The Eyes Have It!

Eyes are very expressive. I know, it's the "gaze" because as writer's we learned that bit about roving body parts, but work with me here. If you've ever been around many animals, you know that you only have to look into their eyes to see what they're feeling.

I write shifters and although my shifters can speak while in their third nature, a hybrid human and jaguar form, I rely heavily on body language to convey what's going on in the scene and the eyes are one body part that's a no-brainer for me. You want to use the whole body for anger, fear, joy or my personal favorite, desire but much like the "smile that never reaches the eyes", if there's no corresponding response in the gaze, the emotion you think you're seeing, as with humans, just might be a lie.

I've often seen the villain portrayed as having "cold, dead eyes or a cold, dead, gaze", in other words someone without a conscience. I've been lucky enough to never encounter an animal with the gaze of a serial killer but there might be one out there. Hmmm...I think I'm getting an idea for a new plot.

You only have to look into the soulful gaze of an abused animal to know they're suffering. They're looking for compassion, they need to be rescued. I question the humanity of anyone who could abuse an animal but I realize that their lack of humanity stems from either a need to subjugate, or a lack of compassion for anything they feel is inferior to humans.

Whether you're portraying a human or an animal, I believe the eyes are the window to the soul. As an erotic paranormal author I've tried to convey my jaguar shifters as beings whose natures, while distinctive on some levels, overlap when push comes to shove. You only have to look into their eyes.