Self-Review – Will’s Dog

Review – Will’s Dog

I wrote Will’s Dog as a kind of palate cleanser story. I had been writing a number of heavier stories. So, this one was lighter. My main idea was to add an unknown angle to the life of perhaps the greatest writer who has ever lived.

I wrote this story during first quarter 2018.

Background

I have written canine POV before, both for fan fiction and for a story called Cynthia for The Longest Night Watch.

This is such a fun point of view to write, because dogs are so familiar to us, yet so alien, all at the same time. Because dogs are so smell-driven, I feel that their internal monologues (as it were) would be full of smells, and their value judgments about these aromas.

Someone could have a ‘good’ smell because of an association with a beloved person. Or an association with someone who gives food to the dog. Things could have good smells because of being delicious (to a dog, that is) or fun or warm.

Plot for Will’s Dog

There’s not really too much of a plot. It’s more like a small slice of life, of a dog and his master, a writer.

Characters

The characters are really just the dog and his master. Who just so happens to be William Shakespeare.

I never named the dog. Sorry, puppy!

Memorable Quotes

The smells are good. My alpha master is busy but the smells are good. He is using that feather again – scratching, scratching, scratching, like so many fleas. He works on thin, flat things which smell like they used to be wood.

He drops one and it flutters to the floor like a white bird with only one wing. I go over to sniff it, but he tells me not to, and so I obey. I lay down on the small rug near the fire.

I watch him from this vantage point. There are mice in the cottage, but I don’t chase them. Such is a job for the cats, and they don’t like me muscling in on their turf and stealing their jobs. So I leave them to the mice, and the rats, which are mostly outside.

I can hear him swearing. Something must be unpleasant or wrong with the thin, flat things that were once wood. He approaches the fire with several in his hands. But he has done this before and, inevitably, he gets upset at the loss. He is my alpha master and my job is to save him from himself. So I get up and place my body between him and the thin, flat things, and the fire.

Rating for Will’s Dog

The story has a K rating. It’s a very family-friendly story.

Takeaways

I like the idea of a dog intervening and making sure that we don’t lose something as valuable and amazing as Hamlet.

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Want More of my Short Stories and Novellas?

If this story resonates with you, then check out my other articles about my shorter works.

Short Stories

Finally, for a complete list of my shorter works, please be sure to check out the Hub Page—Short Stories.