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Honey Kitties RIP Redux

I was grocery shopping the other day when I ran into an acquaintance of mine I hadn’t seen in probably two years. Sherry’s sweet, funny, and bubbly, a former high school classmate. We briefly compared items in our grocery carts (she had a can of diced tomatoes and some elbow macaroni…that was it; I had everything else – broccoli, carrots, yogurt, bread, cage-free chicken eggs, toilet paper, ground beef, ziti, Ben & Jerry’s Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream…) and then she told me she’d just had a portrait painted of her daughter. Now, I know her daughter is her German shepherd, a very pretty black one with a big doggie smile and happy doggie eyes. She pulled a recent photo of said doggie out of her purse and I remarked on what a sweet dog she was. Then Sherry’s face drew up a bit and she said, “I’ll never forget when you killed that German shepherd.”

Now, I’ve never killed an animal in my life…intentionally. While driving I’ve hit one deer, several rabbits, three cats, a turtle, some birds on the wing, and countless gnats, flies, and other winged itty-bitty invertebrates. I have gone fishing, but let someone else do the dirty business of slicing and dicing. But I don’t purposefully kill animals.

That’s not to say some of my characters are as innocent as I am.

Honesty, I can’t even recall which novel or short story has a German shepherd die. I’d have to go back and look. But Sherry’s comment made me realized yet again how sensitive people are to pets biting the big one in fiction. So, I thought I’d share again my blog from March 2006, where I first addressed this issue…

Let me state up front that I write horror: spooky-creepy-disturbing-frightening-disgusting-pick-your-unhappy/unpleasant adjective fiction. What I write is that which springs to my mind, or into my gut, and then crawls up or down my spine and chews me up. I’ve written my share of alienated, isolated, insane characters. I’ve created many of sad, tormented souls and cold, twisted minds. Plenty of terrible things have happened in my stories. My characters do these things, not me. I just witness and report the goings on.

There have been some discussions at various times and in various venues about the killings of innocents in horror fiction. Some readers have said stated in no uncertain terms that they won’t read books with these types of murders, or at the very least they’ll skip or, yes, even tear those sections out of the book. They can’t stand the idea of helpless, harmless beings getting folded, stapled, or mutilated. I’m not talking about innocent men, women, or children. I’m talking about animals. Honey kitties. Honey puppies. Other sentient creatures besides humans.

Now, I’m an animal lover. I donate to the SPCA. Every cat or dog I’ve ever owned was a roadside stray or a furry pound creature. When mice get in under our tub, they are captured in humane live traps and set free up the road about a quarter mile in the sheltered, thick grasses beneath a cattle ramp. When I see a turtle on the road, I stop and pick it up and put it off the road…unless it’s a snapping turtle. With them I’ll try to prod them across the tarmac. I’ve signed petitions to free calves from veal stalls, to allow chickens to be free-range, to protest bullfighting, and to encourage people to have their pets spayed and neutered so unloved, unwanted pets don’t end up wandering abandoned lots or junk yards.

Now, back to being a horror writer. My characters wound each other. They sometimes kill each other. I’ve had kids get hurt and sometimes die in my stories. Little honey kitties get whacked. Little honey puppies bite the big one. As a writer, I can’t stop in the middle of a scene, sweep up the innocents and place them out of harm’s way before something terrible comes down on everyone’s heads. Mean people, in real life and in stories, sometimes create collateral damage. Sometimes they intentionally harm the innocents. I’m not making this up, folks, it happens. So although I write horror fiction, I can’t really make exceptions to those who might face the wrath of crazed or evil people. I’m not grinding my palms and salivating over the demise of Fido, Sandy, Tinker, Spot, Chester, and/or Buttercup. Yet when I open my mind to the disturbing story lines, these little fuzzy guys sometimes wander haplessly into range.

If you are a horror writer, it may happen that you kill a pet or two or ten. I mean your character kills a pet or two or ten. So, just be ready for the backlash. Maybe you can’t morally defend the actions of your characters, but you can at least let you readers know it is not you but them who do such terrible things. Your terrible characters aren’t as nice as you are, and you have to tell the truth about them. And while fiction is fiction, it is a reflection of truth.

If that doesn’t work, just tell them it’s freakin’ make believe.

Okay. Bye.

Beth

Related posts:

1. Honey Kitties, RIP
2. Nano Redux
3. Maybe Some Day I’ll Write A Nice Western - Redux

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