My alien viewpoint, Yull, was always an interesting character. Because I had to invent him from scratch, he always had more detail than my human lead, Aris. He's the leader of a tribe of Ur-Vai, and I knew they had as much tech as humans. Yet they're big cats, and Aris sees them hunting like lions early on in the story. So they retain their predators' instincts even in a high-tech culture. I knew they lived in caves, and they inserted bioware into a species of birds to make them into a natural type of drone for surveillance.
In the original book I hadn't worked out the aliens'spirituality. Now I've decided that each tribe has its own God or Goddess to protect their tribe. I want Yull's long journey with the humans to question his sense of belief in the tribe's Goddess.
I also had to decide how and where they live. The planet has two long mountain chains that bisect it north-south and east-west. I've decided that Yull's species, the Ur-Vai, live in caves dotted along the mountain chains. That allows me to give them distinct territories with hunting rights.
In the first chapter Yull makes first contact with the human characters. When he returns home he has to face a challenge from a hostile deposed leader, giving me a chance to detail their politics (a form of democracy).
But Yull knows about a mysterious Artefact lying at the far end of the continent, which he suspects is human. Finding out what it is, and what connection it has to these humans, forms the basis of the story, and drives him to question and challenge everything he thought he knew about the universe.
There's lots more detailing to do, but now I feel much happier about getting into my alien's mind effectively.
Wendy Metcalfe is the author of Panthera : Death Spiral and Panthera : Death Song, and the short story collection Otherlives. Her website is: www.wendymetcalfe.com
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