Move Over Toto: More Pets Belong in Fiction--A guest post by J.L. Greger

I hope you all are enjoying a relaxing Memorial Day, but I'm slinging vino at a wine fest and fellow Oak Tree Press author, J. L. (Janet) Greger, author of the Sara Almquist mysteries, is guest posting about pets in ficton!

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According to poll of social media users, almost two-thirds of pet owners claim they post two comments or photos of their pets on social media weekly. Half of these pet owners claim photos and notes on pets draw more responses than their other posts.

Are these bits of trivia relevant to fiction writers?

I think there are several reasons for including animals in fiction.

• Animals increase the appeal of fiction to wider audiences. Cuddly pets are a staple of children’s books cozy mysteries. However, animals are legitimate secondary characters in serious adult fiction. Think of Cat in Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and Argos in Homer’s The Odyssey.

Probably, the most famous fictional dog is Toto in the Wizard of Oz. A Cairn Terrier, originally named Terry, played the role in the 1939 movie, Wizard of Oz He was so popular that Willard Carroll published his biography (I, Toto: The Autobiography of Terry, the Dog who was Toto) in 2001.

• Pets can advance the plot. In my latest thriller, Riddled with Clues, Sara Almquist is able to help solve riddles left by a homeless veteran and hence solve murders in Albuquerque because she and her pet therapy dog, Bug, are volunteers at the VA hospital and clinics. They know a few of the intricacies of the VA campus of more seventy buildings and are known by staff and patients. Bug in my novels is based on my real life Japanese Chin pet therapy dog. Just look at him. I guarantee patients and staff notice him more than me.

Come to think of it, the sheriff and his posse in Westerns couldn’t chase and capture the bad guys without their horses.

• Authors can often show a different side of human characters by allowing characters to interact with their pets. For example, my world-traveling scientist and heroine, Sara Almquist, is a no-nonsense woman, except when it comes to Bug. Her cute, bundle of fur brings out her softer side. Asta, the wire-haired terrier, makes the rather stiff William Powell more likeable in Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man.

• Pets are fun to write about. I enjoy including Bug, my Japanese Chin, in my thriller series (Coming Flu, Ignore the Pain, Malignancy, and I Saw You in Beirut, Riddled with Clues). Besides being beautiful, he’s smart. (Don’t I sound like the typical pet owner in the survey?) Similarly, Amy Bennett enjoys writing about an ancient Black Lab named Renfro in her Black Horse Campground Mysteries.

Maybe, you should include a dog or cat in your next writing project. Or be creative and give your human character a more unusual alter ego, like a fish or a raccoon.

 

Blurb for Riddled with Clues: A hospitalized friend gives Sara Almquist a note, which he received just before he was severely injured while investigating the movement of drugs into the U.S. The note is signed by “Red from Udon Thani.” However, he doesn’t know anyone called Red, and the last time he was in Udon Thani was during the Vietnam War. After Sara listens to his rambling tale of all the possibilities, both are assaulted. The friend is left comatose. Sara must determine whether the attacks were related to events during the secret war in Laos fifty years ago or to the modern-day drug trade. As she struggles to survive, she questions who to trust besides Bug: the local cops, FBI agents, or a homeless veteran who leaves puzzling riddles as clues all across the VA Campus in Albuquerque. 

Riddled with Clues (both paperback and Kindle versions) is available at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1938436237

Bio: J. L. Greger likes to include "sound bites" on science and on exotic locations in her Science Traveler Thriller/Mystery series, which includes: Riddled with Clues, Murder…A Way to Lose Weight (winner of 2016 Public Safety Writers [PSWA] annual contest and finalist for New Mexico–Arizona book award), I Saw You in Beirut, and Malignancy (winner of 2015 PSWA annual contest). To learn more, visit her website: http://www.jlgreger.com or her Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B008IFZSC4.