Can my Object of Affection be a animal? Lily-May in my story really likes cats and she’ll do anything for them. Or does it have to be a person?
Hey Laura. Good question.
Let’s start with the easy part. Yes, you do need an object of affection.
Your object of affection does need to have personhood, but of all of the character archetypes you probably have the most flexibility with this one.
Could the Object be a cat? I think there’s a way to make it work. In what ways would the cat have personhood? In what ways does Lily-Mat feel like she truly interacts with the cat in the way one person interacts with another? Does she put words in the cat’s mouth and have an imaginary conversation with it?
Could the Object be cats (plural, generally)? Not really. That can certainly be something that drives her, but your audience does need one person to relate to. You could probably make a cat work, but cats as a topic just isn’t specific enough to get the job done.
I recommend The Novel Matrix book for further explanation of why you need this character archetype (and the others as well).
This YouTube video might also help too: “Characters Are People Too (90-Day Novel Challenge”
Or does there even have to be a Object of Affection?