Writing in stream of consciousness for nonhumans?

Hmm... trying to figure out the question, or how to answer...

Any human writing a nonhuman POV is, by definition, going to be faking things. You have to decide how you want that Other to think, what senses they prioritize, how they process thoughts and concepts (or if they even process them) - and then try to convey that to an audience of humans in some meaningful manner, using the uniquely human medium of written words. How one does this is a matter of author skill level, style, and what story you're trying to tell. Strict accuracy, by nature, is pretty much impossible.

Have you read Charles A. Foster's Being a Beast? He tries (and, occasionally, succeeds) immersing in animal mindsets in real-world experiments. Also consider reading up on recent research into animal intelligence and emotions, to see what the Other might be capable of.

For alien mindsets, CJ Cherryh does some alien POVs that make them distinctly inhuman yet relatable.

It is an exercise in empathy. I guess it would be easier if the "rules" for your character's thinking were previously explained. Otherwise it might be just as difficult for your readers to grasp these "rules" as they read your writing. Not impossible, just more difficult, requiring you to be more clever.

It would be an interesting Idea on here to have a challenge where one poster would describe a character, give characteristics- some being nonhuman, and the next poster has to write a diary entry for that character, from their POV. Just an idea, May be my cold meds are having too much of an effect today.

There's a very good (imo) story by Juliette Wade called "Cold Words," which is published in Analog. It's from the first-person-present, very deep pov of an alien. I think it might be the kind of thing you are asking about.

I agree with others who have said that a very deep or stream-of-consciousness viewpoint from an alien (or animal) perspective should prioritize the senses and values you think that entity possesses. If you are writing from (say) a dog, I'd pay more attention to smells and high-pitched sounds and on moving things and not focus on colors (dogs are effectively red-green color blind and see a muted palate in other shades) and on the sorts of things dogs seem to care about and notice most. SQUIRREL!

Some of you approach rmight also consider the kind of personality you are projecting into your entity. If you want to contrast different kinds of dogs and make them a bit more "human," for instance, you could make some of them more hyperkinetic (terriers() or obsessive (border collies) or slow and measured (a giant breed like a newfie).

Sorry for the typos. Firefox has been performing very poorly on this site lately for me, and it takes a few seconds for anything I type to appear sometimes, so I dfopn't see typos ntil a sentence is finished.

There is a single chapter in one of my manuscripts that is told from the perspective (close third person, I should say, not first) of a gorilla. They are portrayed as being similarly smart as humans, but lacking the vocal cords to speak out loud. They do communicate in sign language, but without some of the nuance of human speech. The language in that chapter reflects a similar kind of speech and thought pattern.

I would suggest you might check out the Twitter accounts for IAmABear, NotAWolf, and DogThoughts for examples of how various folks interpret the idea of thinking and expressing oneself like an animal. (Also, I may be paraphrasing those Twitter names.) NotAWolf is sometimes vaguely political. And IAmABear tends to be philosophical in strange ways.

I write a lot of non-human characters. Some are pretty close to humans. Some are not. There isn't a single answer here. But as you say you're writing a dog, it's going to be a lot easier than a jellyfish alien from a planet where the seas are liquid mercury. Dogs have a pretty good understanding of what people are saying and what human body language means. They live in the same environments as humans. There's a lot of overlap there, which means those things will help ground the audience.

The main thing with real animals is you need to get the basic observable facts right. People know that dogs wag their tails when they're happy. They bark. They have a good sense of smell. You can't suddenly decide dogs meow, do a tap dance when happy, and are known for their great vision. What you can gloss over is the details. You could spend a lot of time reading about dog psychology and seeing what concepts they understand and what concepts are a struggle. You could create a vocabulary based on words that dogs have been proven to understand. But you can also gloss over all that and most people aren't going to query it.

Tech that turns thoughts into words has been done and audiences accepted it. Pixar's "Up" worked because the things the dogs were saying fit the way dogs behave.

Call of the Wild and White Fang should not be overlooked for writing from the perspective of a dog. Although a different situation, a great example of a story written from a different perspective is Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime which is written from the point of view of an autistic child. The child has a rigid logic he follows with very little intuition or tacit social understanding to balance it. It's a clever book on a lot of different levels and done by an author with lots of experience in interacting with autistic kids. It's enjoyable and would probably open up some ideas for how to write from the view of someone with much different problem solving methods than your normal protagonist.

aheuett said:

Call of the Wild and White Fang should not be overlooked for writing from the perspective of a dog. Although a different situation, a great example of a story written from a different perspective is Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime which is written from the point of view of an autistic child. The child has a rigid logic he follows with very little intuition or tacit social understanding to balance it. It's a clever book on a lot of different levels and done by an author with lots of experience in interacting with autistic kids. It's enjoyable and would probably open up some ideas for how to write from the view of someone with much different problem solving methods than your normal protagonist.

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The idea that autistic people are not real humans like "normal" people is the basis for discriminating against people who are autistic. Humans have a wide range of experiences, but it doesn't make them any less human because they have an experience that isn't yours. You might also want to consider why your first thought was a book by someone who isn't autistic and has been criticised by people who are autistic (this review is one example).

I did not say that an autistic person is not a "real human, "less human," or that he or she is not a "normal" person--these are your words, not mine. My exact word choices were "different perspective" and "different problem solving methods." These are based on my interactions with people on the autism spectrum as well as training on interacting with them and is completely different than stating or even implying that those differences mean they are lesser than others. I made it clear that an autistic person's experience is not the same as a dog or alien when I stated, "Although a different situation."

As for the article you referenced, it states early on:

Christopher’s narration didn’t resonate with my own experience of autism, and most autistic people I’ve spoken to didn’t relate to him either (though some do).

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A fictional character does not need to be representative of every person or even the majority of the people in any given group. In fact, fiction would be very boring if that was some sort of requirement to make sure no one gets offended.

aheuett said:

I did not say that an autistic person is not a "real human, "less human," or that he or she is not a "normal" person--these are your words, not mine. My exact word choices were "different perspective" and "different problem solving methods." These are based on my interactions with people on the autism spectrum as well as training on interacting with them and is completely different than stating or even implying that those differences mean they are lesser than others. I made it clear that an autistic person's experience is not the same as a dog or alien when I stated, "Although a different situation."

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When faced with a question about writing from a dog's perspective, you jumped straight to autism and contrasted that with a "normal protagonist". That is dehumanising.

The thing about offence is to consider who is offended. If it's hurting people who are already marginalised, this is not a good thing to be doing. In comedy, this is the idea of punching down. I'm sure bigots would find my books offensive because they have people like me in them, but bigots have a lot more power than me, so it's a very different dynamic. When they're offended, they feel upset, but there's no risk to them. When I'm offended, I know it's the root of the attitude that leads to people trying to hurt me. That's the difference.

I think we disagree about what I did or did not imply and I do not think that will change.

I had different conclusions than the author of that article. The MC was definitely treated poorly by other characters in the book but I found these to serve a similar function as the treatment of blacks in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I found the end statement by the MC empowering. I have difficulty getting up in arms when there is mixed consensus among the target community if the subject is offensive.