How to avoid making non-human characters seem too human?

So, I have an interesting issue with a planned fantasy novel of mine. The core protagonists consist of six characters, three of whom are of non-human species (four, if you count the one who looks and acts human but is essentially a demigod). They aren't the normal Five Races that most fantasy novels I've ready seem to use; one is from an all-female species of reptilian humanoids, one is from a species of rabbit/squirrel-ish creatures with Steampunk-level technology, and one is from a species of feline humanoids with porcupine-like quills. So my question is, how can I make these characters seem uniquely non-human, and not in an Intelligent Gerbil or Petting-Zoo People way?

Blue and Orange morality is the simplest way. Have them talk about concepts that seem alien to us, but normal to them.

Wildly different life experiences.

Different family groups; societal hierarchy differences; dietary difference; military mentality approach.

Maybe they eat their dead in a grand ceremony (yes, some Human tribes USED to do that...) but it's done with nice cutlery and a refusal to partake is deemed a grave insult to the family.

Maybe their religions are massively different.

How do they view other races - how do they view individuals? You're going to be a bit stymied by that fact you are a human so all your ideas will likely have a root in human experience SOMEWHERE.

Interesting. My issue was that often when you write characters of a non-human species they just come off as humans with the occasional Furry Reminder. Thats what I want to avoid.

Regarding the reptilian species, when you say "all female," how do you mean? Do you mean they reproduce asexually, or that their eggs or the equivalent need to be fertilized by something that isn't actually the same species?

If the former, then perhaps they don't understand the concept of romantic love, lacking a need for a second party to reproduce. Maybe they develop strong bonds to a small group of individuals, and when one lays eggs (if they lay eggs), those individuals are expected to help watch over the clutch while the mother sleeps or searches for food. Or if they birth live young, maybe they're really reclusive, and feel threatened by actions that are common in human friendship ("What do you mean it's normal for humans to 'hang out' with other people? You don't get freaked out by people baring their teeth at you, following you around, involving themselves in your personal affairs, sometimes entering your private residence, and having a knowledge of your strengths and weaknesses? You're practically training the perfect assassin to kill you!").

If the latter, it depends. Is it something specific, or are there multiple things that can allow them to give birth? If it's just one thing, like maybe pollen from a specific plant or something, then I can see them having an incredibly insular culture where they're really possessive of their territory and belongings, and very conscious of the health of the environment. Meanwhile, if there are a lot of things that can fertilize them, they might be extremely prudish ("Did-did you just touch my hand!? Are you trying get me pregnant?!")... or total xenophiles, open to just about any sort of new experience or culture.

That'd be my recommendation. Look at the environment they come from, try to imagine how it would shape their culture.

edited 18th Sep '17 10:39:56 AM by Dragon573

Create a detailed outline of each race's culture, focusing mainly on topics such as food, moral values, death and religion and the afterlife or lack thereof, and family values. Then whenever you have those characters in a conversation, social situation, or reacting to something, refer to that outline and think of how one would react based on that background.

If you want to see how this can play out, have a look at the ninth chapter of Ursula Vernon's webcomic "Digger". The journey ends up featuring five characters, only one of which is human, and she's a bit weird in the head. Said characters are:

• Digger (Of Unnecessarily Complicated Tunnels) - An anthropomorphic wombat who's gruff up front, but friendly once you get to know her. Is practical and often crazyprepared. An obligate herbivore.
• Murai - A young human monk who's kind and friendly, but also a bit naive. Has a tendency to curl up into a ball and whimper when facing evil spirits.
• Grim Eyes - An anthropomorphic hyena from a stone-age tribe. She's gruff and grumpy most of the time, but has occasional moments of levity, and can be surprisingly helpful. An obligate carnivore.
• Shadowchild - A living shadow (or possibly demon) with an endless curiosity, rather amoral (morality is one of the things she's really curious about), and incredibly powerful.
• Herne - Formerly human, now a deer headed human. An experience wilderness guide who is gruff and sarcastic. Either a herbivore or an omnivore (it's never really established).

