I'm both half and half, a Vegetarian and a Vegan and because I put myself into my stories, majority of my lead characters are Vegetarian/Vegan.
I haven't. I usually write in the middle age fantasy where that wasn't a thing. But I think if you do write about them, I encourage people to get to know real vegans. They aren't the self righteous weirdos many people make them out to be. Most of them are very rational and normal people with diet restrictions. That's no different than my Latter Day Saint or Jewish diet restrictions. Most of the fanatic vegans, I found are what I call the "Insta-Vegans." They are the ones who adopt the lifestyle not because of a moral awakening or because they want to be healthy. For them, it's purely the social media clout and attention the lifestyle gets them. Many of them aren't even vegan!
I'm actually doing it for the first time right now. I'm not a vegetarian myself, and I've never given any thought to my characters' dietary habits before, but in my current wip it just seemed to fit. It's a fantasy short story that centers around three magicians who get together for lavish feasts, and one in particular is a very strong animal lover. I figured she'd be a natural vegetarian, then just decided to make them all that way. It doesn't really impact the plot, just what they eat while the action takes place, but I think it's a nice bit of characterization that makes them feel more real. They're not vegetarian characters —they're characters who happen to be vegetarians.
Eragon from the inheritance cycle is a pretty good example of a character like this. Its actually kind of a big deal for his character, but does not come off as forced at all despite the "vegans are irritating" meme, and fits into the story well without breaking flow.
How does one exist in the state of half vegetarian and half vegan? It's really not something that comes up for me in fantasy. The two anthro races in my WIP are strictly carnivorous. Perhaps I'll balance that out with an herbivore in the sequel.
I'm reminded of the trilogy consisting of Ox, Orn and Omnivore by Piers Anthony (yes, he wrote more than just the Xanth series ). There were three main characters—were they all scientists? Not sure, but their names were Veg, Cal* and (something, hey it's been a minute!) Veg was a vegetarian. I don't think veganism existed at the time, or wasn't well known anyway. As the titles imply, there was a theme of what different kinds of animals eat, predators being carnivores or omnivores, and most prey animals being vegetarian (herbivores). I remember them being pretty fascinating, though no details, aside from the fact that Orn was a prehistoric flightless bird (Ornitho-something) and sections were told from her POV. That was amazingly cool!! She was migrating to escape an advancing glacier or an ice age or something and the scientists were there to observe or following her or—hell, I don't remember. But cool series anyway. I might have to dig back into it. I'll bet I understand the themes a lot better now. Here, just grabbed this off Wikipedia: The human characters' diets play an important role in their interaction with the native species. Aquilon eats a normal human diet—she is an omnivore. Veg is a vegetarian. Cal is forced to drink blood to survive, due to a medical condition. * And I'm betting Cal is a geologist or something, Cal being short for Calcium. Piers Anthony was always kind of weird like that, but he makes it work.
I'm not vegan or vegetarian at all, but I had a couple characters in my stories that were because it seemed most appropriate as their relationship with nature was a lot stronger than others.
Kinda. Created an alien species that primarily eats fungi and insects. To be fair they have big bugs and big mushrooms. That's about as vegan as I got.
I got be honest, I don't see how what a character eats could anything but an extremely minor plot point. Unless the whole meat/no meat thing is the driving engine for plot, which I wouldn't think would be very interesting.
Lol, seems weird coming from a guy who runs a restaurant. But hey, I guess as long as you got carnivore and vegan options, then you're good, right? In the Omnivore series it relates directly to whether a character is a predator (carnivore), a 'normal human' (omnivore), or a prey animal (vegetarian), so it plays into the themes powerfully. But yeah, otherwise it seems like it's not important except maybe to mention briefly for characterization.
Haha. Thinking about it, I can say with some authority that there is little correlation between what people eat (or do not eat) and any sort of personality archetype. Unless you're talking about the most expensive/prestigious item on the menu, but that's incidental as those same dudes also buy the most expensive cars, clothes, and toys. That part is definitely a male thing. I've never in 26 years in the business met a woman that plays the showing off money in a restaurant game. That's why we call the executive tasting menu the VSPP (very small penis package) and not the... what? Very large vagina package? That just sounds weird.
So...: "What would you like this evening miss?" "I'll have a small salad on the side with dressing. A decent glass of red that goes with a steak." "And how would you like your steak?" "Show it the grill, and bring it out still trembling in terror."
I'm not sure what that has to do with anything I said, but aren't those guys doing it for the women they're with? I've heard there's a trend now where some women get guys to take them out just to get expensive dinners and then they tweet about what a sucker he was. Sounds kinda predatory to me.
Sometimes, but more often to impress the other male friends they are with. Check average climbs a logarithmic scale when it's all dudes. Especially if golf and/or boating where involved before dinner. It's gratuitous and disgusting, but compared to what other people do to make a living, I sleep just fine.
I wasn't trying to impugn you at all. Wow, that's really how that's spelled? Weird. (I'm also kinda drink drank drunk)
I have often made a character in any of several stories I write be vegetarian or vegan, I give some description of them with bits of different reasons for any of them for making their choices.
There are a number of ways you could use it in an opposites plot device… like for instance FMC is a vegan but MMC runs a dairy farm or you could use it as background and just mention it in passing ( I have Jewish character who eats vegetarian when restaurants don’t have a kosher option) however the OP who isn’t with the forum anymore basically started innumerable threads about wanting to write self insert Mary sues who were vegan, tee total, virgins who never had any conflicts or did anything interesting
Hmm. I write historical fiction, so the whole vegetarian / vegan angle isn't an issue. Having said that, what you ate depended a lot on what era you lived in, where you lived, and how wealthy you were. Let's take the middle ages, just to simplify things. Kings ate a lot of meat - that goes without saying. Peasants tended to make a kind of broth or stew, called pottage, which was generally vegetables and herbs (but also sometimes meat, if they could afford it). Villeins and slaves ate what they were given. The people in the middle - i.e. artisans, labourers, and so on - often went out to local inns and ate there. The food varied, according to the season and where the inn was. An inn close to the sea or a river, for instance, often served seafood or local fish. An inn, on the other hand, where people hunted birds would often serve any kind of bird: pigeon, magpie, and so on. I know it sounds disgusting, but it was better than starving!
