Young Writers Society

I love novels about animals and tend to write them a lot. (Bet you didn't know that. ) However, I'm wondering about something. What would be a good balance between natural behaviour and human restraint?

Anywhere.

You have animals that are basically humans in furry bodies, then you have animals that only have humanity in the sense they tell a story.

The place you chose depends on the tone you want. The more animalistic the characters are, the darker the novels tend to be. Villains, I've noticed, tend to be the most animalistic, even when the animals are basically humans. An example would be The Great Mouse Detective, where it was pretty much a human conflict (enacted with mice, bats and rats)... until the final battle, where Rattigan went from a smooth, polished, hammy boss to a a sewer rat with crazed eyes and bloodlust. Meanwhile, Basil stayed as the quintessential Sherlock Holmes stand in.

Pick your age bracket and consider the tone normally associated with those works. Decide if you want an idealistic or cynical novel and adjust the tone. Then determine the balance between humanity and animal instincts.

Also, remember that some species do have certain behaviours that look rather human. Usually, the "higher ranking" an animal is in intelligence, the more they exhibit this behaviour. Elephants going to save their friends from mud, or feeding another that has lost the tip of its trunk. Dolphins derive pleasure from helping others— and sometimes bullying (Ie- they can show both empathy and sadism).

Make sure to determine the species' natural behaviour (and dive deep into research about that; don't just stop at general knowledge. General knowledge can be very misguided) before determining what is animalistic and what is human. The animal kingdom is far more nuanced than most people believe.