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In the begginning of a story I'm working on, the POV is a fox. Yes, a little red fox. It flows really well with the story (sort of), but is it too wierd?
Posts: 79 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Wasn't call of the wild written from the viewpoint of a dog? I havn't read it since elementary school but I thought it was. Also sometimes the POV is from wolves or birds in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.
Posts: 35 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
I was wondering, is it natural to write dialogue, when you're using an animal's POV. I mean when humans around it talk, would the animal understand their words? Personaly, I don't think so. Not if it's a natural beast anyway...
Posts: 80 | Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
Bardos, I think as a rule that you're right, yet at the same time I recall having read scenes from the point of view of individuals (often children) who didn't understand what was being said and it working with the justification that the individual can hear all those sounds.
If we're very much invested in the POV character, though then I think that reporting dialog the character can't understand becomes kind of a cheat, because then we're getting information through the viewpoint character that the viewpoint character doesn't have. In other words, if we're supposed to be experiencing the story through a character and caring about that character's reactions, it's annoying to have information that's not available to that character and to which the character doesn't react.
About the main question, my two cents echoes other statements here: I could certainly see it working. I think there are trade-offs, though. If you have the animal thinking the way a human thinks, then you're running into some potential belief and consistency problems. For instance, if the fox eats a chicken, are we to presume that the chicken is having a rich, full mental life as well? If so, isn't the fox kind of horrible for eating it? Yet foxes are carnivores. This is one of the great problems of talking animal stories: Carnivores become almost necessarily evil if we attribute the animals human feelings.
Of course you can have one kind of animal experiencing a full range of feelings and perceptions and portray another as a dumb beast, or at least as unintelligible to the viewpoint animal such that it appears as a dumb beast, but then there's the question of why this one kind of animal has thoughts and feelings and the other doesn't?
More difficult would be to try to portray the animal's thoughts something like what we might guess the actual thoughts of an animal might be. The problem with this is that from what I can tell, a dog (for instance) might not think anything interesting in the course of a month, with the entire variety of thoughts being something along the lines of: hungry; thirsty; master! fun! play!; must pee; smells interesting. skunk? and so on.
The fox does understand the dialog, because, as one would find out much later in the story, he is an inchanted fox, or something like it, and he is not cruel for eating the chicken because the chicken is just a 'normal' chicken. So he's not confusing, he's not cruel, I was just worried he'd be too wierd.
posted
Anyone here read any Patricia Cornwell? Normally she writes detective/mystery novels that are filled with tech facts about the morgue---I just picked up Southern Cross--expecting much the same from the description on the back.
Well, she has the thoughts of both a cat and a dog in that book in reaction to what their owners are saying and doing. Best-selling author.
My son is reading a whole series of books that feature animals exclusively and they are adult level books. Rats--for the life of me I can't think of what the name of the books are or the author. Brian something--dang--starts with a J I think. Too early to get my son up and ask.
I think you do what works--if the process and the scenes are flowing and natural--then go with it.
posted
He's called Brian Jacques (SP?). He wrote the Redwall series, which is populated with animals (mostly mice, rats are the bad guys *grin*). Another good example of animal POVs is The Animals of Farthing Wood. None of the carnivores there are necessarily evil, either. Go with it. It's worked before, so why not for you, Soule? JK
Posts: 503 | Registered: Sep 2000
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*** This is one of the great problems of talking animal stories: Carnivores become almost necessarily evil if we attribute the animals human feelings. ***
ever seen _The Lion King_?
TTFN & lol
Cosmi
[This message has been edited by Cosmi (edited November 22, 2001).]
posted
One of my favorites ideas in gestation right now revolves a hero character like that found in most SF and fantasy books, but the story is not told from his point of view but rather of someone who observes him. I assume many books are like this, but I may be going for a different angle I think.
Lord of The Rings for example has Frodo as the POV character, yet Gandalf and/or Strider could be considered the hero of the story. Ok, bad example I didnt use that too well.
A fox is an intriquing idea actually, no one suspects an animal. It would be like watching a story unfold with hardly any impact from the main character. I felt this is how "The Red Badge of Courage" went for quite a while as well.
posted
Actually, Cos, I've told you about this one - remember? Ok, maybe ya don't, but I asked you this one personal-like. And Simba was a carnivore, wasn't he? (So am I, vegetable breath.)
It really has nothing to do with him being a carnivore - that is irrelevent. I just thought an animal POV would be wierd.
And it's not like the Redwall series at all - those are human-like animals. My fox is an animal that understands (sort of) humans. There IS a difference, however small.
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