All About the Werewolf

Werewolf Types pt 1

So a lot of people in the werewolf constrict themselves and others to two types of werewolves and usually only two types of werewolves.

One is shifter and the other is 'traditional' werewolves. 

If you look at other cultural stories (I'm not talking about pop culture either) then you'll notice that a fair few of their traditional werewolf stories involved wolves. More or less, every country that has wolves/ jackals/ coyotes in it will have stories of transformation, it might even expand outside of the carnivorous animal and include omnivores or herbivores as well.

The key here is to do your research, especially if you want to be a little bit different to the norm. There are so many other ways that people morphed into werewolves besides the influence of the full moon.

There are so many more origin stories for werewolves and they're fairly easy to find if you spend a little time trying to find it on the internet.

The sheep herder in the 'The Epic of Gilgamesh' who was cursed by the goddess Ishtar, King Lycaon and the human meat, or the story of Maui and the first dog (I know, it's not a werewolf but along the same lines)...there are tons of cultures around the world with similar stories that have similar themes (sounds like cliche stories in the werewolf genre, right?)

There are also a lot of different transformation triggers, ranging from anger to the full moon. Do a little research and you'll realize that if there's a well explained reason, you can use almost anything as a trigger.

So if people tell you that you can't write a werewolf in a certain way because they've never heard of it being done before....just flip them the bird and continue on. 

Werewolves and origin stories are as diverse as culture, so the only thing to be careful of when delving into culture is, don't be a culturally insensitive douche-bag.