process and Galva’s half brother demands he be slain as a result. He forces Galva to watch and her animal is brutally murdered in front of her. Readers, let me tell you I have never in my life sobbed so hard in reading a book as I did during this scene. And I have rarely, if ever, hated a fictional character more than I hate Galva’s step-brother. I might have completely given up on this story, except I had to continue reading to find out if her step-brother gets what is coming to him.
** END OF SPOILERS **
Writers, you are literally playing with nitroglycerine. It is a powerful tool, use it with care.
Whew. That got heavy there for a minute.
As we wrap up, here are the biggest takeaways. How people in your stories respond to animals can tell us a lot about them, and will also shape how the audience feels about them. BUT, don’t forget you can give your animals agency too. They are characters in their own right with their own attitudes and actions. They can be some of the most fun characters you include in your work. Animals make the world better simply by being in it, and I think they can do the same for our stories as well.
Till next time dear reader, happy writing, and go give your pet some pets and snuggles from me! <3 Tiff
Here are my two boys playing in the snow that we had in January. ^_^
