Literary Characters from One’s Real Life

 

Question: How many of your story characters are from your real life?

Answer: All of them

Answer: None of them

Answer: All of the above

 

My late father, a man who lived an astonishingly rich life and also possessed great writing talents, was often urged to write his autobiography. He refused, saying autobiographies are always exercises in self-justification, and in many instances also in self-beautification. He preferred fiction because he thought it more honest.

 

After penning quite a few fictional stories, I find that I agree with his assessment of fiction. The writer’s truth is in them, though it is not “just as it was in life.”

 

I trust these truths, and would even go so far as to call them self-evident,* at least in a roundabout way. *(With apologies to the brilliant wording of the United States Declaration of Independence)

Yes, even cute animal picture book stories are really people you know. Think of Aesop’s fables.

Now you got it.

Choosing Animals with Care

I’ve been reading and giving feedback to many aspiring authors lately, and one issue has come up repeatedly to irk my otherwise want-to-be-generous reading self. It’s the way kid-lit writers use animals in stories.

There’s an old tradition of using animals as human stand-ins. Aesop did it, and even the Old Testament has a donkey who talks. (Numbers 22:28) But in every case, the storyteller chose the animal because something about its species conveys an essential character trait or function in humans, of which the story is really about.

This is most clearly articulated in this fable, about the scorpion and the frog. The frog is the one who can swim (and real frogs do) and the scorpion is one who can’t help but sting (and they do.)

Conversely, in recent picture books, some writers use an animal character humorously, as one who grossly doesn’t fit its species characteristics. Think of Olivia the pig who wants to be a ballerina. Every one of us humans has experienced this “not fitting the mold.”  Ballerinas are supposed to be lithe and graceful, and this is not how we experience pigs.

This way, a cat character who loves to get dirty and stay dirty, much to the consternation of his feline friends, could work. The writer chose a cat specifically because cats are always cleaning themselves. The choice has to do with something of the real animal.

But more and more I’m reviewing drafts with anthropomorphic animal characters chosen for their novelty, (there are no other stories on the market with a Sugar Glider, so there) or their cuteness, (I like bunnies, so there) or just because why not.

This isn’t a new thing. Puss in Boots, anyone? But it seems more like an epidemic in the drafts I’ve been reading lately. Animals are chosen for the wrong reasons or no reason at all.

To this reader, this is not use but abuse of this venerable tradition of anthropomorphic animal-tales.