Well this afternoon I sat down to write some more of
my based on Red Riding Hood, kind of, if you approach it sideways, don’t look
at it directly and squint slightly story... to discover that my wolf character
is an obnoxious pain in the arse. This
is nothing new. I’ve had argumentative
characters before... it’s why I never plan exactly where anything I’m writing
is going, because inevitably the characters make the decisions not me... I may
as well just shut my eyes, not think about it and let them write themselves .
But, and this is the big issue for me, this time I
want to get something in particular right.
Having spent the last 16 or so years living with primitive and spitz
breed dogs, and having an interest in wolves... not to mention having to learn
about canine anatomy, confirmation and movement... I tend to get a touch picky
about the way dogs and wolves (whether they be weres, shifters, or just plain
wolves) are portrayed in fiction. ... or on film... CGI wolves, dear goodness,
I got so pulled out of the film looking at movement and deciding in the end
that they all had dysplastic hips it put me off completely....
I have studied
pack theory (both in dogs and wolves – and no, I don’t subscribe to canine pack
theory that involves the human as part of the pack) and get very put off when
the so called strict pack hierarchy is portrayed in a way that leads me to
believe that the writer has little or no actual experience or knowledge of wolf
behaviour. Particularly, the lack of
females... females in both dog and wolf packs are absolutely essential for
stability. So, having given in and done
what I said I never would, i.e. write a wolf character, I want to get it
right........Okay, so yeah, the first
thing I do to my wolf is kill of his pack.... go figure.
I did also have whole issues over setting when I
started writing this story... I wanted modern technology but not so much on the
set in a particular place, I wanted rural and fairly isolated which starts to
get tricky after all this is a small island ... setting a wolf based story in
England though is suspending realism because we have no wild wolves, they’d be
shot on sight if seen on farms if we did, oh and hunting with dogs (and I
assume wolves.. but that’s probably not actually in the legislation) is banned.
So, yes, I know it is technically a paranormal fantasy
setting and, really who needs realism?... erm, well, actually I do. Or at least something close to
plausible. I was talking to someone the
other day about writing in a fantasy setting to which they said, “fantasy is a
cop out, it’s easy, you can just make it up as you go along”. Actually, so not the case, you’ve got to
create a setting that you’re happy with, one that makes sense to your readers,
you’ve got to stick to the limits you set on, you have to justify why things
are the way they are. I’ve resorted to
sketches in the past, and in one case had to build a model of a setting because
I’d confused myself never mind my readers
So whilst I get very annoyed by some books, I do like
some. My favourite fictional wolf
shifters are probably the forms that Belgarath, Poledra, Garion (and occasionally Polgara) take in the
Belgariad and Mallorean by David Eddings.. which are, I think, realistically
portrayed... the worst, no not going there...
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