Tag Archives: Patricia Briggs

On Alphas and Omegas

Yesterday I took a walk and ran into an older woman. She was also out walking and just seemed to need to talk. It sounds like she’s alone in her home most of the time. I can relate. It’s increasingly easy to become isolated in today’s world. When you’re not young, healthy, and able to be active in work, school, or social groups, the walls close in. Many people seem to think social media is an adequate substitute for real contact and communication. I think that’s because these folks have a vibrant support network and active life which social media merely supplements. For those who can’t fully participate in our able-body-oriented world, social media is something, but nothing can replace in person interaction. So I let the woman bend my ear for a while and validated the positive choices she was making.

The interaction made me think of a line in Patricia Briggs’ Alpha and Omega series (I’ll paraphrase since I listen to the audiobooks):

“I bet complete strangers come up to you and tell you their deepest secrets all the time.”

Charles says this to Anna, explaining that it’s a trait of omega wolves. In Briggs’ universe, omega wolves are a rare combination of dominant and submissive traits. Omega wolves share the dominant urge to protect, but don’t feel the need to fight for dominance or kill like submissive wolves. Omegas also are the only wolves that are not affected by a magical compulsion to obey a more dominant wolf’s orders. One character in the Alpha and Omega series calls omegas “dominants who are really, really zen.”

If I lived in Briggs’ universe, I’d be an omega. I’ve had total strangers come up to me and say, “I have this feeling I need to talk to you,” and proceed to spill their darkest troubles. The closer our association, the more people seem to feel compelled to tell me everything. This is a useful trait for an author, as I get to hear a lot of fascinating stories. I also enjoy helping people attain some measure of peace.

Being an omega is tricky, however. I’ve run into trouble because those with more…aggressive…natures sometimes suddenly realize they’ve told me highly sensitive information. Even though I’m good at keeping secrets, these people suddenly view me as a threat. Their fear then drives them to attack.

Another trait of omega wolves is that others feel the need to protect them. This is also a double-edged sword. Sometimes I have unconsciously relied on that protection and left myself vulnerable to harm.

I won’t list all the reasons I’d be an omega, but thinking about this topic in conjunction with world-building, I decided that the dominance angle comes from werewolves’ human creators and is not an essential part of werewolves.

From my participation in BDSM, I’ve seen extremes of dominance and submission. Werewolves as presented in Patricia Briggs’ novels offer a useful paradigm for categorizing kinky humans.

  • An Alpha is the most dominant person or wolf in a given area. They assume responsibility for others’ safety. Dominants feel compelled to jockey for position and will fight to attain and maintain the highest social rank possible. Kinky human dominants who pursue healthy relationships usually want to be alphas.
  • A Beast is an alpha who does not feel the need to protect others. In kink terms, this equates to the predators, abusers, bullies, and well-named Assholes in Leather among us. These people promulgate the disgusting trope that submissives are (or should be) doormats. This GoodReads thread has a great discussion on this topic re: the Alpha and Omega series.
  • Omegas may equate to switches. In the kink world, a switch has both dominant and submissive aspects which they switch between.
  • Submissives are those humans and wolves who aren’t preoccupied with fighting for position (at least not to the extent dominants are). In the context of a BDSM dynamic, a submissive obeys their dominant and does their best to please them within agreed bounds. Contrary to the belief of many human Beasts, submissives need not submit to anyone but their dominant partner(s) without prior consent. Briggs’ werewolves are different in that all wolves must submit to the most dominant wolf present. This and several quotes from the books perpetuate the “submissives are doormats, the lowest of the low” trope.

This paradigm can even be useful outside of kink circles. In my mind it runs into two problems, however:

  1. The aforementioned “submissives are doormats, the lowest of the low” trope. Submissives can be very powerful!
  2. Actual wolf pack dynamics.

I encourage you to read the full article I’ve linked above. Here’s the gist, though:

studies of wild wolves have found that wolves live in families: two parents along with their younger cubs. Wolves do not have an innate sense of rank; they are not born leaders or born followers. The “alphas” are simply what we would call in any other social group “parents.”

The whole alpha thing was a mistake born from observing captive wolves. Captive wolves are usually a group of unrelated specimens. They’re not family. This leads to the abnormal preoccupation with social dominance researchers observed. I also think researchers may have laid human preoccupation with dominance over their observations, distorting what they actually saw. This doesn’t mean wolves in the wild don’t care about dominance at all, just that it’s not behind a lot of pack behavior.

I’ve already noted that I like to remain as true to current science in my writing as possible. Therefore, the werewolves in my universe will not have any of that “alpha vs. omega” nonsense. Therianthropes of all kinds will behave according to a combination of their human nature and the way their animal nature behaves in the wild. That means my werewolf packs will be families. (And yes, I’m planning more than just werewolves!)

Audiobooks are Tricky Critters

I really enjoy audiobooks. Over the last few years I’ve read more books using my ears than my eyes! But audiobooks are tricky critters.

An audiobook makes you pay attention to every word. There’s no skimming long pastoral sections to get to the action. This can either make you appreciate hidden gems in these sections, or underline a writer’s weakness. We do need description, world-building, and character backgrounds, but it takes skill to smoothly incorporate these into a narrative without bogging it down. Whenever I listen to Katherine Kerr’s Deverry series, I find clever elements I’d overlooked in print.

Stories also have a rhythm to them. There are down or quiet moments in between the heart-hammering up scenes. Many writers are weaker in one of these tempos and audiobooks bring this out.

For example, while I wouldn’t say that Robert Jordan is necessarily weaker in one tempo, I did notice that The Eye of the World’s rhythm matched The Lord of the Rings’ almost point for point. This was so distracting, I couldn’t enjoy the story.

These are just a couple of the reasons it’s a good idea to record your completed draft and listen to it. What eludes you on the page will jump out at you on audio.

Once you have a polished tale, audiobooks can still play you false.

Professional editors will tell you it’s better to just use “said” in dialogue, especially lengthy dialogue. They reason that it’s easier on the reader because said fades into the background. But if you’re an audiobook reader, a lot of “said”s in a short span is repetitive and grates on the ears. At least on my ears. 🙂 I vastly prefer writers with a more varied approach to dialogue.

The voice actor who reads your work is important as well. And authors generally have no say in the casting process unless they’re reading themselves. For example, I recently listened to American Gods by Neil Gaiman on CD. A friend had recommended the TV show to me and I didn’t like it. I decided to see if the book was better (it definitely was!). I’m not sure I got the full impact of it, though. The reader’s voice had this Lake Wobegone quality to it that sucked all the extremes out of the narrative. The result was rather ho-hum. And ho-hum is generally the last word people use for Neil Gaiman’s writing.

Audiobook companies are also notorious for switching narrators in the middle of a series. Occasionally this is a good thing because the first reader was dreadful. Most of the time it gets the readers up in arms. We’ve grown accustomed to associating a certain voice with the series and its characters. It’s really jarring to change that and throws most readers right out of the story.

In a recent example, Lorelei King has read all of Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series until the most recent addition, Silence Fallen. In Silence Fallen Lorelei King still reads the chapters from Mercy’s point of view, but a male narrator now reads chapters from Adam’s point of view. I didn’t like it, but had finally started to get used to it when, for example, the female narrator would pop in to the male section to let us know time was passing differently for each character. That was so jarring! I honestly don’t know why audiobook companies persist in doing this kind of thing.

To sum up, I think it’s wise for writers to keep the audio version in mind. And maybe insist on casting control in your contract. 😉