Talking animals in an otherwise "serious" fantasy world, tonally could it work?

Fair warning, long post ahead.

I would like to introduce a dilemma: the David Foster Wallace paradox. In essence, the advice given to fantasy writers (from articles I’ve read, etc., I don’t have an agent or an editor yet) is often don’t try to be too serious, fantasy is a pulp genre and you’re not David Foster Wallace. However, what makes Wallace’s Infinite Jest such a classic is that Wallace included strange, arguably “pulpy” idiosyncrasies that lend Infinite Jest its personality. He just got away with breaking the rules because, frankly, he is a genius. Thus, advice warning fantasy writers to stick to pulp is a paradox, unless you somehow know you are a genius, which anyone with a healthy ego and a grounded sense of self does not.

I am currently working on a fantasy book called Fall’s End. Fall’s End is a magical atoll where some of the most dangerous wild animals on Planet Earth roam. Because of a complex history at the atoll, there is constant, often violent political conflict between different groups (environmental extremists, imperialists, etc.). The book will feature adult themes regarding political optics/strategy, bodily autonomy, and corruption. A question has been stinging in the back of my mind, though; am I taking this all too seriously?

There is “serious” fantasy. A Song of Ice and Fire immediately comes to mind. However, I would also bring up The Traitor Baru Cormorant, an excellent fantasy book about a tax attorney trying to overthrow a corrupt government. Traitor Baru gets more nakedly political and adult than almost any book I’ve read, fantasy or otherwise, and I adore the audacity. That said, the worlds in both examples are fairly grounded. ASoIaF has dragons, but the dragons don’t talk. I can’t really picture a talking dragon fitting the tone of ASoIaF.

In contrast, Fall’s End has a lot of zany creatures who talk. The Merekroks, for example, are a hybrid of a crocodile and a meerkat. I could easily make everyone human (or at least a facsimile of a human, ‘elves’ are easier to ‘take seriously’ than talking crocodiles), but part of the satire and aesthetic I am going for comes from the specific designs of the characters. For instance, “Tatters” is a three foot tall Merekrok anarcho-syndicalism advocate (though in my world those who follow in that political ideology are referred to as "Sky Swords," it'd be lazy world building if the political ideologies had the same names as they do in the real world). I am using his design specifically to parody the juxtaposition of aggressive, postering strength (crocodile half) and meek nerdiness (meerkat half) that is required to be an “expert political debater.” It’s an intentional contrast of predator and prey I couldn't really achieve using a human.

For context, the animals are very "human-like," they wear clothes and have social structures, but most of them are based on animals, or are "alien" at least, and on top of that many have exaggerated features to emphasize some point I am making about something I see in real life. A lot of my characters wouldn’t really fit in either a kids fantasy series like Guardians of Ga’hoole (a series about talking owls) or an adult book like Traitor Baru, but rather in the impressionistic political satirical cartoons Gerald Anthony Scarfe might dream up. I say this not to brag about how “unique” Fall’s End is, but more as a genuine concern regarding tone. I feel I’ve written myself into a corner a little; I’ve devised exaggerated, almost cartoonish, satirical creature designs, but I want readers to care about the dreams, passions, and desires of the characters they belong to. Maybe this is a “have your cake and eat it too” issue, but I’d be sad to see my creatures thrown back into the abyss of rejected ideas (though I understand part of writing is killing your darlings).

Now, I’m not expecting everyone to take everything in Fall’s End seriously. In fact, many of the absurd character designs I’ve come up with (the best of which I’m proud of and will not give away for free here) are meant to be funny. However, there are still serious moments in the book, and I want people to have a genuine emotional attachment to the characters, even if they are talking animals. I feel like I have three options; (1) keep the pulp elements intact, but take out the more “mature” themes save for subtle implications, aim for a young demographic, (2) make a “serious” fantasy series but remove a lot of elements that give Fall’s End its personality, aim for an adult demographic, or (3) make exactly the kind of book I want to make, ignoring everyone else’s perceptions, but have a small potential target audience of hipsters in their 20s and 30s (which hey, that’s a market too, and probably the group of people I’m most similar to, but it’s a hard sell).

