Writing What would be the tip to understand and write non-human character's thought process?
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Western42
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Exactly. But, if we were to think of other intelligent life like humans, then there shouldn't be much difference. While humans are unique, a mind is still a mind.
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I would say that our biological make up defines the way we process things in a very specific, fit to our biology way. Besides, intelligence here is a very broad term, if we are talking fantasy species. Though, admittedly, neither statement could be proven or disproven since we know not of a single species with a level of intelligence comparable to humans on our planet.
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To add another thing, don't make or
assume a society before you start writing! That doesn't mean to not write a society, period, but be aware that its existence and state will greatly influence the thought process of your typical creature.
Actually... I felt very excited by this topic. I like the idea of non-human intelligences. How about two quick improvised examples? Putting emphasis on *improvised*, since I will be winging it. I will also try to do a bit of stream of thought here to show how I thought, since the question of this thread is how to understand how non-humans think.
That is, to look at their key features, try to understand what kind of lifestyle for those features would make sense, base priorities around that lifestyle and the rest (morals, thought processes etc) would go from there.
1) no society. Let's say, an elemental of earth.
Let's go through the key features. It spawns spontaneously, and since it spawns spontaneously, it doesn't have a biological history of evolution. We won't assume an omnipotent will behind its creation and say its a natural occurence, meaning that it has no obligation to be suitable for life or intelligence.
Let's say that every elemental is different then, many of them 'dying' before they are 'born', and more dying shortly after being born. The rest that do survive, as per evolution, are mutants. No two living elementals are the same, most are more similar to single-celled organisms or some other self-sustaining systems. Naturally, none of them have any instincts to speak of. They just have behavioral patterns they are born with, and, be it due to luck or something else, they have survived with/due/despite these patterns for something resembling a decent time.
They also don't *have* to have any sensory organs or any agency over their bodies. I will say, though, that life here will have to be animate and complicated to a degree, otherwise what stops me from calling a rock, alive? An elemental is an elemental if it can exert an influence upon its environment beyond what is natural on our planet(what is natural on planet, not exerting influence on planet, of course), if it's, or parts of it are, mobile and its structure has some kind of self-replicating property. I think I did an okay job at drawing the line between the living and the dead.
I think I am done with the key characteristics part. I will expand upon our intelligent creature, however, since it would be impossible to describe a typical lifestyle of an elemental beyond, possibly, "messy" and "weird", maybe?
We have a single elemental that is intelligent. Let's call it the elemental, for now.
I feel its important to note that its intelligence came as a by-product of a random mutation and by no means is it clear at this stage whether it will be of any effect on its life.
Intelligence, iirc, only implies being able to draw conclusions from existing experience. Therefore, we don't have to give it human emotions or sensibilities.
Since its existence just came almost literally out of nowhere, it doesn't have to be invested in preserving its life.
I could live it here, and say that it's just a moving rock/sandstorm/whatever that is technically capable of thought though never utilises it and it would be a valid example of a non-human intelligence. I won't, since I'm kinda curious what would happen if I gave it a direction, but I want to point out that it not thinking or creating coherent thought despite having the capability to do so is still valid.
Now, to continue.
I want to give it priorities, but, while giving them out of nowhere would be valid and even fitting to an extent, I want to root them in its lifestyle.
Because it came from a random occurence, its anatomy is very malleable, fragile and unstable. It's 'self' is something of a net of mana (I will just assume we both know and imagine the same thing here because I am not coming up with/describe existing magic system here) that settles over objects like small pebbles, sand, dirt, dust, etc. and wilts and dies off where it isn't connected to enough of the material. On the other hand, it grows when it's connected to the material for long enough. It has spawned in a desert and just drifted without thinking for a while until it grew enough mass to not be affected by the wind too hard and has been growing like a plant ever since, eventually reaching a sort of equilibrium where it's size and location are more or less fixed.
