What’s the Key to Writing Non-Human POVs That Feel Authentic?
If you’ve ever tried writing from a non-human point of view, you know it’s not just a cool narrative trick—it’s a deeply challenging storytelling technique that can either elevate your work or completely derail it.
I’m not talking about quirky pets with thought bubbles or elves that just happen to act like moody humans. I mean crafting a POV where the very structure of perception, thought, and emotion is fundamentally different from ours.
Why bother? Because non-human POVs can disrupt narrative expectations, give us fresh metaphors, and reveal blind spots in human thinking. They force both writer and reader to confront what it means to perceive and experience reality. But making it authentic? That’s the art. Today, I want to go beyond the usual advice and dig into deeper principles that’ll help your next non-human narrator truly feel real—and strange—in all the right ways.
How to Build a Non-Human Mind That Readers Actually Believe
Understand How They Think (or Don’t)
The first mistake I often see—even in otherwise brilliant work—is a non-human character who simply thinks like a clever human in a funny suit. To avoid this, you need to deeply consider: how does this being process information?
If you’re writing a hive-mind insect species, their concept of “I” might not exist. If your narrator is an ocean-dwelling cephalopod, time might be felt in currents and chemical gradients, not seconds and minutes.
Example: In Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, the spiders don’t just act like humans with eight legs. Their entire sense of self, communication, and memory is tied to web vibrations. You can feel that difference in every sentence.
Let Language Shape the Narrative
One of the most powerful ways to make a non-human POV feel real is through language. And I don’t just mean inventing some alien words—I mean shaping the sentence structure, metaphor choices, and rhythm of thought to match the being’s cognition.
Example: In Embassytown by China Miéville, the Ariekei’s perception of reality is literally constrained by language—they can’t lie. When that changes, the entire POV style shifts to reflect their cognitive rupture.
When writing your own, ask: Would this being use linear cause and effect? Would they describe things emotionally or sensorily? Would they even have a concept of “before” and “after”? The answers should absolutely bleed into the prose.
Map Emotions, But Not as a Human Would
We’re wired to empathize, and the temptation is strong to give your non-human characters familiar emotional arcs. But authentic non-human POVs require emotional drives grounded in their biology or culture, not ours.
Instead of love, maybe your being feels territorial affinity. Instead of shame, maybe disruption of harmony or failure of a communal role.
Example: In Watership Down, the rabbits have their own mythos and survival-based emotional logic. Their fear isn’t an abstract anxiety—it’s an acute, bodily drive tied to constant threat. Even the way they think about leadership or sacrifice feels rabbit-specific.
Sensory Differences Aren’t Just Window Dressing
Finally, you have to commit to how this character experiences the world sensorily—and stick with it. If your POV is an alien species that sees in the ultraviolet spectrum or “hears” magnetic fields, that should deeply inform not just description but also what they notice, what they value, and even how they structure thoughts.
Example: Peter Watts’ Blindsight does this masterfully with its vampire character, whose visual processing and cognitive patterns are fundamentally alien. The narration reflects this at every level.
Bottom line: If you’re writing an authentic non-human POV, you’re not just inventing a new skin—you’re inventing a new mind. And the more rigorously and creatively you do that, the more powerful your storytelling technique becomes.
Practical Techniques for Writing Non-Human POVs That Work
Okay—so we know that an authentic non-human POV starts with building a truly alien mind. But here’s where most writers hit a wall: How do you actually write that on the page, in a way that works for your story and your reader?
The trick is finding the right balance between alien perception and narrative clarity. You want the reader to experience the world as this non-human character does—but not get lost or bored doing it. In my experience (and after many wrong turns), here are some of the most reliable techniques to pull it off.
Sensory Anchoring
Your first and best tool is sensory anchoring. Give the reader strong, repeated cues about how the POV character perceives the world. These shouldn’t just be flavor—they should structure how the character understands reality.
If your character is a dog, maybe scent is primary, and visuals are blurry and incidental. If they’re a silicon-based life form that detects chemical gradients, maybe flavor or chemical resonance is the lens through which all perception flows.
A great example of this is Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time again: as the spiders evolve, their web-based sensory experiences shape not only their personal interactions but their entire scientific method and worldview.
Let the Character’s Biases Shape Worldbuilding
One of the most fun (and essential) techniques is letting the non-human’s biases and blind spots actively distort worldbuilding.
A human narrator would notice furniture, architecture, and facial expressions. But what about a forest spirit who’s only attuned to plant life and shifts in humidity? Or a sentient AI whose “attention” naturally flits between bandwidth patterns and algorithmic anomalies?
By leaning into these biases, you not only deepen authenticity—you invite readers to infer the rest of the world indirectly, which creates a richer reading experience.
