# "one of the strangest approaches to anthropomorphic fiction that Iâ€™ve ever seen"



## Pimlico (Jun 26, 2012)

said noted genre expert Fred Patten in his review of my debut novel "The Unimaginable Road."

http://www.flayrah.com/4103/review-unimaginable-road-eddie-drueding

Which surprised me, though perhaps it shouldn't have, as I have little knowledge or experience of furry storytelling besides my own.

Perhaps it's fairer to say that my characters are less "anthropomorphized animals" than they are "animalized humans"?

If anyone has read my book, please chime in - I'm very curious about the differences between my characters and "regular" animal characters.


----------



## Poetigress (Jun 27, 2012)

Honestly, I was pretty confused by some parts of that review. For one thing, I'm not sure why Fred gets hung up on characters all being the same size (that aspect came up in his review of my novel as well). Given that the animals in question are humanoid and essentially human stand-ins, I really don't understand why it's a problem, since size variation among humans, while present, isn't nearly as much as that between animal species. I'm also not sure what he was getting at with the lines from your book that were quoted at the end of the review. (Maybe the folks who've been around since the early days of the fandom just have a different perspective on how the anthro nature of the characters should be handled, or expect the characters to lean far more toward talking animals than humanoid animals?) Those who are familiar with furry art should have no problem visualizing those types of scenes without getting thrown off by size issues. (Unless he meant that it seemed unrealistic to have characters age in animal years and still be human-sized?)

*shrug* I haven't read your book beyond just what was quoted in the review, so I can't speak to how you handled the characters' anthro aspects. Overall, though, in the end, reviewers are just readers like everybody else, and everybody's going to bring different personal preferences and biases to the table.


----------



## M. LeRenard (Jun 29, 2012)

Just dropping in to give my opinion so far.  I've been away, and it'll be a few weeks yet before I'm able to go back to my usual unhealthy internet schedule.
I've started reading your book, so I'm not going to read that review right now (reviews color my opinion, without fail, and I don't want that to happen until I've had my shot), but I will say just from the first few chapters that I'm intrigued by it.  I'm really not sure quite what to make of it, but I'm already heavily leaning toward 'like'.  I do, however, think 'strange' is not a bad choice of words (and not just concerning the anthropomorphism).  I'll leave an in-depth review here once I finish it.


----------



## kitreshawn (Jul 4, 2012)

Poetigress said:


> Honestly, I was pretty confused by some parts of that review. For one thing, I'm not sure why Fred gets hung up on characters all being the same size [...]



I have noticed this as well in his reviews.  I'm not the reviewer so obviously I cannot comment on exactly why but I have a suspicion about what is going on.

Basically I'm not sure if it is a criticism as such so much as a comment on how anthropomorphized the animals are.  I suspect it may also reflect his personal ideal on what an anthro is, i.e. that size differences of the anthropomorphized animals would reflect that of the animals themselves and that their diets will reflect the animal's natural diets and other such details about the animal.  I suspect this is mostly about how critical it is to the story that these characters be anthro animals rather than humans.


----------



## â™¥Mirandaâ™¥ (Jul 4, 2012)

Pimlico said:


> noted genre expert Fred Patten



Who?

Also link your book, I'm intrigued


----------



## GreenReaper (Jul 4, 2012)

My position (and I think Fred's as well) is that if you start with humans - or emulate them so closely as to eliminate all but superficial differences - you might as well just write about humans _without_ dressing them up in furry bodies. For anthropomorphism to be meaningful, it cannot be mere window-dressing; it must allow us to tell stories that would not otherwise exist.

Life would be boring if we were all the same. Animals with human characteristics are likely to be decidedly different from humans *and* from each other in size, shape and temperament. They will be more fearful or vicious; more meek or powerful; more or less intelligent, more or less anatomically flexible. The author can give them unique abilities, such as flight or echolocation, while challenging them with the limitations of their original species. Individuals working together may have to use their differing skillsets to achieve their goals.