As its network grew, so did its ability to create thoughts, but at the same time, the time it takes from one point of the network to connect to another is sizeable *just* enough to make it so there's no single entity that could be thought of its ego, but it's more like a continous thing in space where you take a small enough volume for a sample and it is a "mind" of its own that is closely affected by the bigger mind right outside its physical boundaries.
It requires a hot enough temperature to survive, can feel it and loves sunlight. And it can also move, but like a wave. That meaning, the one big elemental must agree more or less unanimously on how they will act, and in acting unanimously in the ways they were supposed to, 'each' (of course that isn't exactly true since the minds are continuous and have no self-identity as things upon themselves but let's just approximate it) individual mind "vibrates" and the whole mass of mana and sand in space acts like a kinda wave, in order to receive more warmth as a whole.
It is mostly active at nights as the information travels from top down about changing temperature, the elemental "burrows" deeper to save warmth that it has passively shipped during the day. Sometimes it acts during the day as well, when it feels its bottom selves have become too cold it vibrates until it resonates, quickly flipping itself over, losing some parts in the process.
It mostly uses its intelligence to continually improve strategies for maximizing its warmth. Though it doesn't think as a single entity, since each layer of its mind (again, its mind is continuous, so think about it like its thoughts float around it like sound waves but each point each moment absorbs those sound waves and spits out other sound waves, but the entire thing is smooth since each thought really is more or less simar when it comes to small enough neighbourhoods) inputs its ideas.
So, it's like a complicated government system/stock market but everything is about sunlight and everybody acts in the interests of the whole group, but not really, since there's really just one big entity, but it's still messy and hard to predict as hell.
The parts do not conflict between each other, however. They do not think that lack of warmth is bad, they think that having warmth is good. The elemental flips (parts of) itself over periodically to keep its access to depths of the earth to save the warmth it has accumulated through the day and through experience it has deduced that keeping parts of it cold when it can will save it more warmth in long term, which the elemental as a whole decided was a good thing, since as a whole it experiences things on a higher time-scale. It does not act in the interests of self-preservation.
*Whew*, that felt like a lot. By the end I was tired and ended up leaning on human experience, and I can't confidently say I didn't use references to the human society, even though its just one creature. I'm tired now however, so I will leave it there. I know I was planning to write 2 examples but I don't have the creative juices to write the second. I didn't do the first justice. Feel free to modify
assume a society before you start writing! That doesn't mean to not write a society, period, but be aware that its existence and state will greatly influence the thought process of your typical creature.
Actually... I felt very excited by this topic. I like the idea of non-human intelligences. How about two quick improvised examples? Putting emphasis on *improvised*, since I will be winging it. I will also try to do a bit of stream of thought here to show how I thought, since the question of this thread is how to understand how non-humans think.
That is, to look at their key features, try to understand what kind of lifestyle for those features would make sense, base priorities around that lifestyle and the rest (morals, thought processes etc) would go from there.
1) no society. Let's say, an elemental of earth.
Let's go through the key features. It spawns spontaneously, and since it spawns spontaneously, it doesn't have a biological history of evolution. We won't assume an omnipotent will behind its creation and say its a natural occurence, meaning that it has no obligation to be suitable for life or intelligence.
Let's say that every elemental is different then, many of them 'dying' before they are 'born', and more dying shortly after being born. The rest that do survive, as per evolution, are mutants. No two living elementals are the same, most are more similar to single-celled organisms or some other self-sustaining systems. Naturally, none of them have any instincts to speak of. They just have behavioral patterns they are born with, and, be it due to luck or something else, they have survived with/due/despite these patterns for something resembling a decent time.
They also don't *have* to have any sensory organs or any agency over their bodies. I will say, though, that life here will have to be animate and complicated to a degree, otherwise what stops me from calling a rock, alive? An elemental is an elemental if it can exert an influence upon its environment beyond what is natural on our planet(what is natural on planet, not exerting influence on planet, of course), if it's, or parts of it are, mobile and its structure has some kind of self-replicating property. I think I did an okay job at drawing the line between the living and the dead.
