Writing Tips - Werewolves
So, werewolves. Where to begin? (Did I just write that? My apologies for terrible punnage.)
Most werewolves (or lycanthropes) are probably based on grey wolves, though many authors fail to do their research and get their facts wrong. I don’t expect people to get quantum physics or advanced chemistry correct - I took chemistry for my Leaving Cert, and that stuff’s hard - but I do expect people to be able to do an internet search!
My apologies for any uncaught typos, my tablet-laptop thing (It was a gift) is against correct spelling and loves to randomly open the console on me.
Listing, because I love lists! They’re easy to read!
Most authors seem to be under the mistaken impression that wolves have a leadership structure that has one all powerful alpha at the top and an omega at the bottom whose job is to be the pack’s personal butt monkey.
In actuality, packs are structured more like a family unit: the mated alpha pair (who bond for life) can order the rest of the pack (composed of their children) around, but beyond that it’s a case of A can beat B, B can beat C, C can beat A, D can beat B and A but is tied with C - each wolf can boss around wolves that he or she can best. There is no “omega”. So A can order around B, but not C, despite B ordering around C - make sense?
The packs contain about ten individual wolves, who the others can identify by howl. Howling is used to communicate over long distances, as is scent.
Dogs are descended from grey wolves, so feel free to describe the scent communication the same way dogs use it. Depending on the chemicals in their urine, dogs can leave messages for each other. Nothing too complex, but they can communicate things like “I just had pups”, “I’m happy”, “Danger!” and so on - which could be pretty useful and interesting. Dogs tend to save up their urine for walks so that they can leave messages at specific areas. Now you know why Chica always pees at that lamp-post.
Grey wolves are the largest dogs in the world, weighing between 30 and 80 kg (66 - 175 lbs) and measuring at 1 - 1.6 m. They reach maturity at 22 months of age, living for 16 years and can breed once a year.
In many stories, the werewolves bones are described as breaking during the transformation. While it wouldn’t be comfortable, the bones probably would not break - too much risk of infection and the bones would probably just need to be resized a bit. The tailbone would have to grow, and you might wind up with five toes instead of the typical doggy three, but it’s mostly just changing length. Take a look at an x-ray of a dog and a diagram of a human skeleton - different shapes and sizes but basically the same structure, spine, skull, ribcage, legs. Some organs might be adapted during the transformation to better suit a wolves diet.
The above applies even to a more typical half-wolf, half-human depiction - the bones are still mostly just going to be resized. Think of the growing pains you may have had, just all at once.
Also, most animals once assumed to be completely colorblind can see colors, the colors are just slightly different to what we would see - try looking it up to see the differences between wolf and human vision.
During the summer, the pack tends to hunt alone for small animals such as beavers or hares, while in winter they wok together to bring down moose, elk, oxen and reindeer. They hunt by smell and chase their victims down, taking turns to bite at the flanks and face until their kill collapses from exhaustion.
Werewolves are often depicted as the mortal enemy of the vampire - they could use these same tactics to bring down vampires, just go for the legs and avoid the teeth.
Grey wolves can run up to 200 km (125 miles) in one night, so a werewolf waking up halfway cross country/state after a night on the prowl wouldn’t be outside of the realm of possibility.
Werewolves were believed to be weak to aconite (also known as monkshood or wolfsbane), a plant that was used in wolf hunts for it’s poison. this is often believed to be part of the cure, but if a human consumed some it would disagree with them sooner rather than later. Witnessing aconite bloom during an Autumn full moon was believed to cause lycanthropy.
The weakness to silver is a twentieth century addition made by early monster movies. If you include it, remember that silver can be very expensive, so a full magazine of silver bullets may not be entirely practical. A silver knife might be even less so however, given the bite of a werewolf is believed to pass on the curse. Your characters will have to walk a fine line between affordability and safety.
6. Describing the transformation
One of the most commonly used words to describe the act of transforming would appear to be “phase”. Personally, I prefer “shift”, but you can use whatever word you wish.
There are a few things you need to consider about werewolf transformations. Is it voluntary? If you are writing about someone’s struggle with the beast inside, involuntary shape shifting may be the way to go, but if you are writing a story about vampire hunters then voluntary transformations might make more sense. Some stories have the werewolf able to change shape outside of the full moon or even partially with enough practice.
If you intend to have the full moon involved and for your story to be set in a specific year you may find it useful too look up the dates of the phases of the moon that year or even purchase a lunar calendar. (EDIT) I forgot to mention this(I was half asleep, lol); you need to consider where their clothes will go during the transformation. At least one writer had them tie clothing to their legs before transforming, but take a look at a picture of a wolf or a large dog. Now look at your own leg. Pretty big difference in circumference, huh? Using that trick could easily result in circulation being cut off or the clothes dragging through the dirt. I’d suggest having a hollowed out log or something; your werewolves could put their clothes in a waterproof rucksack and then stuff it in the log. Concealment and protection from the weather in one!
That’s all I can think of for now, folks. I will write a post about Mary Sues on Thursday, but as always I will be checking the blog between then and now, so feel free to ask questions or leave a comment, i will get back to you as soon as I can.
Might do some posts on Celtic (Irish) and Norse mythology next week.
