Why None of My Characters Have Pets...

It's been a long week on the pet front in this house. My fourteen year old beagle-German shepherd mix has been sick and I was really worried that it was the beginning of the end. He's ok, by the way. Well, as ok as a furry old man can be when the temperatures dip below freezing. However, I realized on the way back from the vet yesterday that with one exception, none of my characters have pets.

Robyn, in The Star Circle Trilogy, is the only exception to that. In book one The Shattered Prism, she rescues a kotu, a little squirrel-like critter with Fennic fox like ears. She names him Jeric and the little rodent sticks with her like a cocklebur. None of my other characters in all of my other books don't have any pets which I thought was odd because I love my dogs. Alright, one other character in The Star Circle Trilogy gets turned into a cat, but she wasn't anyone's kitty.

I realized it's because honestly to be a main character in a book your life kind of has to stink. You're not a main character because everything's peachy. You're the main character because your life is a mess or the very world is coming to an end or demons are crawling out of the shadows to dog your steps and feast on human souls. So, nope. I don't want a puppy tossed into that mix. I don't ever want to put myself into the position where I have to write that dog's end. I also don't want to off a cat, but since they make me wheeze I'm not quite as attached to them.

I'm generally is bit of a hard case. Sympathy and empathy are not my strong points. I honestly thought my daughter's first sentence was going to be, "suck it up." However, I have one big weak spot. Dogs. If I watch a movie I don't care how many people get taken out by zombies or bite it in the big battle scene. One dog goes down I'm done. I never watched World War Z because I asked my students if the dog makes it and they just exchanged "that" look. So, yeah, for furry kids I'm a big softie.

Therefore, no matter how much I love my dogs, I don't think I'll have too many of them in my books. Unless they belong to a minor character who I know is going to make it to the end. You can bet that if I ever write one of those George RR Martin-esque stories where characters are dropping left and right, you can bet the dog makes it!

Comments

  1. Frederick H. CrookJanuary 17, 2015 at 10:11 AM

    Another nice post, Rebecca. I did have to Google "Cocklebur", though. :D I couldn't help but include a miniature dachshund in my first novel. The character is based on our real life long haired diva, Penny. There is a bloodhound accompanying Luke McKay, a character in "Campanelli: Sentinel" that I threw in for decoration, if you will. Feeling nostalgic, the main character of my upcoming story, "Minuteman Merlin" has a Black Lab named Chief. The dog is modeled after my Lab, Koda, who passed away in 2007. It's difficult to leave pets out of the stories.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Adventure in Self-Publishing

So, I'm attempting something this summer that I've never before thought I'd attempt. I'm going to try to publish a couple of smaller pieces myself instead of going through my publisher. Now, that doesn't mean that I have anything against my publisher. I don't. I love my editor and I've had nothing but a positive experience with them. However, I've been hearing over and over at the various conventions I've gone to this year that indie, what used to be called self, publishing is the way to go to really earn money. Here's a fact of life in publishing, no matter the means....you need to spend money to make money. That doesn't mean that you pay a vanity press to publish your manuscript. No, a publisher should always pay you and not the other way around. What I mean is that the publisher or the author, depending on who is putting out the book, is going to need to pony up some cash for marketing. Now, unless you're Stephen King or your publish
Read more

And Promo is the Name of the Game

We're at T-2 days until the start of summer vacation. Ah yes, summer vacation....that time of year when I can have bathroom breaks when I want them, take more than 10 minutes to eat lunch and I can drink a pot of coffee after 3pm. Glorious days. Anyway, back to the point. This summer, I decided that in order to make a little money, I'll have to spend a little money. I heard something at the RWA (Romance Writers of America) Chicagoland Spring Fling this year, "you have to give away a bunch of books before you sell a bunch of books." Huh? That refrain, have free stories, novellas even novels up on Amazon was repeated over and over again. Of course, I thought, these are those people who can crank out two hundred pages in two weeks. That's not me. I am a slow writer. A book and a novella a year, maybe with another story tossed in, is as quick as I can write. Can I? Well, this got me thinking. So, during May I set aside the full-length novel I was working on (another
Read more

Girls with Spunk

Katniss. Hermione. Lessa. Polgara. Lady Macbeth. Alright, I'll even give you Jane Eyre, but I refuse to add Bella into the mix of heroines who I believe are really kick ass. Now, admittedly, most of them are grown women, so I don't think it's fair to really pull them into the mix. I'll stick to the girls in the group--Hermione and Katniss, and because she's their exact opposite in all ways, Bella. Think about it. Back when all we had were fairy tales told to scare children, the spunkiest of the fairy tale heroines was Gretal who had the wherewithal to shove the witch in the oven and free her brother. I suppose she was one of the first heroines who really took the story in her own hands and proved to the world that we were more than damsels in distress waiting languidly in some tower for Prince Charming to rescue us. Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White--all waiting around for a prince to come and save them. Or in Cinderella's case weeping for a Fairy Godmot
Read more