I think I am done with the key characteristics part. I will expand upon our intelligent creature, however, since it would be impossible to describe a typical lifestyle of an elemental beyond, possibly, "messy" and "weird", maybe?
We have a single elemental that is intelligent. Let's call it the elemental, for now.
I feel its important to note that its intelligence came as a by-product of a random mutation and by no means is it clear at this stage whether it will be of any effect on its life.
Intelligence, iirc, only implies being able to draw conclusions from existing experience. Therefore, we don't have to give it human emotions or sensibilities.
Since its existence just came almost literally out of nowhere, it doesn't have to be invested in preserving its life.
I could live it here, and say that it's just a moving rock/sandstorm/whatever that is technically capable of thought though never utilises it and it would be a valid example of a non-human intelligence. I won't, since I'm kinda curious what would happen if I gave it a direction, but I want to point out that it not thinking or creating coherent thought despite having the capability to do so is still valid.
Now, to continue.
I want to give it priorities, but, while giving them out of nowhere would be valid and even fitting to an extent, I want to root them in its lifestyle.
Because it came from a random occurence, its anatomy is very malleable, fragile and unstable. It's 'self' is something of a net of mana (I will just assume we both know and imagine the same thing here because I am not coming up with/describe existing magic system here) that settles over objects like small pebbles, sand, dirt, dust, etc. and wilts and dies off where it isn't connected to enough of the material. On the other hand, it grows when it's connected to the material for long enough. It has spawned in a desert and just drifted without thinking for a while until it grew enough mass to not be affected by the wind too hard and has been growing like a plant ever since, eventually reaching a sort of equilibrium where it's size and location are more or less fixed.
As its network grew, so did its ability to create thoughts, but at the same time, the time it takes from one point of the network to connect to another is sizeable *just* enough to make it so there's no single entity that could be thought of its ego, but it's more like a continous thing in space where you take a small enough volume for a sample and it is a "mind" of its own that is closely affected by the bigger mind right outside its physical boundaries.
It requires a hot enough temperature to survive, can feel it and loves sunlight. And it can also move, but like a wave. That meaning, the one big elemental must agree more or less unanimously on how they will act, and in acting unanimously in the ways they were supposed to, 'each' (of course that isn't exactly true since the minds are continuous and have no self-identity as things upon themselves but let's just approximate it) individual mind "vibrates" and the whole mass of mana and sand in space acts like a kinda wave, in order to receive more warmth as a whole.
It is mostly active at nights as the information travels from top down about changing temperature, the elemental "burrows" deeper to save warmth that it has passively shipped during the day. Sometimes it acts during the day as well, when it feels its bottom selves have become too cold it vibrates until it resonates, quickly flipping itself over, losing some parts in the process.
It mostly uses its intelligence to continually improve strategies for maximizing its warmth. Though it doesn't think as a single entity, since each layer of its mind (again, its mind is continuous, so think about it like its thoughts float around it like sound waves but each point each moment absorbs those sound waves and spits out other sound waves, but the entire thing is smooth since each thought really is more or less simar when it comes to small enough neighbourhoods) inputs its ideas.
So, it's like a complicated government system/stock market but everything is about sunlight and everybody acts in the interests of the whole group, but not really, since there's really just one big entity, but it's still messy and hard to predict as hell.
The parts do not conflict between each other, however. They do not think that lack of warmth is bad, they think that having warmth is good. The elemental flips (parts of) itself over periodically to keep its access to depths of the earth to save the warmth it has accumulated through the day and through experience it has deduced that keeping parts of it cold when it can will save it more warmth in long term, which the elemental as a whole decided was a good thing, since as a whole it experiences things on a higher time-scale. It does not act in the interests of self-preservation.