Remove Human Reference Points Where Possible
You can strengthen alienness by stripping out or redefining human reference points. Don’t assume the character understands “love,” “money,” or “personal space” the way we do. Maybe “ownership” doesn’t exist for a hive species. Maybe “family” is irrelevant to a being that reproduces asexually.
Tip: If you find yourself defaulting to a human concept, pause and ask: Does this being even have this concept? And if they do, would it feel the same way?
Stay Consistent with Cognitive Limits
One of the subtler traps is letting your non-human character think too much like a human when it serves the plot. Resist this.
If your character is a wolf with no understanding of symbolic logic, don’t suddenly have them recognize symbols or abstract ideas for narrative convenience. If they’re a gas cloud that experiences time non-linearly, you can’t have them suddenly grasp a cause-effect relationship in the moment.
Readers will feel it if you break this rule. Consistency is key to trust.
Build a Unique Metaphor System
This is a massively underused technique. Every being develops its own metaphor system rooted in its experience of the world. A creature that navigates by sonar will build metaphors around echo, reverberation, and space. A species with telepathic connections may think in terms of network flows, signal strength, and connection density.
Example: In The Broken Earth series by N.K. Jemisin, the orogenes experience the world in geological metaphors—pressure, fracture, flow. It’s subtle but incredibly effective.
Keep the Reader Oriented
A final word of caution: don’t make the reader do all the work. While you want your non-human POV to feel alien, you must provide enough narrative anchors that the reader can follow what’s happening.
This can mean lightly translating certain concepts, or using external cues (dialogue with more familiar beings, environmental context) to clarify meaning.
Think of it as tuning the “alienness dial” up or down depending on the scene’s needs. In action-heavy scenes, clarity trumps alien style. In introspective scenes, lean into the weirdness.
Pro tip: Beta readers are invaluable here. What feels clear to you inside the POV may not feel that way to a fresh reader.
Common Pitfalls and Advanced Ideas to Push Your Work Further
Now let’s get into some deeper-level thinking. Even experienced writers sometimes stumble into these traps—or miss opportunities for taking their non-human POVs to the next level.
Beware Unconscious Anthropocentrism
This is the big one. Even when we try to be alien, our cultural wiring sneaks in. You might create a crystal-based species that communicates in light pulses—and then give them characters who crave individual fame or glory, very human emotional drives.
Stop and ask: Does this behavior or motivation emerge naturally from this being’s evolutionary and cultural background? Or am I smuggling in a human impulse because it’s easier?
One exercise I use is to write “day in the life” scenes that don’t involve plot—just showing the being existing in its world. If you catch yourself writing the character like a human doing human things in a cool body, it’s a red flag.
Balance Alienness with Accessibility
Some writers lean too far into making their POV so alien that it’s practically unreadable. While this is an impressive intellectual exercise, it often fails as a storytelling technique.
Remember: your goal isn’t to simulate an alien mind perfectly—it’s to evoke an alien mind in a way readers can engage with emotionally and cognitively.
This is where craft comes in. Using metaphor, careful sentence structure, and selected moments of translation or commentary, you can strike that balance.
Example: In Blindsight, the vampire’s internal monologue is alien, but Watts gives us occasional human-readable signals to keep us connected.
Use Non-Human POVs Thematically
A huge missed opportunity is using non-human POVs just for novelty. The best uses connect to thematic resonance.
Ask yourself: How does this being’s perspective help explore the story’s central questions? Maybe a non-linear species reflects on time, fate, or memory. Maybe a hive mind forces a meditation on individuality versus collective good.
When you do this, the non-human POV becomes not just a cool flavor—it becomes essential to the story’s meaning.
Let the POV Evolve
Finally—don’t lock yourself into a static POV. If your non-human character undergoes growth, their perception of the world should change too.
Maybe they learn to value something they couldn’t previously comprehend. Maybe their sensory focus shifts as they age. Maybe contact with humans (or other species) alters their metaphor system or cognition.
Example: The spiders in Children of Time evolve across generations, and their language, worldview, and even sense of self change accordingly. It’s masterfully done.
Let this happen in your own work. It makes the POV feel truly alive—and gives your story another layer of richness.
Before You Leave…
Writing authentic non-human POVs is one of the most exciting—and demanding—storytelling techniques out there. It forces us to step outside human patterns of thought, which in turn helps us see our own world more clearly.
And honestly, that’s why I love it. When done well, it’s not just a craft trick—it’s an act of radical empathy and imagination.
So next time you sit down to write an alien, a god, a robot, or a sentient mushroom, ask yourself: How does this being truly think, feel, and perceive? And then have the courage to follow that all the way through.
Your readers will feel the difference—and so will you.
Happy writing.