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# Writing Prompt: Animal Movement as Form
- URL: https://www.writelikeananimal.org/writing-prompt-animal-movement-as-form/
- Published: 2026-08-25T19:58:08.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-25T21:19:15.000Z
- Author: Ayla Gard

The natural world is a wellspring of inspiration for how we can structure our writing. One book on this comes to mind immediately: [*Meander, Spiral, Explode*](https://books.catapult.co/books/meander-spiral-explode/?ref=writelikeananimal.org). This craft book by Jane Alison looks at designs and patterns in writing that can be found in nature: fractals, wavelets, cells. I'm starting to compile a whole reading list of books related to this, so I'll update this post when I'm done (or, of course, if you subscribe, you'll get an email about this!)

Here's a quick prompt to help you with outlining a poem, essay, or story. My goal is that you finish this exercise with either a rough piece of writing you can revise, or else just an idea that can start marinating in your animal brain. We're not talking about animal movement as metaphor, here, though if that's what the exercise leads you to, I'm happy. Rather, the purpose here is to use animal movement as the architecture of a piece of writing.

1. Pick a (nonhuman) animal that migrates or moves through a place in some distinctive way. It could be a migratory bird, a Monarch butterfly, a grazing mammal moving across landscapes, or a cat that moves across a room to follow a sunbeam. Every animal moves, of course, but I want you to pick one that's interesting or meaningful to you.
2. I want you to outline, roughly and in beats, what is happening at each step in their movement. The below is a guide with beats to kick off your thinking, but your version will probably look different. We *want* it to look different. We're trying to circumvent the usual narratives. Also, you can type or handwrite all of this up, or even better: draw it. Make an actual map.
    1. Departure: What are they leaving, and why? What "want" is driving this movement?
    2. An obstacle: A fence, a predator, a cloud crossing the sun.
    3. A detour: Are they forced from their expected route or do they detour for food, rest, or reproduction?
    4. A pause: Do they stop at any point(s) along they way? What happens at each?
    5. A disorientation: Do they lose their bearings somehow?
    6. A return: Do they return to the expected path? Reach their destination, or keep moving?
    7. What happens now?
3. Think about an issue that's important to you, a personal anecdote you've been wanting to write about, or if you want to write fiction, a particular character: you can invent one, or borrow one from another story. (If you're borrowing one from a story that isn't your own, you'll change them later. This is just a way to get started.)
4. Try to map this issue, personal anecdote, or a scene with this character onto the same form of the animal movement list or drawing you made.

As you write, see if you can resist the urge to use any characteristics of your chosen animal beyond the map of their movements. Another option is that you could just lean in and bring the animal into the story. I want to share an example of [an article I wrote](https://blog.nature.org/2024/06/25/to-save-the-red-knots-look-to-blue-carbon/?ref=writelikeananimal.org) for The Nature Conservancy's *Cool Green Science* blog. It loosely maps the movement of the migratory redknot birds with locations of natural climate solution projects across the globe. We follow the birds as they stop down in these locations, and spend a while learning about each project, before moving to the next. The conservation of these birds becomes an emotional container for a story about natural climate solutions science. 

This is a very explicit way to use animal movement as structure. The prompt I've given you encourages an approach that's a little more nuanced. It's just another way to [*tell the truth, but tell it slant*](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56824/tell-all-the-truth-but-tell-it-slant-1263?ref=writelikeananimal.org).

Let me know if you come up with anything good from this! I'd love to know how it worked out for you.