*Whew*, that felt like a lot. By the end I was tired and ended up leaning on human experience, and I can't confidently say I didn't use references to the human society, even though its just one creature. I'm tired now however, so I will leave it there. I know I was planning to write 2 examples but I don't have the creative juices to write the second. I didn't do the first justice. Feel free to modify
A mind is still a mind? I don't think it quite works that way. What is a mind? Why would it stay the same for intelligent life like humans? It feels like you imply some kinds of assumptions I wouldn't agree on, but I have to even see those assumptions first. For the time being, I will just have to disagree
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RepresentingCaution
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Indeed, and those are difficult to find! Here is my favorite:
Bartun
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As someone who is currently writing a non-human character, I can relate. It depends on what exactly you want to write, an advanced alien, a primitive predator, so on. I am currently writing a humanoid dinosaur-like creature who never interacted with humans, so I gave him a very blunt personality and is extremely naive, he also tends to think with his stomach. It is a real challenge as I try to describe the world from his point of view.
NotaNuffian
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Here is a fun thing about the animal kingdom, we humans are actually following their standards.
Patriarchy for wolves, horses and lions. Because strength is everything in their culture and due to the size of the animal, their reproduction is forcing a harem state (it takes about 1 human male to 1.2 human female to net a positive population growth iirc) and thus, chicks dig power.
Matriarchy for insects like ants, spiders and bees because the queen are pushing babies out like how Taco Bell goes through me.
So you can easily take reference, not direct copy, from the mongolians or nomad tribes or even medieval kings and counts.
Patriarchy for wolves, horses and lions. Because strength is everything in their culture and due to the size of the animal, their reproduction is forcing a harem state (it takes about 1 human male to 1.2 human female to net a positive population growth iirc) and thus, chicks dig power.
Matriarchy for insects like ants, spiders and bees because the queen are pushing babies out like how Taco Bell goes through me.
So you can easily take reference, not direct copy, from the mongolians or nomad tribes or even medieval kings and counts.
CheertheDead
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I read some early chapters now. It’s ok-ish?!
If your intention is to create a monster mc then I suppose you were kind of on the point. I have read too many gory thing including real life beheading and Japanese hentai so the one I saw from your fiction is quite mild for me. Tbh, I can’t really tell if that’s monster enough or not because I don’t know what you mean by that ?.
I got to say you choose a very difficult narrative to write your fiction. Normally, if I am not knowledgeable about writing certain characters like non-human, I would steer clear away from using first person present story telling.
Personally, it is just not what I am looking for. The use of 1st-person point-of-view narrative in Present tense is one of the many thing I am looking for in non-human mc story since this type of narrative allows reader to immerse much better into the world and the character than even 1st-person point-of-view narrative in Past tense.
The only issue is I don’t find the main character that much unique than other characters I knew. If I have to identify the character, I will say he is a human just not in a human body. There are human characters that I read share personalities and mental traits similar to him. I can’t really see him any different from a human. Surely he lack human morality but anything else is in there from his way of thinking to his perception of humans. I mean what is a fine armor? Non-human creature does not know that. They also have no perception of beauty. I know that he is originally a man so that explained his thought but that’s why I can’t see him as anything other than human.
For this reason, I can say he is somewhat monster because non-human creature isn’t a monster. Only human is capable of being a monster. Non-human creatures don’t know morality or right from wrong. Therefore, whatever they did is basic. Only when you know morality and still commit to do the wrong thing that you become a monster.
I just discussed with my friends on the subject of non-human narrative. A lot of good points were discovered. When you have a story surrounds a character in contrast to having a mc that follows a plotline is that there are rooms for exploration. Your fiction despite having a synopsis saying that it revolves around the mc is actually a mc chasing after a plot. There are a lot of information dump and exposition in the first 3 chapters. To me, this breaks the immersion completely. I no longer feel like I am follow the mc in an alien world. I feel like I am back to my seat reading a story.
CypherTails
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Interesting, alright thanks for the feedback. This was quite useful, thanks!