Grim Eyes and Herne play off each other, the former being from a tribe of matriarchal stone-age hunters who often eat deer, the latter a former human now with the head of a deer. When Herne isn't around, Grim Eyes and Digger play off each other, both being competent in their own ways (stone age survival and engineering and mining respectively), and having diametrically opposite digestive requirements. Murai and Shadowchild take a bit of a back seat WRT drama, since neither has a really strong personality. It also avoids the traditional fivemanband setup since none of the roles are really stuck on one person. There's also a bit of humour when Digger, in moments of stress, comes up with some geology/mining related term or phrase that the others just don't get, or when Murai makes a mystical/religious comment, which neither Grim Eyes nor Digger has much truck with. In all, it's a thoroughly enjoyable read, and the only reason I suggested starting so late is that you don't really get the same group dynamic earlier.

So I'd suggest try to draw from that, and make things a bit weirder. Obviously the lizard-lady will make a comment any time she sees a relationship moment, the rest, well, that's a bit harder to pin down until we get more information.

edited 20th Sep '17 5:46:11 AM by MattII

First, what do you mean by the Intelligent Gerbil or Petting-Zoo People way? I guess, by the former, you could say that you don't want to just pattern everything after an animal directly, but I don't really understand what you mean by the latter.

Just consider things like how anatomy will affect things. For example, a bird or a fish might think three-dimensionally by instinct, and put entrances in places anyone else would find useless or frustrating; maybe a swift climber like a squirrel would do the same. Or consider how digitigrade legs or other, similar anatomical differences (haunches) would let someone sit down and relax in poses that a human couldn't - fold your legs to sit down on a cushion on the floor and spring back up just as easily.

It's really the little touches like that that make a world for me. How do they live? That - and I hope this doesn't sound dismissive - doesn't have to include every species having its own manifesto or anything. It's totally different. That taking advantage of a combination of human and non-human body language can be really powerful and fascinating, and that's just one example.

I'm not sure if this would work for other people though; I'm very visually focused, and I want to make cartoons. So, um, grain of salt.

(Footnote: I'd cite the first couple of seasons of MLP: Fi M as doing the whole 'character-and-world-and-personality-of-world-building through subtle gestures and background touches' thing really, really well.)

edited 22nd Sep '17 6:13:58 PM by RisingStar

No, I think that'd work in a written context too, although to a lesser degree since it would hurt sales if a book was 90% description of the environment. Certainly the oddly-placed doors would be worth a mention.

edited 23rd Sep '17 12:44:52 AM by MattII

Let me rephrase it. What I was mostly worried about was how to avoid any sort of jarring tonal shift in how the audience perceives the character when the way their actions are described changes. It would be disconcerting, for instance, to have the cat-like character act humanlike most of the time except for one specific scene where he coughs up a hairball or grooms one of his friends. How do I strike the right balance between human and animal behavior?

To avoid "basically human except for one or two non-human joke gags," you'd have to make at least a basic outline of how their non-human anatomy affects their everyday behavior, and that will cover a LOT—eating, sleeping, architecture, mating (or possibly non-mating, in your all-female race). Just picking a couple of non-human traits will be REALLY informative of how their society and worldview differs from humans.

For example, I'm starting to use Lizard Folk / The Reptilian aliens who DON'T have an antagonistic relationship with humans because I want to get rid of the idea that Reptiles Are Abhorrent. Usually, people would go "LIZARD-PEOPLE ARE GIANTS WITH SHARP TEETH AND CLAWS, THEY ARE SO MUCH MORE POWERFUL THAN SMOLL SQUISHY HUMANS" and that's it, but then I started poking around and decided that before human contact, my crocodilian shapeshifters were religiously afraid of deep water since their dense muscle makes it easy to drown in their natural forms, and also hated cold climates due to their, well, cold-blooded biology. Keep in mind that for the crocodilians, "cold" is "anything less than the subtropics." And even the tropics get nasty storms in winter; my crocodilians live Beneath the Earth as a rule so they don't die of hypothermia during unexpected storms, and temperate regions to humans feel like the Grim Up North to them.

