Four Ways Your Character Can Relate to an Elepahant

What do characters and elephants have in common?

Four facts about an elephant and how they relate to your characters:

1. Elephants may be the largest land animal, but they can be quiet as a mouse and can sneak up on any animal. They are quiet and sneaky.
 Sometimes I think the author wants so bad for their characters to be noticed that every time their character is in a room with other characters they create chaos. No quietness, no subtle-ness. There's no individuality in each of their characters. There's just a bunch of "greatness" that makes all the characters in the stories combine into something very un-extraordinary. They need to be big, bold, and able to fulfill what they were created to fulfill (like defeating the antagonist). But they need to be able to have those quiet moments where they're barely noticed.

2. Their trunk is said to be capable of killing a lion.
I really thought this was cool. I would like to witness in real life this happening. It would be so awesome, I think. But anyways, point being, your characters are tiny things in the mist of an entire book collection. Millions upon millions of fictional characters exist and what makes them special? Millions of animals exist and different animals are capable of so many special things that distinguish them from other animals. No other animal has a trunk that can take down a lion (unless there is an animal that I am missing). What seems like a small part of an elephant holds a significant meaning in the survival of that elephant. Your character needs something that seems small that can take out something so much bigger. It needs something that seems small -- but isn't -- for its survival.

3. The bottom of their feet is spongy and has like four or five toenails, this all helps absorb the impact and shock of it's weight as it is running.
 Shock absorb-ers. Whoa. These huge, nasty, big, weird feet an elephant has can absorb the impact when it is running. You know that feeling when you jump off something and that shock goes from you feet and all the way up your legs? That's part of the sudden weight being slammed onto your feet and your body not being able to absorb the impact. (Unfortunately, our feet weren't created like an elephants foot. D;) Elephants are HUGE. To think of the shock human feet would feel if we weighed that much and tried running. We would feel all the impact. The point being, the characters need something to help them absorb shock, or cope. I really do despise those characters who act tough and don't take time to cope at all. They still need tangible coping time. Time to absorb all that is around them. Time to take in the impact and pain/

4. An elephant's skin may look tough, but it is actually sensitive. It protects itself from pests by rolling in the mud and constantly flinging dust on itself. This also helps protect the skin from the harmful UV rays of the sun.
I really like this a lot. The whole "looks tough, but is actually really sensitive". However, I only like this when it is talking about an elephants skin. All those MC's who act tough but really aren't are so cliched. Whatever happened to the really unprepared heroine? Or the really clumsy, always-truth-telling hero? I literally just threw eight kids into the middle of the beginnings of WWIV and then realized that they all were somehow "trained" for this. I had to back track and make them all have their strengths and weaknesses. I had to input real personalities, because they were "tough on the outside, but soft on the inside" characters. All eight of them. They were all my main characters, too. It's easier to write them all with their own experiences instead of trying to follow a model modern day writing has set for us. Because when the characters are actually soft, they end up getting dirty with a lot of stuff that could have been prevented with "sunblock" instead of dirt. There's a  lot of mistakes we make when writing characters. And when rewriting, we really don't want to have to rewrite the whole novel again like I have to do because all the characters were too "flat".

Maybe none of that makes sense. but elephants are my favorite animals and I love analogies and metaphors. So I had fun writing it, at least.

Until next time....