I'm glad to know that one of your poodle associations would indeed have been the devil! If I thought most readers would have the possibility in the back of their head, that would be quite enough at this point in the narrative... but from the feedback I've gotten to this question, I conclude the majority of readers would simply worry about the dog's welfare. (Maybe if it were a mean-looking Rottweiler things would be different, but evidently a poodle just doesn't scream "do not worry for me, worry about me. *g*)
I take your point about the anviliciousness of #3... maybe I can get away with simply creating a foreboding atmosphere about the dog, for now. It'll be difficult to weave in the "devil" reveal through literary allusions later on, but Mephistopheles can always just come out with it himself (or at least strongly hint). That would, after all, be entirely in character. ;-)
You are, of course, entirely right that it's impossible to truly gauge a reaction on the basis of a bare-bones scenario like this. Still, this has already helped me a lot; I'd actually assumed a strange poodle in the setting in question would be Super Obvious in itself. (When I am well-marinated in a plot idea, I often mistakenly think it will be Super Obvious to everyone. Fortunately I am at least aware of this tendency...)
My poor main character can't be blamed for his lack of literary knowledge, btw, although that is in itself a rather complicated issue. *g*
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Date: 2014-09-05 09:14 pm (UTC)I take your point about the anviliciousness of #3... maybe I can get away with simply creating a foreboding atmosphere about the dog, for now. It'll be difficult to weave in the "devil" reveal through literary allusions later on, but Mephistopheles can always just come out with it himself (or at least strongly hint). That would, after all, be entirely in character. ;-)
You are, of course, entirely right that it's impossible to truly gauge a reaction on the basis of a bare-bones scenario like this. Still, this has already helped me a lot; I'd actually assumed a strange poodle in the setting in question would be Super Obvious in itself. (When I am well-marinated in a plot idea, I often mistakenly think it will be Super Obvious to everyone. Fortunately I am at least aware of this tendency...)
My poor main character can't be blamed for his lack of literary knowledge, btw, although that is in itself a rather complicated issue. *g*