# Writing non-human characters



## LemurKat (Apr 25, 2016)

I write non-human characters all the time: animals, furries, goblins. Anyhow, I wish to write a blog post for my writers group about writing non-human characters, and I can go off my own experience, but I figured I'd ask you folks too, get some discussion going and all 

Basically, for writers: how do you make your characters not just come across as furry humans?
For readers, what sort of furry/anthro fiction do you prefer? What turns off your enthusiasm for a tale?

For me, I sort of think of furry/anthro as a sliding scale, with the pure animal fiction on one end (The Incredible Journey, for example, where the animals are the main characters but they don't talk, with ones like Watership Down a few steps away, where the animals talk but otherwise more-or-less act like the real critters) across to the other end which is the pure furry stuff, like Paul Kidd's excellent "Fangs of Ka'ath"  (and Redwall, etc not far from it). And on such a scale, I tend to prefer the stuff that is close to either end. The ones I like the least, are the ones that look like they're doing the "real animals that happen to talk" style, but then have the animals behave in a manner inappropriate for their species.

So, what do you do to make your Furry tales more realistic? And how do you make your characters distinctive from their human counterparts?

Also, if you do it, how do you describe the sense of smell? It's something I've been practicing with, I've decided my characters can scent emotion, but I'm not sure if I'm overdoing it.

And why do you prefer animals to humans (if you do)?


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## Luku_Zuku (Apr 25, 2016)

Ok... I haven't really been writing anthro work long enough to answer properly, but I'll make a stab at an answer. Generally, I write them almost like they're human, except for the replacements of hands to paws etc. Allowing for different species of course. I generally don't mind if they look like animals but talk like humans, but only in writing, or animation. Having a live action movie with animals that have a CG Face, It's just, no. I never really thought about scent though, so I'll make sure to make a note and the reason why I like writing g animals is because they're able to show emotion much easier compared to a human. For an autistic like myself, having tails or ears or wings to help show what the characters feeling is SO helpful to me


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## reptile logic (Apr 25, 2016)

I have chosen to describe senses beyond what a human can experience in my stories in this way; to indicate that the character(s) are indeed sensing something, but keeping the descriptive vague. After all, how do you describe a scent, a sound, a color etc. to someone that cannot sense it. It's like describing the color orange to someone born blind. No matter how many descriptives you give them, they still will not envision the color in their minds.

Emotions can be sensed through smell; as chemical changes do occur within the body and can alter one's signature odor. Again, how would you describe it? Does affection smell sweet? Does anger smell bitter, or maybe dusty? Sadness, is it sour?

If a being could sense colors into the infra-red spectrum; an angry person may indeed appear to be hotter than is usual for it. But how would that look different from the visual heat signature of someone who was happy, but had just run up two flights of stairs? Would fear come across as colder than usual?

There is no best answer for this. Just make sure that whatever methods you use to describe these senses remains consistent.


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## LemurKat (Apr 25, 2016)

I should actually make a database of what each emotion smells like - I think I will when I do the read-through  It's fun to do, but I sometimes worry I'm going to overdo it!
Actually, I should read "Perfume" again. Even trying to describe the way something you can smell is, is difficult to do without just saying "it smelt like vanilla".  I tried to describe the air of Madagascar when I went there - it was hot and dusty, with a hint of some sort of spice.
Trying to describe colors is also hard. I know lemurs cannot see shades of red very well, but I have chosen to ignore that for my story, because so many of the characters ARE red. 
Do any of you have your animal-characters colorblind?


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## reptile logic (Apr 25, 2016)

In my case, no to color-blindness. The hearing ability of the species in question, however, is actually more limited than that of a human.

I have some time today, so I'll paraphrase a line from my book go give an example of how I deal with senses beyond that of a human:
"She was making it clear to everyone with her show of confidence that she was in charge. (They) smelled something different in her scent. (She) was outside of her comfort zone."