In the backstory, when human space colonists arrived "sleeping in the bellies of great metal birds," the crocodilians got floored at how these new people could roam the cold wastes in barely any clothes when a non-transformed crocodilian would need leather or furs, and even barely-walking human children could learn how to "water-dance" in a matter of weeks (as in, swim).

Adding to that, the human colonists were largely Filipino or Fil-American and viewed crocodiles to be Asian-type dragons, plus both species had strong cultural traditions of body-art (tattooing for humans and scale-carving for the crocodilians). Making contact with a reptilian race who had "tattoos" was like finding Draconic Humanoids for them.

Tealdeer: They both thought the other species were gods. Thanks to the social progress and technical advances in the main story about five hundred years later, the crocodilians have adopted a lot of human technology or used the principles to enhance their own (though they can only swim or tolerate cold weather for the eight to twelve hours they're in human form, since that's how long they can shapeshift without fatigue) and the Future-Filipinos no longer think the aliens are Mighty Glaciers who weigh a ton (they're actually Lightning Bruisers), but they're still culturally loyal unto death for each other and Interspecies Romance is very common.

Added bonus: Making friends with the crocodilian natives was a lot easier than making friends with the planet's OTHER natives, herbivorous Winged Humanoids who resembled the contemporary view of Christian "angels." Unfortunately, the colonists' first contact with THEM were with the tribes who consider meat-eaters and omnivores to be "animals" regardless of sentience, were already notorious for "farming" (read: enslaving) the crocodilians, and promptly started doing the same to humans. (Which is another reason the crocodilians live Beneath the Earth, because avoiding Death from Above is pretty easy when you have nice thick claws to dig with.)

There are decent communities of not-angels, but first impressions are hard to shake and after a few generations of getting raided and enslaved by bird-people, the future-Filipinos completely abandoned the connection with Christian angels, so a lot of the story's characters call the hostile tribes "demon-birds." (Which makes for a lot of fun Culture Clash when Future-Europeans who DO remember the connection call the bird-people "angels," and the Future-Filipinos immediately consider them Too Dumb to Live.)

So I've got maybe three traits (two if you only count their underground society as a cultural/defensive custom, not a literal biological need), and there's already a really distinct non-human culture forming.

Edit: Someone mentioned Digger up above, and YES. DIGGER IS AWESOME.

edited 7th Feb '18 8:52:22 PM by Sharysa

Good idea. So far, this is what the species in my setting are like:

Koreenians— A race of rodent- or rabbit-like creatures with long bush tails and large ears. Due to their "prey-animal" mentality, they are intensely shy, paranoid, and usually unwilling to interact with other species. This is often mistaken for deliberate racism on their part, and they are (rather unfairly) stereotyped as clannish and hard to approach. Their inherent biological aversion to exposing themselves to strange species extends to their society as a whole. They live in isolation from other intelligent species, and put a great deal of emphasis on developing armor and weapons for defensive purposes.

Ju'utexians— A race of tailless reptilian humanoids who are all female and reproduce asexually. As such, they have no concept of romantic love or even family units. Instead, their eggs are laid in a communal nursery chamber, the young being cared for by the community as a whole until they come of age. Ju'utexians never had the ability to smelt metal in the jungles where they live, so much of their technology is organic in nature. They believe that the ultimate purpose of all life is to create more life, a result of being a species where every individual can bear offspring.

Mantakhans— A race of semi-humanoid felines who are capable of moving either on two or four legs. They are equipped with porcupine-like quills on their backs, necks, and tails. They are carnivorous, but will supplement their diets with plants. Because they can walk on either two legs or four, their language makes no distinction between "animals" and "people"—indeed, they see themselves as part of nature rather than a dominating force over it. As such, they have never domesticated livestock or kept pets, and when they hunt they do so in the manner of their "wild" counterparts. They believe that using technology when one's own natural abilities will suffice is blasphemous.

