Have you ever been reading a book – maybe even enjoying it – but when you got to a crucial point, the author made a glaring mistake that made you want to throw the book across the room? Would you keep reading?
Here’s a hint: most people won’t.
Time is in short supply, and readers are just looking for reasons to put your book down for a better book, or something else – and you DON’T want to be the writer whose book gets thrown across the wall.
Writers, there are almost 45 million dog owners in the United States alone. 45 million. That’s almost 1 out of every 6 people in the US. That’s a heck of a lot of people.
And YOU could be causing them to throw YOUR BOOK against the wall, by making mistakes that are so irritating to readers – but SO easy to fix. The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Dogs by Amy Laurens will show you how.
So, your main character owns a dog – or maybe is a dog. What next?
Imagine being able to write a scene from the point of view of a dog, and not having to mention the dog at all – and yet people still ‘miraculously’ know your main character is a dog. The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Dogs discusses in detail what it’s like to be a dog – their senses, their emotions, everything – and you can use this information to create rounded, compelling characters that act like dogs, not people in fur coats.
But what if you don’t want to write about a main character who’s a dog? And what if you already own a dog, and think you know all about them?
Let me assure you: you still don’t know everything you need to know.
The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Dogs includes tips on things your typical dog-owner wouldn’t even think to include. Mistakes about dog showing, breeding, the different breeds of dogs and how dogs think and feel – all this and more are discussed in this brand new e-book.
Here’s a sample of what you’ll learn in The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Dogs:
- Dogs don’t actually see in black and white. They have dichromatic vision.
- Dogs can smell things into their component parts – they can recognise the whole and the parts.
- Dogs don’t speak English – but they’re very superstitious.
- Dogs don’t do things to ‘get revenge’; in fact, they aren’t capable of thinking in such terms.
Plus discussions on things like:
- Purebreds versus mongrels: is one better than the other?
- Male versus female: is there really a difference?
- Dogs versus cats: what’s the real deal here?
And much, much more!
Pick up your copy right away – you’ll be writing like an insider in no time at all, and you’ll be secure in the knowledge that no-one will every throw YOUR books against the wall – at least, not for dog mistakes!
Introduction
Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware,
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.
~Rudyard Kipling
It’s a funny thing, writing a book about dogs. A huge percentage of the population has owned or currently owns a dog, and it seems that as with children, everyone who has a dog knows the best way to raise them. As a culture, we are pretty dog-savvy, and the dog’s position as man’s best friend is well established in our arts and entertainment.
You might think, then, that a book on mistakes that writers make about dogs would be a slim volume indeed. In actual fact, the opposite is true. Writers – and people in general – make many of the mistakes they do about dogs not because they know nothing about them, but because so much of the cultural knowledge we possess is false. Myths about animals abound, and it seems the animal is to humanity, the more myths it will generate.
So what makes my perspective worthwhile? First of all, I’ve dealt with a wide variety of dogs in a wide variety of situations ever since I was little. I won my first obedience ribbon with a dog at age twelve, and saw puppies born in my own backyard when I was seven – and the very first puppy I bred myself became an Australian Champion at 14 months of age. I’ve done obedience trials and conformation showing, and started training dogs as all-purpose house assistants; I’m a registered Labrador Retriever breeder and have experienced the joys and woes of breeding and raising our own litters, and consequently the deep bond that develops when you own a dog from birth.
I’ve hit the training paddock in the deep, miserable wet of winter, and I’ve suffered through the consequences of no-dog-walks-for-a-month. If there’s a mistake to be made, I’m pretty sure by now that I’ve made it, and kicked myself in the rear end about it later. And because I’m a writer, I know how all of these things can impact the one most important thing in any writer’s life: story. I’ve seen people suffer from making the same mistakes over and over again, and in writing this book I want to offer you the opportunity to learn from my mistakes – to be not just the writer, but the dog-savvy real life citizen, who gets it right. I want to convince you that dogs have a place in fiction, and I want to help you to use these common mistakes and misconceptions to strengthen and deepen your characters – and your story. I want to answer the questions that people who have grown up around dogs and people who have never had a dog both forget to ask.
This book is divided into six core sections: People In Fur Coats, which establishes a baseline for interpreting and understanding canine behaviour; The Senses, which explores the various ways in which dogs receive information from their surroundings; Learning and Development, which delves into the way in which dogs learn; Communication, the section which contains perhaps the most common of all mistakes; Pedigrees and Breeding, which deals with common misconceptions about breeds, mongrels, and their associated bad habits; and finally, Relationships, discussing the various complexities that come with meshing the personality of a dog with that of a person.
I hope you enjoy it, and find it useful.