Roping a Character

As some of you may know, Coauthor and I have resumed work on a story we started (together with three others) ten years ago. We had an extra challenge with one of those three avatars in that the original author had continued writing her and we didn't want duplication.

To be true to the character, she had to be a highly competent member of the team, who does excellent work with horses and has skills that could be seen as entertainment. I confess to having looked at the qualifications, and thought immediately of an old friend that I used to watch about campus, playing with her lasso.

So, I contacted her for cultural and technical advice, and she gave me some excellent search terms for the sorts of "tricks" our new Eira should be able to do.

First suggestion was to look up Will Roger's silent film The Ropin' Fool.

And she told me about the The Ocean Wave.

Then I found this guy who talks his way through each trick, which is invaluable.

But her best advice was to look up Monty Montana, who is more like what you'd expect Eira to be outside the ranch itself.

So, yeah, there's the basics of the character's habits.

If you want to see the rest of her culture and background, I have a post on my other blog.