This summer hasn’t given me a lot of writing space, but I do have time to think a lot about the main character in the book I’ve just begun to write, trying to find a way into understanding her.
For my most recent completed book (the one that’s currently on sub), I developed my two main characters through their passions, their interests, their work: a musician and a mathematician. It was easy to find my way in to my musician character, since I’m a musician (and so is my wife). The way a musician might understand the world, the effects of practicing an instrument on the body and mind, what brings joy and what’s frustrating—all that instinctively made sense to me.
My mathematician was harder, because though I appreciate math from the outside, math and I are not super close. I talked to some friends who do study math and physics, and shared some of the scenes where the character actually uses her skills, trying to get a sense of how to create “fantasy math” for her: how would such and such kind of problem be solved without computers? What steps would she need to go through in order to approximate a solution? Though my fantasy math is pretty loose, doing that bit of research gave me enormous respect for what math minds accomplish and how they see the world.
In the new book I’m working on, I kept returning to my main character’s weaponry. Picking up her weapons again is an important part of the story, because she’s been away from the field for many years. Unlike my other characters, who so far have used swords or other combat weapons (or some very unconventional kinds of magic), a sword makes no sense for her. The dangers in her life are not able to be met with swords; she doesn’t fight human beings. In a vast world of magic gone awry, she uses a bow and arrow.
I found myself looking up various pieces of archery equipment, wondering what it would be like for someone who was a skilled archer in their teens to pick it up again nearly twenty years after stopping. What would she feel about giving up archery? Would she be able to shoot again immediately? How does using the bow and arrow affect the body and the mind?
Archery has always fascinated me, but I’m a world away from flat-chested, and I assumed I just…couldn’t, or at least not well. That old myth about the Amazons cutting their breasts off must have really hit me hard, or maybe it was all those art deco pieces with incredibly slender women shooting bows in artistic fashion, or the very not-like-my-body-types of my favorite anime archers, Kagome and Kikyo from InuYasha. But my fictional character is a woman around forty who is muscular and stocky, and like most of us she’s added body mass since she was seventeen. If it would be hard for her to pull a bow, I’d need to know.
So I looked around on Reddit, discovered that plenty of people didn’t think a large cup size meant anything for archery, and then asked on Threads if anyone knew of a place in my area to find an archery lesson for adults. Threads came through! I found an archery range near me that had an intro group lesson in July, and signed up, fully prepared to make an utter fool of myself in the name of art.
Reader, it was fantastic.
I may have found a new hobby.
I learned which arm wears the guard, which is important, where to set the arrow, what it feels like to pull the bow and let go of the string and hit the target (which I did quite frequently, like a miracle), and then to do it over again and again and again. It was lovely. It was incredibly peaceful. It actually quieted my mind.
The balance of the bow against the wrist, and the feel of my thumb beneath my jaw as I held the string to my cheekbone (no problem at all around the chest, even without a chestguard). The rhythm of stance, nock, pull, aim, release. Our instructor reminding us not to think too long, not to aim for more than five seconds. The sound of the arrows, like loud raindrops at the beginning of a storm, as first one person, then another, then everyone all at once, releases an arrow and strikes the targets.
And I can confirm: a woman, even an older, heavier woman, can shoot relatively well, even if she’s out of practice (or was never in it). I imagine my character loving the feel of her bow in her hands again, being reminded of where she came from, and where she wants to go. Can’t wait to try again!
Book Report
And finally, a little book recommendation: this month I devoured the full Kindom Trilogy by Bethany Jacobs: These Burning Stars, On Vicious Worlds, and This Brutal Moon. It was sapphic space opera about vengeance and obsession on a grand, dark, twisty, complex and unpredictable scale, and I loved it. Highly recommend if you’re in a space opera mood!