More and more often of late, a story demands that I crawl into the mind of something, or someone, very ‘other’. It’s taken me a number of years to become confident enough to delve into minds that are in-human. Sure, I’ve written stories, long and short, from the perspectives of zombies, elves, witches and fairies but, I didn’t find inhabiting those characters difficult as they’re all very human. To increase their ‘otherness’, I added non-human types of cultural, spiritual or behavioural elements to their character. And, sometimes, magic—because magic always defines a character as special.
The first, non-human-type character I wrote was a mythical cat. A week or so back a friend commented that cats are stupid little demons in fur coats with rebellious toddler energy—they also operate in stealth mode. Having shared a house with many a cat, they're familiar beasties whose interests include; sleeping, eating, cuddling, prowling and hunting (and shagging for the unfixed). But every cat has its own strange foibles. Heidi, the tabby of my childhood, hated it when I coughed. Once, when I was sick in bed and in the midst of a coughing fit, she unfurled from her spot at my feet, marched up my body and bit me on the nose, she then returned to her spot, curled up and went back to sleep. Evil Eddie, the farm tabby, liked to help muster the sheep. He also took delight in hiding behind doors so he could leap out and shred our legs when we walked past...but his favourite trick was to take swipes at the dogs from the safety of the hammock. Evil Eddie was a prolific hunter and dragged home a multitude of rats, rabbits and possums, and, to my embarrassment, a neighbour’s chickens. So, all that to say that writing from the point of view of a cat is something that I’m comfortable with. But for several years, that’s as deep into the ‘other’ that I was willing, or able, to go. Until…I started writing the Ghost Assassins of Bijou novellas.
Some of the most important characters in those manuscripts are belosa—cuttlefish-like creatures that have chosen to leave their ocean home to partner with a ghost assassin and travel the universe. I’m a marine biologist by trade and I’ve spent many, many years in, on and around the sea. Despite that, I’ve had exactly one experience of snorkelling with cuttlefish (which was super cool and is a memory I treasure). So, these aren’t characters that I’m at all familiar with. The scientist in me rose to the challenge and I plunged into research mode. I read a multitude of papers about cuttlefish anatomy, perception, behaviour and intelligence. Once I’d inhaled enough to give me a starting place, I went on to develop complex individual characters based on species-appropriate motivations, a set of cultural mores to guide them and a non-homogenous society. Then, I added another layer…but spoilers!
While writing Outer Death (my almost-complete novel-in-flash), I’ve inhabited several strange and difficult points of view. One of the hardest for me was occupying the mind of a racist, misogynistic billionaire. It not only made me physically uncomfortable but, I found it harder to think like that man than to imagine myself as a belosa. Two of the most recent stories I’ve written for Outer Death, feature very different but less traumatising perspectives. The first is written from the hive-mind of fungi. The second from a singular evolved octopus, who encounters the fungi from the previous story. As I did for the belosa, I returned to the basic principles of what drives each species and what limits them achieving their goals. From there, I built the characters, layering in intelligence and adding eccentricities. In both cases, I’m delighted with the result. Is it weird that I better understand the motivations of a fungus than a billionaire bent on accumulating wealth at the cost of the planet?
Other tricks I use express a species otherness are by using words and phrases in ways that twist our perceptions and by asking a myraid of ‘what if’ questions. For a marine species, what if the seafloor doesn’t rise, but the sea surface presses down? What if octopuses think in base-8 and use tentacles as a measure of both time and distance? What if fungi used their vast mycelial network to share eons of knowledge and know-how to protect earth from the human-plague? What if microbial mats on the deep-ocean floor have no concept of time? What if it’s not me writing this blog, but it’s the collective consciousness of the bacteria that occupy this moving bag of meat and bones? Oops, I've circled back to zombies.
The first, non-human-type character I wrote was a mythical cat. A week or so back a friend commented that cats are stupid little demons in fur coats with rebellious toddler energy—they also operate in stealth mode. Having shared a house with many a cat, they're familiar beasties whose interests include; sleeping, eating, cuddling, prowling and hunting (and shagging for the unfixed). But every cat has its own strange foibles. Heidi, the tabby of my childhood, hated it when I coughed. Once, when I was sick in bed and in the midst of a coughing fit, she unfurled from her spot at my feet, marched up my body and bit me on the nose, she then returned to her spot, curled up and went back to sleep. Evil Eddie, the farm tabby, liked to help muster the sheep. He also took delight in hiding behind doors so he could leap out and shred our legs when we walked past...but his favourite trick was to take swipes at the dogs from the safety of the hammock. Evil Eddie was a prolific hunter and dragged home a multitude of rats, rabbits and possums, and, to my embarrassment, a neighbour’s chickens. So, all that to say that writing from the point of view of a cat is something that I’m comfortable with. But for several years, that’s as deep into the ‘other’ that I was willing, or able, to go. Until…I started writing the Ghost Assassins of Bijou novellas.
Some of the most important characters in those manuscripts are belosa—cuttlefish-like creatures that have chosen to leave their ocean home to partner with a ghost assassin and travel the universe. I’m a marine biologist by trade and I’ve spent many, many years in, on and around the sea. Despite that, I’ve had exactly one experience of snorkelling with cuttlefish (which was super cool and is a memory I treasure). So, these aren’t characters that I’m at all familiar with. The scientist in me rose to the challenge and I plunged into research mode. I read a multitude of papers about cuttlefish anatomy, perception, behaviour and intelligence. Once I’d inhaled enough to give me a starting place, I went on to develop complex individual characters based on species-appropriate motivations, a set of cultural mores to guide them and a non-homogenous society. Then, I added another layer…but spoilers!
While writing Outer Death (my almost-complete novel-in-flash), I’ve inhabited several strange and difficult points of view. One of the hardest for me was occupying the mind of a racist, misogynistic billionaire. It not only made me physically uncomfortable but, I found it harder to think like that man than to imagine myself as a belosa. Two of the most recent stories I’ve written for Outer Death, feature very different but less traumatising perspectives. The first is written from the hive-mind of fungi. The second from a singular evolved octopus, who encounters the fungi from the previous story. As I did for the belosa, I returned to the basic principles of what drives each species and what limits them achieving their goals. From there, I built the characters, layering in intelligence and adding eccentricities. In both cases, I’m delighted with the result. Is it weird that I better understand the motivations of a fungus than a billionaire bent on accumulating wealth at the cost of the planet?
Other tricks I use express a species otherness are by using words and phrases in ways that twist our perceptions and by asking a myraid of ‘what if’ questions. For a marine species, what if the seafloor doesn’t rise, but the sea surface presses down? What if octopuses think in base-8 and use tentacles as a measure of both time and distance? What if fungi used their vast mycelial network to share eons of knowledge and know-how to protect earth from the human-plague? What if microbial mats on the deep-ocean floor have no concept of time? What if it’s not me writing this blog, but it’s the collective consciousness of the bacteria that occupy this moving bag of meat and bones? Oops, I've circled back to zombies.
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