Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism (or Zoomorphism)

Sapient animals in fiction and film range all the way from creatures that live and act like their real-life counterparts but communicate with language among themselves, as in BAMBI (the book, not the Disney movie, which anthropomorphizes the characters a bit more) and WATERSHIP DOWN (in which the rabbits have myths and legends as well as speech) to what a friend of mine calls "zoomorphic humans," characters who look like animals but for all intents and purposes are human, as in the Arthur cartoons and the Berenstain Bear series.

TV Tropes has a page exploring this range:

Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism

The creatures in MRS. FRISBY AND THE RATS OF NIMH behave much like "normal" animals and birds, aside from the intelligent rats whose human-like minds are explained by the scientific experiments performed on them. The animals in the Narnia series present a special case, since most of them are natural beasts like the animals in our own world, but the "talking animals," uplifted by Aslan, interact as equals with human characters and sometimes wear clothes and use technology. The animals of the all-animal Redwall world behave like people but retain some of their species traits, especially the conflicts between prey and predators (almost all of whom are portrayed as villains). ZOOTOPIA, set in another world with civilized animals and no human beings, makes a conscientious effort to "show their work" as far as species traits are concerned, including drawing the various types of creatures more or less to scale. And, of course, the fraught relationship between predators and prey is central to the plot. The animated stuffed toys of the Winnie the Pooh series act in most respects like people but with some token nods to their animal natures, such as Owl living in a tree and Rabbit in a burrow. The animals of THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS occupy roughly the same level. They live in a world where none of the human characters seem surprised to meet what C. S. Lewis called "dressed animals." Snoopy in the "Peanuts" series began as fairly doglike and gradually became more anthropomorphic. The Disney cartoons present the odd situation of some "animals" being essentially zoomorphic humans, such as human-sized Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, while others—e.g., Pluto, who's smaller than his master, the "mouse"!—are simply animals. Chip and Dale, the chipmunks, lead a natural tree-rodent lifestyle but seem able to understand and speak the language of the more anthropomorphic characters.

What does an author gain by portraying almost-human characters as animals? In the highly didactic Berenstain Bears stories, the characters' ursine appearance and names probably offer the "spoonful of sugar" needed to make the "medicine" of the lessons go down easily with the target audience. Child readers can enjoy being taught through stories because of the distancing effect of the animal guise (as well as the light, humorous approach to most of the problems). In the GET FUZZY comic strip, the dog and cat behave like unruly children rather than pets, even more so than the comparable characters in GARFIELD (which at least act canine and feline part of the time). The cat, Bucky, is even expected to clean his own litter box. The dog, Satchel, appears to be mentally challenged. Bucky is downright sociopathic in his disregard for the rights and feelings of others, especially Satchel. If these creatures were human children, the family would be in therapy. By drawing them as pets owned by a put-upon bachelor, the cartoonist can pass off the strip as humor. (As you may guess, I find it more unpleasant than funny.) Similarly, classic cartoon characters such as Donald Duck and Bugs Bunny can get away with actions that wouldn't be accepted as funny from human actors, because Donald and Bugs are nominally animals.

C. S. Lewis addresses this question in regard to THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS. He suggests that making the characters animals allows the author to give them the incompatible freedoms of both adults and children. Mole, Rat, and Toad (who's more anthropomorphized than the others) enjoy complete independence, like adults, but they're free to "play" all the time with no need to work for a living, like small children.

When animal characters have any degree of human-like intelligence and personality, they satisfy one of the desires often fulfilled by extraterrestrial aliens—they let us imagine interaction with nonhuman people. As Tolkien says, animals are like foreign countries with which humanity has broken off relations; we yearn to connect with them.

Speaking of animals, happy Groundhog Day (aka Candlemas)!

