Unless you know what you are writing about. Yes, this post is about things that bug me when I am reading.
In this particular case, the MC of the story has a puppy. Without going into details, they didn’t want a puppy. They didn’t go out looking to get a puppy. The puppy ended up with them after the opening action of the story. Okay, fine. We have a puppy. But what we don’t have is a writer who has any idea what it means to take care of a puppy. (Or maybe they do but didn’t want to be boring or take away from the “aww, cute” idea of this MC with a baby puppy.) Of course, MC is not keeping the puppy. Uh-uh, no, nope, no way. Until the end of the story when- surprise, surprise!- they do.
Puppies are work. A LOT of work. Trust me, I know. I have a six month old puppy in my house right now. She was a lot of work at two months old, and she’s still a lot of work. Puppies need potty training. They need to be fed and have water available. They need exercise, toys to play with, training, time, and attention. You don’t just shrug, plop the puppy in your pocket, and head off to fight the bad guys.
So, what does the MC do with the puppy? Well, first, they foist the poor thing off on a friend for the day. Said friend apparently ignored the puppy other than putting down some paper for it to pee on because when MC comes back, friend is not even sure where the puppy is. And this is at friend’s office where there certainly are way too many things that would not be good for a curious puppy to get into. Puppy gets a share of MC’s scrambled eggs and one run through a McDonald’s drive-thru with no other mention of feeding puppy over the course of several days. Puppy also gets left in MC’s apartment for the better part of a day, alone (well, there was the cat), likely no food, and no one to take him out for walkies and potty time. When MC finally gets back, there’s no mention of stuff chewed up or otherwise turned into puppy toys, no pee or poop clean-up, nothing. Puppy just snuggles up to MC and falls asleep. Awwwwww.
Horse poopy, more like. Yeah, sure, going into the details of puppy raising is boring. It would be down time in a book that is essentially action, action, action. I don’t expect a tutorial on puppy care, but at least make it look somewhat realistic. I mean, MC doesn’t even (it seems) consider actual puppy food until another character arrives with a bag. And, y’know, a piddle or a poop on the carpet is just gonna happen. Let’s see at least a little of the reality of puppyhood.
I generally like the series this story was part of. It’s not great literature, there are things that stretch a bit too far even for a magical fantasy, and they are generally fun, fast, light reads. This one was pretty much the same, except the puppy angle just bugged me. It’s something that happens a fair amount in books. Horses and dogs seem to get the worst of it. Writers put animals in the story but have no idea how to make it realistic. Those animals need care. They have limits on what they can and can’t do. It will pop me right out of a good story when something like that happens.
So, please. Feed the puppy some puppy chow. Give him a bowl of water. Take him out for a walk. Clean up the puddles and piles. Then go give the bad guys what for!
My latest book is a collection of very short stories, half science fiction and half fantasy, called “Crossed Wires and Other Very Short Stories”. I have also written a few other short pieces, another collection, two novels, and an urban fantasy series. You can find most of them at Smashwords, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and wherever e-books are sold. A few are also available from Amazon in paperback. My novel, “Circle Unbroken” is also on Kindle Unlimited, if that’s your reading preference. You can find out about all of them here.
There are also some stories you can read here on my site, mostly the yearly Halloween short I write, but there are a few others. You can read them from here
And So On... 