Striggans— A race of winged humanoids with features resembling those of owls. Their dwellings are designed for flying creatures, with no walkways or roads. They are extremely longer-lived, living several centuries on average, and as such they find it hard to form friendships with other species. Instead they devote their time to studying the nature of the universe, the past, and the future. They plant and grow "memory trees" to preserve moments of time from the past for future study. As such, they do not view the past as something that cannot be revisited.

edited 8th Feb '18 3:20:37 PM by ElSquibbonator

I have a more intense version of this problem because my stories place a great deal of focus on Fire-Forged Friendship despite First Contact Faux Pas and ongoing Culture Clash in the midst of the kinds of crisis situations usually reserved for action movies. Some of my characters are radically transformed former humans, others are mythological creatures from Earth, and most of the rest are aliens of various species. I have to show exactly how much the transformed humans have changed from a human mindset and exactly what the non-humans are capable of, all while there is Damage Control or Stuff Blowing Up or a Stern Chase happening.

What I do to avoid the problem of non-human characters seeming too human in my own stories stems from what I learned in college about biology and psychology. Between learning how the human brain functions and malfunctions and learning what animals are capable of, I have a huge pool of traits to pull from when inventing (or, in the case of dragons, vampires and cyborgs, re-inventing) non-human psychology. The easiest place for me to start shaping psychology is to shape it around how to use the non-human physical characteristics.

Since not everyone can afford college classes, I'd recommend researching biology and psychology from home (beware Sturgeon's Law when it comes to the reliability of sources on the internet) in preparation for brainstorming - try wiki-walking from Bizarre Alien Psychology for a quick start. Also, I challenge myself to come up with at least three easily-demonstrated quirks for every non-human physical or psychological feature. If you want to try that particular challenge, start with one quirk each and gradually increase the number as you become better at it.

Here's an example of the three-quirks-for-one-feature challenge using my cyborg character Arilay who got caught in an explosion prior to becoming a cyborg. Her biological brain was lucky enough to make it through the explosion with only minor damage, but one feature caused by a particular damaged spot is that her biological brain is no longer in charge of the mental map of what's part of her body and what's not. As a consequence of her supplementary computer brain taking responsibility for that mental map, any electronic device that she plugs herself into is instantly perceived as part of her body for the duration of the plug-in. This can make things awkward when (quirk 1) she casually swaps her artificial eyes for a different pair with different capabilities right in front of someone who's not used to seeing her do that, or (quirk 2) when she plugs herself into a spaceship and some random elevator call-buttons are accidentally mapped as ticklish or worse, an erogenous zone. (quirk 3) She also winces in sympathy for other computers when someone yanks out a USB stick or other peripheral device without warning the program first.

Also, if you want to give your chararter a quirk, try to imagine who it feel and going from there.

This happen to my girlfriend chararter: Lua, she is half lava elemental(meaning she is becoming one), meaning her skeletong is stone and her blood is lava, this have a few good traits: like she dosent feel punches for example and if she fall to the ground is the earth who is going to crack, not her and she can eat a lot and not get fat because her body burn the fat very quickly.....

But the bad? she cant swimn at all unless is boling water because otherwise it become to cold and her body start moving slowly, she need to eat constantly to lubricate the part of her body and she need to reguate her temperature(meaning that aside of extreme desert or a volcano is like waling in a snowing day for us).

I think the worst part is the author forgetting this non-human bits, if that happen then people will call us lazy.

unknowing, first of all, you really need to improve your spelling and grammar. Second, you're describing major important rules of how your character functions (what I call features), not the detailed quirks stemming from those rules. For example, you said that she has to eat large amounts of food. But how does that affect, for example, how much she notices the flavor of whatever she's eating? Does she enjoy food for flavor's sake, or does she not care about the flavor and just want food that makes her feel full?

I do agree with your opinion that it's pretty bad for the author to forget the non-human bits altogether - it does look lazy. I would also like to add that not being thorough in fixing such a mistake will also look lazy - I found that out the hard way when my robot characters started insulting each other. It's a Long Story.

edited 18th Feb '18 7:53:42 PM by Miss_Desperado

" Does she enjoy food for flavor's sake, or does she not care about the flavor and just want food that makes her feel full?"

