Because I am such an animal lover and because I enjoy my own animals so
much, I love to write them into my books and I love to read about them
in other people's books. Animals can add a much needed lightness to a
dark book, giving the reader a break from the heavy emotion and possibly
bringing a smile. The crazy, natural things they do are just plain
funny, and funny can and does happen at the worst of times. Make them
laugh, make
them cry, they say. Animals can help with both.
Animals can reveal character. A hard-edged hero, showing affection to a
dog or a horse, can tell the reader that he isn't quite as hard as he
would have people believe. On the other hand, a man ignoring an animal
or treating it badly can spell villlian without even saying so.
In my anthology, HEARTBREAK RANCH, I created Toddy, a standard white
poodle. Toddy was inspired by my sister's poodle. Toddy had been given
to Bella Duprey, a Barbary Coast courtesan. In training Toddy, Bella
discovered a simple system of reward and praise that worked on men. She
wrote these principals down in her journal, The Art Of Fascination, and
the book was passed down to her daughter, who had to discover how to use
these methods for herself to win the man she loves.
Toddy was also a fish out of water. When you think of a dog on a cattle
ranch, I'll bet a standard white poodle doesn't come to mind—especially
one who has never seen a steer. You can imagine the possibilities—and
so did I.
I had more fun writing this novella! I nearly laughed myself out of my
chair when I came up with the line, "Men and dogs are easily confused!"
Boy, after 34 years of marriage—do I know that to be the truth! But
it's a fact that dogs are easily confused if you send them mixed
signals. And men, too.
Animal behavior is unpredictable, which makes it a perfect vehicle for
humor. It's also a natural way of creating humor, which I think works
better than the contrived kind.
I studied dog training books and applied some of their concepts in
HEARTBREAK RANCH. Bella cautions her daughter in writing to go easy,
that men and dogs were easily confused. She writes, "Keep the training
lessons short. If you work with him too long, he'll become bored and
won't respond at all. Never lose your temper. Yelling and stamping
around in anger will only make things worse, and he'll be reluctant to
respond to your
training." Now, doesn't that apply to men as well?
In EMBRACE THE WIND, I used two animals. First a dog, Greeley (named
after Horace Greeley) who had been badly abused. With the help of the
hero, the heroine rescues him and nurses him back to health. Her
relationship with the dog shows her to be a deeply caring and determined
human being, character traits that the hero might not have otherwise had
an opportunity to see right off, but for the dog. Greeley responds to
all her love and attention and enjoys a new, happy life. Because his
former owner was a drunk, he responds badly to the heroine's father, an
alcoholic.
These are real and natural responses for animals and they make simple
statements about the characters that writers could otherwise spend reams
of paper trying to make.
My burros are my great loves.
What funny creatures. Their bray is the funniest noise I've ever hear
and believe me, I hear it often. I wrote about Paco, my male burro, in
TOUCH THE DAWN, HEARTBREAK RANCH (a tiny part) and EMBRACE THE WIND. In
the latter, he added to the ambiance of the town when he was seen
stealing hay off a forage wagon on a Tucson street. In the 1870's,
burro pack trains were always going through Tucson—so Paco was a
natural—an escapee of a burro pack train. He'll get another cameo
performance in my next book, SPIRIT WIND, which is a spin-off of EMBRACE
THE WIND, just as EMBRACE THE WIND is a spin-off of FIRES OF HEAVEN.
Oh, the tangled web we writers weave!
E-mail Chelley at:
Bookends@lightspeed.net
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