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Zootopia Conundrums

I was gobsmacked by the wonders of Disney's ZOOTOPIA, not only the dazzling beauty and meticulous detail of the animation, but especially the different layers of significance that can be appreciated on various levels by children and adults. For the littlest viewers (as long as they're not young enough to find the "savage" scenes too scary), you have anthropomorphic, talking animals in clothes. The messages of "you can aspire to be anything you want to be" and "don't judge individual people by group stereotypes" are accessible to all ages. Then there are deeper issues of prejudice, violence, and political corruption. There's even a podcast suggesting that the movie constitutes an animal fable about the crack cocaine epidemic:

Film Theory: Zootopia

Although this hypothesis feels plausible while the "film theory" guy is expounding it, I strongly doubt that the Disney script writers had this exact scenario in mind. Nevertheless, the movie can definitely be applied to that real-world situation, as it can to broader social problems of minorities stigmatized as inherently violent and dangerous. And the dialogue includes many lighter allusions to stereotyping and insensitivity, such as the scene where rabbit police rookie Judy Hopps explains to one of her new colleagues that bunnies sometimes call each other "cute" but don't like it when other animals use that word.

A particularly impressive touch is the way the art shows the different animal species roughly in scale with each other, instead of making them all about the same size, as in typical anthropomorphic animal cartoons. As a corollary, each size category of animal has its own buildings built to scale. In the city center of Zootopia, of course, animals of all sizes have to mingle, resulting in occasional problems of a species having to deal with architecture and furnishings of the wrong size. Also, the writers used the real-world statistic that predators outnumber prey ten to one as a vital plot element.

Some questions about this world remain unanswered: Do all animals age at the same rate regardless of species? That appears to be the case with the example of Nick Wilde, the fox. Mammals (the only animals we see, and apparently the only ones who are sapient) seem to age at a human rate. What about breeding patterns? Judy has over 200 siblings. We aren't told whether they're produced in litters (it would seem impossible for a mother rabbit to have that many offspring otherwise). The shrew bride shows up heavily pregnant soon after her wedding, hinting that rodents breed fast, as in the real world. Yet instead of a litter, she appears to have only one prospective child (as indicated in a comment from her father, Mr. Big).

I don't remember seeing any domestic-type dogs or cats, only wolves and varieties of wild felines. Maybe this omission is a deliberate result of the absence of Homo sapiens from this version of Earth. Apparently this world has never had any human inhabitants. Since dogs and cats as we know them evolved through domestication from wolves and small wildcats, it would make sense that the former don't exist where human interference in their evolution never occurred.

Most glaring, what do the predators eat? If only mammals have consciousness and intelligence, the carnivores could eat fish (as in the Redwall series, where most fish seem to be "fair game" for food), insects (as in THE LION KING), and birds. No mention of this issue appears in the movie, though, at least as it applies to present-day civilized society. Harking back to the savage past, at one point Nick Wilde challenges Judy on whether she's secretly afraid he'll eat her.

From a writer's perspective, it's interesting that the movie was originally framed in the viewpoint of Nick, the cynical, streetwise con man. That version was much darker, focusing on the restrictions predators suffered under the rule of the fearful prey-animal majority. The creators eventually realized that the story needed to be told from the viewpoint of Judy, the idealistic young rookie from the country who comes to the big city eager "to make the world a better place," convinced that all animals live together in harmony in Zootopia. As her adventures unfold, she faces the dark side of her society as well as her own latent prejudices. If the story had been told through the eyes of Nick, who already knows Zootopia isn't a pure utopia, it would have been quite different and not nearly so strong (not to mention too violent and depressing for Disney's target child audience).

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Greetings from Orlando; Zootopia

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

This week I'm at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in balmy Orlando. I'll report on the con next Thursday.

By the way, have you seen ZOOTOPIA? I was highly impressed and definitely want to own this movie and watch it repeatedly. Almost as much of a winner as INSIDE OUT! One intriguing feature is the way this latest film confronts the issue of carnivores and herbivores living together in society, as most worlds inhabited by intelligent, anthropomorphic animals don't. The closest analogue might be Brian Jacques's Redwall, but that series portrays predators as uniformly, simplistically, and irredeemably evil (a deliberate choice on the author's part, but I prefer the way ZOOTOPIA handles the problem). It's also interesting that ZOOTOPIA keeps the sizes of the various animals roughly to scale, so that when the rabbit heroine ventures into the section of the city called Little Rodentia, she strides among the buildings like Godzilla in Tokyo (but of course more carefully).