_Watership Down_ would be a vastly different book if the rabbits in it were essentially human. They are comparatively weak; limited in thought, speech, and shape, such that merely crossing a road is an adventure in itself, let alone getting to the "high, lonely hills". Likewise, _Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH_ makes moving a cider-block a few yards an epic achievement. That the animals in these stories overcome their limitations to achieve their goals is a big part of what makes them wonderful, and classics of the anthropomorphic genre.

To take a more recent example, _Best of Breed_ shows us a world filled with anthropomorphic cats, intelligent enough to be put on show. But they are not all that intelligent, and the protagonist is an exceptionally bright example; her sister, while fully-grown, has the mind of a child, and it is jarring when her owner exploits her in a way we would not allow of a child. Without that concept of diminished capacity, and the events which follow on from that act, it would be a completely different story.


----------



## â™¥Mirandaâ™¥ (Jul 4, 2012)

Couldn't agree with the green weirdo more

's why I phased out of writing "furry" stories all together

I wanted to go for cool things both times I tried it, but then things happened

Steam I wanted to draw in themes from the romantic movement but then in the end it was an amateur piece and all artistic merit was just lost in the complete lack of quality

The Duke of Shattered Glass went better but I -barely- used anthropomorphics at all

Recently though, in as of yet unpublished works, I've started applying anthro-stuff to inanimate objects, I wrote a prose piece where everything described is personified (the rain, the fog, the moon), to give a sense of paranoia
And then in a much larger work, one of the characters has a theme of pottery, for reasons

And that's been working out much better

The point: Good animal characters is hard

And also, The green dude used Watership Down and Best of Breed as examples

Those are some pretty totes good stories if you ever want something to read


----------



## Poetigress (Jul 5, 2012)

GreenReaper, as flattered as I am that you used one of my stories as an example , I think you missed my overall point. (*Edited to add:* Unless you were responding to the OP and not to my post.) 

I absolutely understand and sympathize with readers having strong personal preferences for stories where the animal nature of the characters contributes to the story (whether it's essential to the plot or essential to the story in some other way). I just see the nitpicking about the physical size of the characters as a pretty arbitrary criterion when you're dealing with bipedal human-shaped/sized anthro characters (whether they evolved, were created by magic, or were created by science). I mean, you can have a story where your characters' anthro dog natures is essential to the plot, but still have the dogs relatively the same size and eating chocolate and other things that aren't part of their normal diet, etc. Writing anthro fiction is about blending human characteristics and animal characteristics, and everybody's going to draw the dividing lines in different places. (And at some point, having everything ultra-realistic to the animal nature arguably becomes as much a cliche as humans in fur coats.) 

It's a minor issue, of course, and probably not even worth the time I've just spent writing this , but I admit I've just found it bizarre to watch character size come up again and again in various reviews. *shrug* But again, it's a personal preference issue, so any author's take on anthropomorphism isn't necessarily going to wash with every reader.


----------



## â™¥Mirandaâ™¥ (Jul 5, 2012)

I remember seeing a comic where-in a chicken anthro was eating KFC

It was something special

Also while we're still on the whole "listing great uses of animal characters" thing, I'm going to share with you a pretty great thing

the cat (le chat)
i - a handsome cat., strong, gentle and charming, prowls along my brain as though in his own home. when he mews, we hardly hear, so tender and discreet is his tone. but. whether his voice is mild or vexed, it is always rich and deep. that is his special talent and his charm. this voice, which pearls and seeps down into the depths of my being, expands in me like a harmonious verse and delights me like a magic philter. it soothes the cruelest sufferings and is filled with every ecstasy. it needs no language to capture the deepest meanings. there is no bow that can sweep my heart, the perfect instrument, more richly drawing song from even its most sensitive string, than your voice, o mysteriuus, strange cat, in whom everything, as in an angel, is as subtle as it is harmonious
ii - from his blonde and brown fur comes a perfume so sweet that one night, i was caught in its balm by having caressed it once, only once. he is the familiar spirit of the house, judging, presiding, inspiring all things within his empire. is he magician or god? when my eyes are drawn, as by a magnet, towards my beloved cat and i obediently look upon him, i look into myself, and i am amazed to see the fire of his pale pupils, bright lamps, having opals, hypnotically fixed on me.

