I keep finding animals in my fiction. This can be a problem, a boon, or a quick solution to a different problem. It depends on how you use the critter, or it uses your story. If you are Marguerite Henry, then carry on, because the animal (equine for the most part) is the story, and the story centers on the horse or donkey and how people relate to it. Even then, the people are well drawn and interesting. Black Beauty is a little different, but it is so anthropomorphized that it really comes into a category of its own, with Watership Down, Tailchaser’s Song, and similar.

What is the role of the animal in your story? Comic relief? I’ve done that more than once, when an animal breaks rising tension and allows the people time to regroup and reset the scene. In the Shikhari stories, the beast of burden is a wombow. Think of a wombat, but scaled up to the size of a horse. Wombows have certain problems and needs that have to be addressed, just like any animal. In this case, the characters have gathered for various reasons, and there is a wombow in their midst. Just as a minor character is about to say something dramatic that could cause huge problems if announced right then and there …

The predator appeared in her husband’s eyes. “Events, sir?”

Lowen nodded, expression a blend of grimness and sorrow, and possibly disgust. “Yes. Major Le—”

Bwaaaaaaaarghf.

Human and Staré alike stared, aghast, and leaned away from at the burping wombow. He looked rather more comfortable than before his eruption, his tail no longer flicking back and forth. At last Kor’s ears straightened up from their startle flop. He said, “That may be the best summary of the past days that I have heard thus far.”

“I quite agree, sir,” Tomás sighed, rubbing his short brown hair. “Quite agree.”

Bwaaaargf came a quieter encore.

(From Women’s Work Shikhari Book 4 Alma T. C. Boykin. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission.)

Now, Frisker the Belching Wombow is not quite the sort of character as, oh, Snowy the gaited white mule, or Ivan the Purrable, the cat who texts. Or the Familiars. But he serves an important role, especially in a world where animal power is as common as motor vehicle power. He is also 100% wombow.

You animals need to be animal. I think that’s where I collide hard with a lot of animals-as-characters in genre fiction today, is that the animals don’t act like critters. The writer didn’t do enough homework on behavior. Our own Blake Smith has written an excellent series here on horses, and what they do, won’t do, refuse to do, and how to handle them. When I started researching mules, I discovered that mules are not horses. Their behaviors are different, their anatomy is somewhat different, their care is a little different. You can’t make a mule do things that horses will, because that’s not in the normal mule behavior set. Which is why Elizabeth von Sarmas observes over and over that Snowy is a very, very unusual mule, even for mules. He fights. That’s not normal. But then neither is Snowy.

Please make your critters look, act like critters. If they are alien animals, do research even so and sort out what is realistic for something in that niche, or be ready to explain a within-world reason for that trait*. I’ve been doing a decent amount of reading about modern falconry, and why no one uses harriers as hawking birds. Innate behavior is a major factor. So Shoim being a loner compared to other Familiars fits the actual species. A real licensed falconer would be rather puzzled as to how anyone had managed to gentle (or coerce) a northern harrier to work on hand. And how that individual got the licenses and permits to do so. And when Shoim does something strange for a harrier, Jude makes a note of it, but doesn’t comment. That’s just Shoim. Sort of like Tay being a lemur and needing space to do gymnastics, or a kit fox that will eat anything once.

I tend to use animals where animals work. They have been part of our world forever, and probably will be, even if it is robotic simulacra that we take into space until we can get the real animals out of genetic storage. People are used to seeing dogs, cats, birds, squirrels, the occasional (or not so rare) urban fox, possum, coyotes, and so on. that could be a fun, or perhaps slightly sad, short story, how people who have become space-faring react to someone bringing a real, living cat or dog or pet prairie dog or something onto the space station. Or the reverse – someone goes dirtside for the first time and is moved to tears by seeing a squirrel, or feeder mice in a pet store.

*I’m not a James Cameron fan, but the work he put into the biology of Pandora is impressive. He actually put out a small book about the ecosystem and how everything functioned. The movies were blah as far as plot goes, IMHO, but the world building? Excellent.

Image Credit: Author photo, September 2021. Did I mention foxes?