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

The Wrong Way To Write A Story

I've said here any number of times there's no "right" or "wrong" way to write, or tell a story, and no "wrong" story to tell.  I've illustrated that with exploring several interesting novels.  Examples:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/04/gene-doucettes-immortal-revisited.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/02/research-plot-integration-in-historical.html
But all across the web I'm finding people explaining what they don't want to do with their writing, and for what reasons -- and I'm finding professionals with money to invest in producing or publishing who are explaining what they need from writers and it is what the writers want to avoid doing.

And ne'er the twain shall meet, it seems.

So here's one more attempt to explain to each of these groups what the other is talking about and why.

I've been messing around with graphics software, Adobe professional level stuff that reminds me of Macromedia (Adobe bought Macromedia a while back).  I've never mastered any of these programs as I have Word Processors gallore.  Graphics programs are tools for doing something my mind does not do, while word processors are tools for showing you what my mind does!

However, in messing around with graphics I've found something you don't see right off in word processors that could illuminate this communications problem between writers and producer/publisher folks.

It's LAYERS.  Today's computer graphics (such as Photoshop) are in "layers."  Layers give you the power to animate things.  It's quite a neat trick, and you don't need to buy the software to find out how it's done.  I've put the link in below. 

Your "ART" goes in the "background" layer, that's your worldbuilding, the philosophy, the iconic dimension of your imagery. 

The "CRAFT" goes in the "foreground" layer, and there are multitudinous layers in between until you get to the "mid-ground" where Art and Craft blend into solid commercial art.

People running a business founded on delivering your artistic product to a market large enough to make back their investment plus a profit for you and them are looking for is CRAFT.

They don't know, and don't want to know (and between you and me shouldn't know) anything at all about your ART -- your writer's art to be art must be invisible to the naked eye of the businessman/woman.

The editor/businessperson/investor is only interested in your CRAFT, your ability to pour your (Neptune-ruled) formless ART into the pre-constructed (Saturn-ruled) mold.

That's what programs like Photoshop do -- they set up a very limited FORM into which various half-baked products (a picture you just snapped) can be poured and then "set" or chilled (rendered) into something sharper, brighter, or morphed into a suggestion of something other than the original.

Film and TV professionals use programs that are far more sophisticated, less limited, having larger but more precise tools (and requiring a lot more computer power) to create things like the film Avatar or the Harry Potter films.

But you don't need the software to seat the major concept in your mind.  Look at this tutorial video - or look up some other tutorial videos on animation on YouTube.

http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorial/Adobe-Flash-Tutorial-Basic-animation/73931

Now here's what's going on with the conversation between writers and publishers.

Writers are talking about creating one LAYER of the finished product, while Publishers/Producers are talking about another LAYER which goes on top of the artistic layer.

The writers or art-originator is creating ART.

Astrologically ART is ruled by Neptune, and is nebulous, fuzzy, without edges, all about philosophy and vision into the higher levels of reality, beyond the mere physical.  Neptune is Romance, Soul-Mates, about "making love" and all the processes that enliven the Soul and connect you to the ineffable.

Astrologically Publishing/Producing and all sorts of businesses are ruled by Saturn, structure/discipline/application.  Saturn is all about the concrete world, and the practical results obtained within concrete reality.  Saturn is about Making a Living, about marriage as a business arrangement, about the physical body, and about "having sex" and the processes of procreation. 

These are two separate "layers" of our existence, and if you stretch the analogy of how Art software works to create these marvelous animations, to create the vivid colors, and to alter the appearance of reality (just consider some of the Superbowl commercials), you can visualize each of the "Planets" of the zodiac in your natal chart as LAYERS OF YOU, layers of reality overlying each other and interpenetrating to produce what you laughingly call your life.

So while your editor is earnestly explaining the realities of spelling, grammar, punctuation, and plot-structure, character continuity and arc in terms of marketability and profit margin, audience "reach" and so forth, you are yelling back that "There Is No Wrong Story!"  There can't be such a thing as an "error" in writing -- this is my story! 

You're talking about two separate "Layers" and you haven't run the function called "rendering" yet.

A writer who is trying to market their own material needs a cut-down tool like Photoshop (and its accompanying suite if you need to do animations), a tool you can use without completely mastering the entire suite of tools.

Fooling around with tools like this can give you not only the concept of LAYERS but also sharpen your ability to create those visual "icons" that bring the background worldbuilding and philosophy into the foreground of the craft layer, welding them together (rendering) inextricably so that no among of editing can destroy what is precious to you about your story.

