Like our families and our children, our pets are extremely interesting and important -- to us. A writer has to sweat to make an editor and readership care about our housepets as we do, mainly by presenting a unique and dramatic story, if there is one. Start an essay by describing a pet cat, and then for comparison, describe a previous pet cat that let itself get dressed in doll clothes, and the reader will think, "This is old news."
Housepets are not a good subject for fiction, either. We love them but they say nothing, do little and mostly go nowhere, and that doesn’t make for enjoyable fiction. Fiction narrated by a pet is old-old news. Think Black Beauty (1877).
Famous writers have published books about housepets. Virginia Woolf wrote Flush. I haven't read it. May Sarton wrote The Fur Person (a cat). Some people love it; there's even a gift edition. I haven't read it. Same with Doris Lessing's On Cats. I'm inclined to read about people, and then maybe animals other than housepets, as in Call of the Wild, Giraffe, and Watership Down. Readers are still recommending Watership Down, a misleading title for a novel about a colony of wild rabbits, published in 1972. I heard it recommended just yesterday. I have even read Will I See Fido in Heaven?, a work of nonfiction. (BTW, the answer, just as I had hoped, is "Yes.")
Having had pets I know how dear they are, and their lives have a few dramatic moments, but a reader is thinking, “What’s in this for me?” The author bursting to tell a pet story should write it, but for a readership, prepare to deliver a story never before told.
Wednesday, 13 July 2011 13:58
Why Housepets Are Not a Good Subject for a Book
Written by Catherine Rankovic-
font size
decrease font size
increase font size
- 1 Comment
Last modified on Wednesday, 13 July 2011 15:03
Read 393 times
Published in
Sanity Bubble 2011
Catherine Rankovic
Writer, with 30+ years' writing and publishing experience, 20+ years' teaching experience. Last book read: Mrs. Lincoln by Catherine Clinton.
Latest from Catherine Rankovic
1 Comment
-
Comment Link
Wednesday, 13 July 2011 21:03
posted by Julia
My sleepy eyes first read your title as "houseplants" and I thought: my God! Who would write about that? Ha ha.
Yeah, as much as I love my cats, blogging will have to suffice. They'll get their own paper pages when they start writing about me.
Leave a comment
Make sure you enter the (*) required information where indicated.
Basic HTML code is allowed.
