Young Writers Society

I've been thinking about this for a while. Have you ever read a story that was like
a biography or memoir from an animal's perspective (i.e. Raptor Red, Autobiography of a Stray)?

My point is, I want to write a story of this type. Any opinions or tips?

I love books like that!
As you can see; I love the idea. Plus, what I really enjoy, is when the animal is thrown into the human world and describes everything with the vocabulary they know. Like describing a gun as a stick and stuff... Really like that!

Are you planning on making it a kind of 'rant' so to speak on animal cruelty? Like, is your animal going to be mistreated and stuff, because then you can pack a powerful message into a book told from the animal's perspective.

There's nothing much else to say but I think it's a great idea.

~Ash~

Options or tips; I say, try to start off with stories about animals you know a lot about and do lots of research. Then, think of things that would apply to that animal. What would it use common things for, things we humans use as well? Do they use it differently? Do they have emotions? When they don't know what a thing is, do they investigate or make up alternatives? What you have to do is really get into the animal's head. I say research, research, research.

Hope I helped *doubt it*

Durrance!

I love things like that.

But, my tip would be to get the right balance while you're writing. You don't want to overly humanise the animal, that ruins the point, but you also don't want to leave the reader utterly confused as to what's happening because you haven't given the animal in question enough intelligence to actually narrate a story. It's wonderful if you get the balance, not so much if you lose it.

Oh, and another thing that's always fun is taking an animal that no-one else thinks of. Sure, a dog is easy, but that's been done before! My favourite was someone on YWS writing about a mantis or suchlike.

Good luck!

~Amy

Some of the best animal biographies I've read use terms that the animals would use and only use the context to explain what that term is. The only example I remember is the term "cutter" from Warriors. Because of the context, where one cat went away for a day and suddenly he smelled different, and was lazy, makes us realize it's the vet. If that wasn't enough, the MC realizes that's what his owners called a "vet." But that translation isn't given until the MC has kept things straight in his mind.

Use slightly different vocabulary to suite the animals. To go from Warriors again, males are called "toms," females are "queens" and cars are "monsters." The description is also different, all of it being related to cat anatomy.

All of these points involve imagining the world from the animal's point of view and forcing yourself to only use terms that the animals would use, without making the humans reading lost. I put that point in italics because I've read a few animal biographies where it's impossible to tell who the narrator is (the description usually isn't complete in cases like this. As in, the terms used switch from human ones to cat ones), and/or it's impossible to tell what the animals/people/objects around the animal are because there's no context to tell us what the new names for these animals/people/objects are (the context isn't complete. We can't translate the word to a new meaning).

Hope this helps!

~Rosey

I personally love stories like that. As long as you give the animal enough intelligence to be able to narrate a story, as AquaMarine said, I think it would turn out great