Writing Human Nature

A man named Aesop, in Greece, wanted to write a children’s book. He pulled together a few local tales, penned them, and hit the best-seller list.  

By age seven, little Spartan and Athenian warriors went to school to become community-minded members of society by learning the fables. At the same time, they trained to be bloodthirsty warriors and graduated to slaughter Persians. Well, no society is perfect.  

The fables stood the test of time. What are they, and how can they support your writing? 

A fable is a short story featuring animals or objects as characters. The tale is designed to rely on the animal’s nature to convey a clear moral lesson. One of my favorite tales is the lion who doesn’t devour the mouse. Later, when the lion is trapped, the mouse chews through the ropes to free the lion. The lesson? Kindness is often repaid with kindness. 

When people think of a lion, many reflect on power, strength, and nobility. For mice, they seem timid, small, and slightly mischievous. It is in their nature. A timid lion is odd, and a ferocious mouse is a cartoon. 

Writers use a person’s nature all the time. We revel in it. Jane Austen wrote our favorite first line, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” It is in his and her nature. As the book plays out, they both fight their nature. In the end, nature will win, and all will be well. Just put a ring on it, Mr. Darcy!  

Oedipus Rex is a Greek play about breaking from nature, and Sigmund Freud built a career around the idea: What if the man breaks from nature and marries his mother? We still think the idea is cringe, and a mother marrying her son is still considered incest in Western society today. We know Oedipus is wrong. And he pays a horrible price.  

You don’t have to invent a person from the ground up when writing. We trust that a person’s nature in real life carries over in our books. Universally acknowledged truths can remain just that, universal. If your character is a fox, he’s sly. If she’s a wolf, she’s going after sheep. As a donkey, the child will be stubborn.  

Don’t be afraid to use natural traits in your stories. They’re tried and true, and they worked for Aesop rather well!