Write Fiction and Nonfiction using Animals to Symbolize Life



Gee whizz. What a wonderful day!

Why write about animals? Do they make a difference in whether readers like your books or articles? When I wrote my first novel Justice Forbidden a couple of years ago I pondered whether I should add that special cat I had once dearly loved and that had helped me through a difficult time.

Then I started wondering whether it would be too cliche to write a mystery about an old woman who had a cat and solved a crime. It sounded too much like Agatha Christie. But, I reasoned, my mystery was a psychological thriller, not a cozy, and my protagonist was a psychologist in her forties, not an old woman. Yes, I thought, for some reason I needed an extraordinary cat in Faythe's life to help her in the dark days after her husband died.

It wasn't until I added Mao to my novel that I took a closer look at what animals added to stories. Since very early on, books like Lassie Come home and Black Beauty won the hearts of so many children but also adults. And Sea Biscuit and The Black Stallion became favorite movies for many, as well as for me.

What makes these stories so popular with the majority of people? What do animals symbolize to us?
They obviously touch something deep inside of us.

 Lets do a short exercise. Write down three words that come to mind when you think about the animals listed. There are no correct answers and they may be different than other people's answers. Each of us is an individual and all of us have had different experiences in our lives.

1.  Dog
2.  Cat
3.  Deer
4.  Horse
5.  Dolphin
6.  Parrot
7.  Lion
8.  Bear
9. The cat in the picture

How would your words change if the animal was beaten, injured, blind, alone, lost, vulnerable?

Here are a few examples of how I personally see certain animals. Read them only after you write down your own answers.

A dog means loyalty to me and he loves me just the way I am. We have a deep emotional connection and bond. He is a good listener without judging me and is protective of me. He is my buddy and friend. He is loving and supportive to veterans with PTSD, coming home from war and can help, protect, and lead blind people.

A cat is independent and at times creatively mischievous, but when I feel sad she or he comes to lie on my lap and purr. Mao, the cat in my story, was very intuitive and hissed at the murderer. Although small, he stood his ground to protect Faythe.

A lion is dangerous but powerful and can at times care about other animals or people enough to protect them.

You get the idea.

Some time ago, when I took a writing class, the instructor warned the class to be careful not to kill an animal in a story. According to her, people respond to most animals the way they respond to young children. Readers empathize with them and see them as vulnerable, helpless, needing adult protection. People cheer for them when they succeed in overcoming great odds, show courage, or help the vulnerable. Sea Biscuit, a horse, was seen as one of America's greatest heroes during the Depression.

So what kind of animal can you add to your story to symbolize the character attributes you wish to portray? Is the animal supportive of your protagonist? Or can you add an animal to show a lesson in your story? Do you know an exceptional animal you love and wish to write about?

"The Rough and Often Beautiful Mess"

In the heat of mid summer and through the days of the full moon, I have been absorbed in two events: one being the birth of the future King and the other reading, The Yonahlosse Riding Camp for Girls. Anton Disclafoni's first novel is a breathtaking story. Set amid orange groves in Florida and then at an old riding camp in the hills of North Carolina, this book does what we hope for in our summer reading; it transports us to another time and a well imagined place.

Having been a veteran of both boarding school and summer camp, I know the cloistered worlds where young woman were sent to build friendships, to gain skills, and hopefully, to stay out of trouble. As my camp had horses and a riding ring, I am very familiar with the obsessions that accompany equestrian pursuits. Disclafani, herself a skilled horsewoman who competed nationally, brings an ability to describe riding to a new level. The reader absorbs her fearlessness with admiration and awe. Never have I read a better description of an annual competition then in this debut novel.

Aside from it being a great read for horsey types, it captures something of the Depression, the thirties, the ruin that grabbed the most secure families, as if it had a hand on the back of their necks and pulled them down with tremendous force. Abandoned houses, quiet declines, suicide and peril are woven into this tale. As the Depression haunted the parents of my generation who were children during those frightening years, we are too quick to joke about all the carefully wrapped and preserved little bits of food in the freezer, the grandmothers who still collected rubber bands, the women who washed and saved the tin foil, even the ones who washed and dried plastic bags and hung them on the line; they kept up with these practices because they never lost their fear of the wolf at the door. In this book, the Depression is not depicted in dust bowls and bread lines, but rather stalking the genteel and ordered world of the privileged, where girls are suddenly yanked from their known realities and set out into an uncertain future. Family life seems similarly fragile, as if the precious and beautiful life in the orange groves left them vulnerable, only to be toppled by an unwelcome frost. The mothers were cocooned in their beautiful homes, with all rooms seen as exquisite and in perfect balance and order. Yet one event could destroy all and young women could heap shame on their families by one imprudent night.