Personally, I would love to read more fiction like what I want to make with Fall’s End, but for all my creativity, I sometimes struggle to “read a room.” If I pitch Fall’s End to literary agents, I want to be professional, and not knowing the target demographic of your own book reeks of amateurism. Right now, my target demographic is me and what I like, but that's hardly a sustainable readership. I'd love to hit the 20-30 year old market, but even they might find the talking animals a bit childish. Anyone else writing in a “pulp” genre ever feel the same way? Maybe some of you even have recommendations of “pulpy” fantasy books that still include mature themes in a way that is tasteful, and if so I’d love to hear those recommendations. I've seen some short stories on Beneath Ceaseless Skies with similarly "absurd" fantasy races but never a full novel or anything fitting the bill.

I’m eager to hear feedback on this. I haven’t found a way out of the David Foster Wallace paradox yet, but maybe one of you can. I also welcome criticism, on Fall’s End as well as the content and wording of this thread.

To answer “introversion’s” question: There are species very close to humans (bhuidski are nature spirits that are basically humans with light green skin) but nothing that is a one-to-one comparison to humans. However, all of the intelligent animals are functionally treated as humans. No one is gonna be like “that jaguar man is a wild animal!” that would be a bit frowned upon in this world. It’s fairly egalitarian race wise, though there is ideological conflict between races it’s not “race based,” all species that wear clothes and talk are treated basically like humans would be treated

Layla Nahar said:

I think the main problem with talking animals for adult stories is that our suspension of disbelief generally gets tripped up on our awareness of animal mouths. Cats, dogs, horses, squirrels, snakes, all of them have mouths that are too different from our own sense of how we make sounds like p, f, th, l, etc, so unless the animals use (for example) telepathy, literally talking animals can be too jarring to good immersion in the story. (Although parrots and ravens can make very convincing human speech, and their mouth are nothing like ours. They do it all in their throats, fwiw)

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I appreciate everyone else’s comments, but this is the most interesting one by far. If I can make different languages based on different animals but have some universal form of communication that would actually lead to a lot of interesting possibilities. Thank you for bringing this up I literally didn’t even think of this. But that might be a huge reason why there would be a disconnect if say a dragon talked like a human in ASOIAF. Congratulations, this is the best comment on this thread

In terms of the “mechanics” of animals talking, it’s not so much about the suspension of disbelief for me as much as making the world feel “lived in.” And I know that with fantasy, it’s meant to be unrealistic, but for me personally I do like my world to feel at least thought out. Some people care about that less, and I don’t think there’s a “right answer.”

And I think about people taking it seriously, I think honestly on some level it hurts my feelings a little that fantasy gets seen as a “lesser” genre that isn’t considered “high brow.” I know I shouldn’t care what people think, (and some people get black lung working in coal mines, so hurt feelings are really nothing in the long term, no violins required for my ego) but still, it’s just a bit frustrating that I often see advice to NOT try to make something serious. I feel fantasy can be serious, and work, and I’m glad the posters on this thread feel the same.

Albedo said:

See, I'd go with option three, but it's quite possible that I am one of those falling into the tiny twenty-thirty something hipster demographic that is the target market for books about anarchosyndicalist half-crocodile meerkats. But then, my main WIP is a way too self-indulgent novella about dissolute scenester space dinosaurs, that is meant to be a serious meditation on empathy for the other, but might also fairly be called completely lurid trash. So I know the feeling.

I think we categorised Serious Literary Fiction as being about middle-aged English lit professors having torrid affairs with their grad students, whereas Genre Fiction was about space squids. This raised the question for me: is there room for work about middle-aged English lit professors having torrid affairs with space squids?

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Seems this thread is dead so this will be my last post on it unless it picks back up again, but I would love to see "serious literary fiction" about space squids. I'm wondering what even really counts as "serious literary fiction," and who decides that, but that's another thread entirely.

See, for me, worrying about how they are speaking is actually part of the fun. Maybe my tastes are more "pulp" than I'm willing to admit, since the mechanics of a fictional world are rarely a subject of academic discussion (there's no fan wiki for "The Winter of Our Discontent," but there's one for the "Guardians of Ga'hoole").

No, I was more worried about it tonally than I was about the mechanics, finding a creative way to explain the mechanics actually gives me joy, not stress. I was more concerned readers would feel like their intelligence was being insulted that I wanted to make a serious drama with talking animals, but if this thread is any indication that shouldn't actually be an issue. The dichotomy between "serious literary fiction" and "fantasy" seems far less stark than I initially perceived, which is great for me because frankly I like weird Meerkat monsters arguing about politics.