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## Arcturus Maple (Apr 27, 2016)

I try to create a world with established features first, then try to work out how different organisms in that world survive and what kinds of civilizations, religions, philosophies, and lifestyles they might adopt to cope with the realities of their world. From there, I look at what individual roles each organism plays in their civilization and create a small life story or two many would follow. Then I single out what I consider to be the most interesting organisms or roles in the civilization and drop them into interesting yet plausible circumstances for their situation. For larger plotlines or story arcs, I use extraordinary circumstances to drive characters out of their comfort zones and force them to recognize hidden aspects of themselves and work to transform themselves into new people.
For example: a race of cats with human powers of manipulation and crafting might form a society with a strong fishing industry. However, cats being adverse to water, might seek the help of dogs, who love water, in fishing. There would be a fairly high level of tension, distrust, and rivalry between them, as they are not naturally companions. A sudden hurricane or tsunami might place them in a state of upheaval with the end result being they rely on each other more than ever, and recover only thanks to their combined effort. 
There have to be humanizing elements to the story for humans to empathize with it at all. Luckily those human elements are already present in many animals. Mammals and birds are especially prone to the loyalty and compassion humans tend to attribute as applicable only to themselves. When writing about animals, furries, or fantasy creatures, it is important to think of them always as people.


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## SullenPlummet (Apr 28, 2016)

A lot of it depends on what you're working with, but it helps to remember that whatever the species they will have different instincts from a human even if for some reason their senses are identical to a human's. A social apex predator will have different base reactions to stimuli than a herd animal or solitary predator.


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## ShamonCornell (Jun 6, 2016)

Generally speaking:
- Brief mention of how morphology effects things like chairs, pants, et cetera.  This might surprise you, but most tailed creatures would not be comfortable in the same chairs as humans!  Similarly, how pants, spacesuits, and such would work.  Oy.  Pepper little things like that here and there, as long as it's noteworthy in the world you're writing (example:  Having to find pants with tail holes is noteworthy, in a largely human world.  In an all-anthro world, much less so)
- Body language.  Things like movements of the ears, the tail and such, flaring of nostrils, raising of hackles.  No matter how many thousands of years of civilization these beings hail from, these instinctive forms of communication would be pronounced throughout their culture.  In the novels, for example, Twi'leks of Star Wars were actually quite expressive with the Lekku (head tails).
- Difference in senses.  Most canids, for example, can't see quite as well as humans.  Not just the color range (which we all, understandably, hand-wave to make the characters more relatable), but also the level of detail.  In trade, their hearing and sense of smell are far better than ours.  Scent alone is like waving a tricorder around for a dog, helping them understand how someone is feeling, how their health looks, and similar such matters....and that's just using DOGS.  Most races in most settings will have some manner of specialized senses, even in such cases as Star Trek, where everyone is basically a human with a prosthetic forehead.  One would do well to include notes of this in the narrative, if nothing else to remind us:  this person is not you.

From there, you open all kinds of other cans of worms.  "How does a [race] behave socially?  What races do they instinctively fear/hate/love/feel safe around, and why?"  Figure all of that out, and how it all fits into its world?  Boom, you've just done a metric ton of world building.  You've earned a cookie.


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## ChapterAquila92 (Jul 26, 2016)

When it comes to expression, I'd like to add that the facial expressions normally associated with emotion in humans may not always have the same effect in non-human characters, some of whom may even be lacking in the ability to express in similar ways. Case in point is the human tooth-bearing smile, which is unique in that it is a sign of happiness only among humans; among any other species, barring one's teeth is almost universally recognized as a sign of aggression.

Granted, the average person likely wouldn't be comfortable seeing an anthropomorphic tiger barring their teeth at them even if the gesture was supposed to be friendly, as continuously pointed out in Andrew Swann's _Moreau_ series.


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## TheOriginalDaddyD (Jul 27, 2016)

Well I have trouble explaining how I describe furry characters because it is all about my personal imagination with mixed emotion and logic.

"Her human like form was mixed with and equine like characteristics. Soft brown fur covering her entire body with a long golden mane which reached her shoulders. Her tail twitched nervously as he ears twitched towards me, knowing I had noticed her. She pulled down her skirt, clicking her hooves on the stone floors."

With a first character I would try to get across in a tasteful way they are anthro. Then to make the story easier to write I would simply say something like a wolf man, or raccoon girl, just to move the story faster. Personally scenting emotion in my opinion is a little over doing it, but scent is important characteristic of a person in a story. Like say a wolf person would have a slight musky scent if they lived in the city. But opposite of they lived in the countryside they would have more of a soft natural like scent I would think.

I tend to stay to the more human but with some animal like behaviors. So I am not an expert on the other more animal subjects and I hope I did not waste your time or anything.


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