Ruth White, 1969, loosely based on Charles Baudelair's "Le Chat"
Flowers of Evil

(Btw if any of you want a copy of Ruth's "Flowers of Evil", which is super hard to find, I can sent it to you because I am nice yes)


----------



## Pimlico (Aug 21, 2012)

Now that Frank has read the novel, I'm resurrecting this thread to ask him why Fred might have said what he did about the novel having "one of the strangest approaches to anthropomorphic fiction."

Are the animals depicted so differently in Arraborough? What are these differences? Does the difference make for a hindrance to people used to traditional furry representations? Does this break from tradition make it possibly more palatable for the non-furry mainstream?


----------



## M. LeRenard (Aug 21, 2012)

I went ahead and read his review, and my comment is... I sort of see his point, but I think he's maybe being a little too much of a stickler about this whole 'what is anthropomorphism' issue.  It sounds like he's coming at this from the Coyotl Awards perspective, in other words, that the anthropomorphism in a story must be unambiguous and purposeful, that the animal people have distinct animal traits that are a huge part of who they are as characters.  And yeah, I do appreciate that in anthro works... IF it's called for.  With your book--and I'm not entirely sure I can explain coherently why I think this--it almost feels like getting too deep into the anthro characteristics would spoil the whole atmosphere of the work.
I mean, the whole thing is built on mystery, and part of that mystery is the use of anthro animals in the first place.  But the way you end the book, with the introduction of a certain character (I won't spoil anything; I'll just assume you know who I mean), leads me to believe this is an issue that will be resolved later, just like everything else.  So I'm not getting worked up over the fact that on occasion you can lapse briefly into thinking the characters are just humans.  This doesn't feel like it needs to be _that_ kind of work, if you know what I mean.

In terms of the fandom's view of what anthros should be, I don't think there's a consensus at all.  Fiction within the fandom, honestly, usually features anthros that have absolutely NO animal characteristics aside from appearance, and hardly any references at all within the work to the fact that they are, in fact, animal-people (aside from the occasional mention of a tail or something).  That's why that kind of stuff doesn't sell in the mainstream; it forces you into wondering why the author used animal people at all.  Then there's more complicated anthro fiction where the author researched the hell out of the animal in question and makes sure to remind the reader what he's reading about every five seconds, which sounds more or less like a cry for attention.  Then there's stuff that's tastefully in-between, like Kyell Gold's books, which work extremely well in terms of immersion into an anthro animal world but which still mostly feature mundane goings-on that could have easily been done using humans, with only a few cosmetic changes needed in the narrative.
But with Arraborough, well, I used the term 'fairytale-esque' for a reason, and that reason is that it felt more like reading a fairytale than anything else.  A good comparison would be the Reynard stories (or Renart, if you prefer); you know it's animals the whole time, because they do animal things and they're described as animals, but then all of the sudden the fox and the wolf hop on a couple of horses and have a race.  You know?  That was the impression I got from this one, which in my view is a totally legitimate use of anthro animals, and certainly not a strange one.  In fact, it's one of the oldest uses of them out there.

So those are my thoughts on this.


----------



## Poetigress (Aug 22, 2012)

I know I've made this comment before (either in these forums or elsewhere, can't remember), but I think there needs to be more of a realization that there can be instances where anthro characters are essential to the _story_ but not necessarily essential to the _plot_. In other words, that "fairy-tale-esque" atmosphere gained by using animal characters can be a valid story-based reason for using them, even if their animal nature isn't the linchpin for the events or theme of the story. Personally, as a reader I still prefer stories where it would be harder to tell the same story with humans, but I've obviously mellowed on this somewhat, especially with fantasy worlds (stories in the present-day world exactly the same as ours except with ears-and-tails still irritate me).