First of all, she CANT be full at all since almost all food just burn away in ther stomach, leaving her with a perpetual hunger(also, because of this, she barely need to go for the bathroom, neither she cant vomit) and second part, since she is rich(being a princess) she at least try to eat good food but as rule she is always keeping something to eat, just in case.

And I told you this because since all writer are human, you can get away by comparing their senses with human ones, in my example Lua(the chararter in question) dosent really get well the fact that other people around are more squishy than her(with her skin being like rock an all that jazz) or why is so cold all the time(she cant regulate well her heat so she always feel cold).

unknowing, ouch, your terrible grammar is making my head ache trying to understand you. PLEASE for the sake of sanity, use the Get Help With English Here thread!

I just want to add that once you have species based differences, based on native environment, diet, risk factors, anatomy, and senses, you still want to adjust a little for specif cultures. Humans are from the savanna, but most of us don't live in that climate anymore. And of course there are going to be some cultural notions from one group that get carried over to another.

And while that character will come across as largely defined by their specie to a human, humans should come across that way to them.

There's a trope for that, Humans Through Alien Eyes. Now I need more practice using that trope.

Ok, here are some Steps to help you:

The first one is the most basic: HOW the chararter feels?, this one is tricky because is like asking a blind me how it feel to be blind, most of the time he will just said "ok I guess?"

The second one is compare that quirk with a human one(or the lack of one), like seeing in the dark for example or being heat resistent.

And finally the most dificult step is extrapolate that into their daily lives, for example. if a chararter dosent need to eat or go to the bathroom them it make sense if their home didnt have one.

Also, sorry for the english, I still have problem with it.

edited 20th Feb '18 9:43:22 PM by unknowing

Welp, I have a new hyena-shapeshifter race to go with my not-angels and Lizard Folk, and NOT just because I was archive-binging on Webcomic/Digger.

My hyena-shifters are creatures who look and behave like spotted hyenas. They can speak telepathically but have more rudimentary shapeshifting abilities and a tribal/feudal culture with quite a few instances of Schizo Tech. See, they're already apex predators, and when the not-angels refuse to attack you because you can bite THROUGH the nearest arm trying to carry them away, you don't need to learn a lot of shapeshifting or to develop that much technology. They're pretty content Space Amish, though they do like the finer touches of civilization like spaceships and medicine.

Also note that while they are "Space Amish" in a technological sense, they are VERY far from the "peaceful" connotation of the trope—the clans are fraught with Hot-Blooded Speaking Mothers (their name for clan chiefs) who are constantly at war with other clans, usually because someone said the wrong thing to their host/guest or they need to rescue an abducted clansman, while their space-faring warriors are known for a predictable but very unpleasant habit of biting a chunk out of anything that isn't covered by a half-inch of steel or rock if they're not happy with something.

The hyenas are often confused as pets by off-worlders, since wealthy humans and lizard-folk are usually seen with one or a pack of them roaming along with them. They're also mistaken as bodyguards/attendants if they're in human form at the time, but when you talk to one of the species in question, it's voluntary employment and like their they are fully capable of biting whoever stiffs them or tries to make them do something they don't want to do. Plus they see it as doing the other species a favor, since they're actually one of the most adept species of Ether-users in the story—the hyenas' "magic" fills a whole range of gaps in their culture, from air-conditioning to space-hunting, and the colonists learned how to breathe in the void of space after noticing the hyenas could submerge in water for hours and resurface just fine. A couple of generations later, the future-Filipinos used it to build literal "ships-that-travel-space" in the style of their seafaring ancestors, which floors the major worlds who might have the appearance of seafaring ships, but still need a barrier between themselves and the void.

Goodness, it's been a while since I looked in on this thread. Anyway, I have a problem. My humanoid marsupial aliens have an "it takes a village" attitude towards raising children, what specific ways can that Culture Clash with some humans' "Stranger Danger" paranoia?