There is no "wrong" in Art.  There are many "wrongs" in Craft.     

Producers and publishers usually don't look for new talent unless they're desperate in a failing market.  Think twice about being "found" and dragged into a failing market -- do it if you have a strategy for spring-boarding yourself out of that avalanche of downward pressure.

Here are the statistics for 2011 from Publisher's Weekly

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/financial-reporting/article/50805-aap-estimates-e-book-sales-rose-117-in-2011-as-print-fell.html

--------------QUOTE-----------
Despite slowing growth rates in the final quarter of 2011, e-book sales rose 117% for the year, generating revenue of $969.9 million at the companies that report sales to the Association of American Publishers. Sales in all trade print segments fell in the year, however, with the mass market paperback segment showing the largest decline with sales from reporting houses down almost 36%, to $431.5 million. Adult hardcover and trade paperback sales were off 17.5% and 15.6%, respectively. In children’s, the YA/hardcover segment sales fell 4.7% and paperback sales fell 12.7%.

 The religion segment had a solid year, with sales up 8.4% in all formats. And in audio, physical audio sales fell 8.1% at reporting companies, while downloadable audio rose 25.5% for the year.
-----------END QUOTE---------

Also remember "the medium is the message" -- writing for one delivery system is not the same as writing for another.  Study your delivery systems, business models, and let the data soak into your subconscious where it will be melded with your Art. 

Producers and Publishers will generally go back to the Names who have presented them with usable material on a regular and hassle-free basis.

They all want someone they can ask, "Give me something in this genre," and get "I'll have it for you in three weeks."  And when they get the manuscript, they want to be able to finger Paragraph 3, page 100, and email back "there's an error right there" -- get the answer, "Oooops, sorry. I'll have a clean manuscript to you tomorrow morning."  And when the morning comes, the rewrite is in the inbox -- and it does indeed correct the error.

Without even explaining what exactly the problem is, the investor gets it fixed because the craftsman is a craftsman. 

What did the craftsman do to fix the error that the investor couldn't do?  The craftsman went back to the file in her head that has all the layers separate - the file that has the "image" unrendered, un-flattened, with all the pieces distinctly separate.  And the craftsman then brought up one of the layers which was causing the problem, tweaked it a bit in a way that did not even TOUCH the underlying Artistic Vision, then re-rendered the Image, saved it, attached the file and emailed it back. 

It's that simple for a writer to fix a problem an editor or publisher has with a story -- if the writer has created the thing in layers to begin with, saved the layer-rich file, rendered a copy that's flattened and submitted that.

Most beginning writers "have an idea" -- and it comes to their conscious mind already rendered so it can't be easily edited one layer at a time.  So when a potential investor says "this is wrong" the beginner "feels" (not thinks, feels) the art is attacked at a visceral level because the "art" and "craft" are "flattened" into one layer at the Idea level.  But all that's being perceived by the potential investor is the grainy, blurry feel to the edges of the objects in the rendering, the craft not the art. 

One is discussing the sharpness of the image and the other is discussing what the image is of.  Neither can win the argument because it's not an argument yet.  To argue and thus resolve a problem, you must both be talking about the same thing.

To fix that tendency to produce "an idea" without layers (a Polaroid print not a digital image), the new writer has to master the "Photoshop" in her artistic mind, separate the layers of "My Idea," use the mending tool to snip out "noise" and sharpen the edges, and re-render it as a marketable product. 

The graphic artist always keeps a copy of the project (several copies in various stages actually) in the original file format that keeps the "layers" and all the rest of the effects separate.  The rendered end-product is delivered to the investor. 

The rendered product is something the artist has no emotional investment in (just a financial investment).  That's the secret to dealing with editors, publishers and producers.

Read this item on why and how lovingly written screenplays get morphed into something unrecognizable by the production process.

http://www.quora.com/Why-do-studios-rewrite-scripts-after-buying-them/answer/Sean-Hood
Think of every story you write (especially something shorter than a novel) as a potential screenplay which will (not might, will) undergo this process.  Put your Art down inside the background layer where it won't be touched.

You can follow me on Quora:

Follow Jacqueline Lichtenberg on Quora

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com