----------



## M. LeRenard (Aug 22, 2012)

Right, PT, although this book hints that there's both aspects present.  In which case, Fred's review sounds a little ill thought-out, like he was looking for ways to complain about the use of anthros since he apparently has a very concrete idea in mind of how anthros _should_ be used.  I guess I'm not as much of a stickler as he is about this issue.
I do, however, agree that this:


> stories in the present-day world exactly the same as ours except with ears-and-tails


is just lazy and dumb and pointless.  But you mostly see that on FA proper, where people are just writing for the hell of it or for friends or whatever.  I think most people who start writing serious, publishable anthro fiction make good attempts to get away from that.
But it all comes down to why you'd want to use anthros at all in a piece of fiction.  I mean, you don't usually think about it because it's pretty standard, but in good fiction there's always a reason the author uses human characters instead of something else, too.  So it shouldn't be any different for anthro fiction.


----------



## Pimlico (Aug 22, 2012)

I'm interested if you can elaborate, PT, on

"stories in the present-day world exactly the same as ours except with ears-and-tails still irritate me"

It's a valid viewpoint, and probably represents a personal inclination than any true condemnation, but it seems widely held and I'm wondering why that's so.

When I first explored furry writing, most stories were stuck in a particular time/era, something Middle Aged - everyone lived in tribes, for example.

Perhaps it's easier to associate a "mystical creature" (and often a story that makes use of magic and sorcery), if it's removed from the mundane feel of regular life.

I suppose it's as jarring to have anthro animals using cel phones and going on online dating sites, for example, as it would be to have orcs, elves, dwarves etc doing the same thing.

Our world as it is today doesn't have mystical creatures. So perhaps it's easier to accept a mystical premise in a setting that's far removed.


----------



## Poetigress (Aug 23, 2012)

Well, I should say first that this is all just my opinion as a reader, and while I've come across those who agree with me, there are plenty who feel otherwise too (see the comments on this review as a recent example of both sides of the argument and probably a couple others in between).

The easiest way for me to explain how I feel about foxes-in-Starbucks type of stories is to say that it's not just limited to furry fiction for me. If a story were about a bunch of elves or vampires or aliens or some other nonhuman creature sitting around in a coffee shop talking about work or their spouses, or whatever, and there was nothing in the characters' elven/vampiric/alien nature that influenced the story, my reaction would be "um, why are these elves/vampires/aliens here if the whole story is nothing different than it would be with humans?" For me, furry fiction is the same way. I can accept that there are furry writers who would just rather write about furry characters than humans because it's more interesting or more fun, but I don't consider that, as a sole justification, anywhere close to what anthropomorphic fiction is capable of, and I think it throws away a lot of opportunities. To me, the point of using nonhuman characters is to use the differences from (and similarities to) humans to some purpose -- whether the plot hinges on it, or whether it's a commentary on society, or providing a fable-like atmosphere, or something along those lines. So it's not so much that anthro characters in a contemporary setting are jarring to me -- I've written plenty of stories myself using anthro characters in a modern-day world with cell phones and so on. It's when it has no effect on the text, beyond superficial cosmetic descriptions, that it irritates me.

All that said, I'm sure it's possible to have elves and dwarves and furry characters in a fantasy/historical setting that doesn't truly require them either. (Frankly, that argument could very well be made about my furry fantasy novel, though I like to think the justification there is in the fable/fairy-tale atmosphere.) But putting nonhuman characters in a default contemporary setting, and then doing nothing with their nonhuman-ness, just strikes me as... well, I think MLR put it best above with "lazy and dumb and pointless." Though I would argue that it comes up a fair amount in published furry fiction, and not just stuff on FA -- but again, there are other readers in the fandom who don't mind it a bit, so your mileage may vary.


----------

