The Fast and the Furry-ous

If your story has been written with any type of effort, chances are you put some thought and planning into your protagonist. Who they are, their values, their goals, how they interact with the world around them, etc. 

If you haven't, I recommend you stop reading here and go read this article first (credit to Gryphon).

Still with me? Well, then, as the title implies, there may be times where you may get an idea to write a story about an animal protagonist. While this type of story can be difficult to pull off, with some extra planning and the following tips, there's no reason why you can't write a story centered around our four-legged friends that's well-received!

1) Human qualities: At the end of the day, being able to elicit emotion and relatable characters are huge factors in what makes a successful storygame. This can be more difficult to pull off with animals, but one good way to get around this is by giving the creatures you're writing about human traits. Some good examples of this are the novels Watership Down, Charlotte's Web, and Animal Farm. Writing a story about anthropomorphic animals can help make the story easier to write, but you should still take care to ensure that your character is not wholly indistinguishable from a human character. Otherwise, what would be the point in writing them as an animal?

For example, having your main character live in a pack or herd that practices communism. Perhaps your main character is a beaver who goes to work every day at the dam, with a lunchbox of maple wood sticks that his wife packed? The possibilities are endless and varied. Which brings me to my next piece of advice...

2) Unique Plotlines: Now, you could just make some generic story about an animal looking to eat and mate, but the site has seen plenty of those, and it's always either been poorly rated at best, or more often been unpublished for not meeting site standards. What you want to do is write a story that plays to the strengths of your chosen species, while still retaining an engaging plot.

To give an example, if you have a story involving birds, perhaps a plotline involving how different species of the avians interact with each other. Perhaps the bird species of your character is preyed upon by a larger species, and you need to watch out for these predators as you migrate south?

Perhaps you're a mouse, and you need to keep an eye out for unexpected dangers like poison or traps as you attempt to liberate the succulent piece of Colby Jack from your human overlords?

Allowing for plot that highlights the type of animal you've chosen, while still giving plenty of opportunities for interaction that draw in readers and actually make them think, is what's going to make the difference between a poorly received 2,000 word story, and a well-liked 10,000 word story... although there is, in fact, a possibility that you could write a story about finding a mate or food, and still have it be successful, but to do this would require excellent writing, and yes, an engaging plot and characters that readers enjoy. An example of this would be Mizal's story Love Is For The Birds.

Ultimately, though, what you want to do is write some generic story that people have already read dozens of times and serves no purpose other than wasting five minutes of the reader's life for a measly point. Which brings me to my last point...

3) NO WARRIOR CATS!: So the details surrounding this can be found in a forum started by our resident Dark God, EndMaster (found here), and has already been explained in other articles on the site detailing site rules, but ultimately there are no exceptions.We do not care if you have written a perfect 8/8 masterpiece that will outlive the website and even the freaking internet (and if it involves Warrior Cats, that's about as likely as the sun not rising tomorrow). Our site's administrators (special shoutout to BerkaZerka) spent too long purging this site to let any of it back in. Word of thumb would be to stay away from fan fiction when writing an animal protagonist regardless. Although if you wanted to write a story about cats, there are ways you could do so and still create an original story. Perhaps involving an alley cat having to cross the country, Homeward Bound style? Just remember to actually write good plot and memorable characters. There are other articles on this site that can explain how to do so. 

Ultimately, animal protagonists are an interesting and original premise that, due to trauma stemming from past events and a diseased cesspool of a forum, are vastly underrepresented on this site. There's so much untapped potential waiting to be explored, provided you have the interest and the desire to actually write it, and do so well.