 I remember that world; I remember my grandmothers with their dresses, and their silver tea services, their china, and their housekeepers, their luncheons and their stories, often involving one false move that led to ruin. You had to get a good husband at all costs; your house was, as Disclafani states, "both mother and father." Your daughters were kept at a curious distance; sexual awakening was feared and mistrusted. All of this is beautifully captured in this smart and terrific novel. What Disclafani manages to impart is that the camp girls were not delicate flowers- not girls who rode horses anyway. They were made of flesh and blood; they were familiar with the sound of their bones cracking, they took their cues from magnificent creatures whose noble blood they cherished. The barns were full of sweat and muck. They girls were expected to travel from the bold and the beautiful, from the rough and the wild, from the sheer abandon of a mad gallop, to the starched linen and polite conversation of the dinner table. Disclafani writes:

"I took pleasure in how good I was in the saddle, how well I knew my way around a horse. I was good at something in a way most people are never good at anything in their lives. Horses were a gift; how many people have such a constant in their life, separate from the rough and often beautiful mess that is their family?"

If you are heading to the beach or the cottage, if you are boarding a plane, or packing the camper, I would toss the Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls into your weekend, canvas bag. If you know a great horsewoman, or two, or three, give this to them with a five star recommendation.

The Clubhouse Turn

 I recently had the pleasure of indulging in a familiar and much loved annual rite of spring; I spent a happy afternoon watching the Kentucky Derby. Starting early in order to catch the preliminary shows, I felt informed enough to pick a horse, but did not indulge in off track betting. A call to my sister gave me a heads up. She told me her heart belonged to a beautiful, all white steed, named Hansen. We discussed the favorite, and then she added, "There is also a Canadian entry, a long shot, but we should cheer for 'I'll Have Another'," just in case. I told her I liked the name, but was kind of taken with Hansen too. 

Exposure to the world of thoroughbred racing came early for my sister and me. Our paternal grandfather was a breeder and fierce competitor whose love of the sport of kings became legendary.  Up way before dawn he would be at the rails, stopwatch in hand,  figuring the odds and statistics of the track. He theorized that champions come through the bloodlines, not just in horseflesh, but in people as well. He looked for that quality everywhere. The Canadian  world of horse racing has its own version of the Kentucky Derby, namely, the Queen's Plate. The race often includes the presence of royalty and those lucky enough to win when the Queen is present, will ride around the track with her in a splendid carriage. As a child, I used to think the best part of the event had to be in watching my parents and get dressed. Dad wore a light gray top hat and tails. The ladies, turned out in their finery, and as in Kentucky, donned beautiful hats. I remember my mother hand sewing a garland of flowers for my sister to wear in her hair.

There were times as a child, at our farm in the country, when our old crank style phone would clang in the front hall and we would listen for our special ring, as we were on a party line. When my father said, “We'll be right over,” we kids would start jumping up and down. His words signaled the birth of a beautiful colt, or filly and we would excitedly enter the spotless barn and see a glowing mare nudge her new born to rise up on spindly legs, the chief characteristic of the thoroughbred.  It was on one of these occasions when we found my grandparents arm in arm, peering into the stall.  My grandmother remarked, in reference to the still wet, little filly, “isn't she lovely?” Stricken with cancer, and ill at the time, we were all moved to see her radiant smile. My grandfather, looking at the sight of her, thought his wife had never appeared more beautiful. So he named that horse Jamned Lovely.  As if endowed by a special sort of magic, our beautiful filly went  on to give us the supreme thrill of winning the Queen's Plate, passing a field full of bigger, and stronger looking colts. When she came around the clubhouse turn and the crowd leaped to its collective feet, we knew she had a chance. My emotional grandfather, a widower, at this point, stood, slapped his racing form to the side of his mourning coat and roared, “Come on, come on!”

I am always taken by the stories, not just of the breeders and their skill, but of the trainers and jockeys as well. On Derby day, I  love to see the red roses, the celebration of spring, the time honored tradition of the singing of, 'My Old Kentucky Home'. Horses are noble; there are no two ways about it. They move us with their strength, their beauty and their character. They have moods, they can be persnickety and like us, they are competitive. They inspire great writing too, and many a young girl has been transported to a life long love of horses by reading Black Beauty by Anna Sewell and Enid Bagnold's National Velvet. Seabiscuit also comes to mind, telling the tale of a horse that captured the imagination of an entire nation. The stories often involve, grief, heartbreak and with the help of horses, healing and recovery.

In the race, when the horses reach the clubhouse turn, the field has narrowed, the positions are somewhat set and the jockeys who have held these fine creatures back, up until this point, will let out the reins, give them a few taps with the stick and let them show their stuff. On Derby day 2012, it was the Canadian entry who took the lead down the stretch. Challengers poured on the speed, but they could not quite catch, 'I'll Have Another.' Jockey, Mario Gutierrez wept with joy from the finish line to the moment when his mount became blanketed in red roses.

I think of the clubhouse turn when writing a novel. The last third of the book requires that level of inspiration and speed. It also serves as a milestone in life: when you round that bend, you go into your true power. Ideally, it should spark the same level of excitement.

Now, on to the Preakness.

I am so thrilled to add this update. 'I'll Have Another,' in a flat out race to the wire, won the 137th running of the Preakness today.