This is a topic I have posted a variety of ways on Twitter, but after working on my query letter I thought it would be a good idea to collect them all here into one more cohesive post. In my query letter, I mention that the story of Isarina is ultimately a story about a woman leader, underneath all of the dramatic tension and high stakes plot twist. Also, I explain that when I sat down on 19 February to write Isarina, I wrote 60,000 words in 10 days because I knew exactly what I was saying from six years of professional experience and discussion on these themes.
First a geeky note for insider knowledge for fans, I want to start with her name. Actually, when I type Isarina, autocorrect wants to change it to tsarina. That's the basis for this word evolution that created her name. I was looking at a thesaurus list of rulers for names, particulary for women rulers. My eyes played a trick on me when I saw tsarina, and I thought I saw an I instead of a T, and I thought it was a word I had never heard of before. When I realized that thesaurus had not made up a new word, it seemed obvious that it would be a great name for my character.
Now I want to get into deeper literarly inspiration for Isarina, and decisions I made about building this character. One source of tension for her is what to do about her brother, who serves as the commander of her Royal Guard, but is not someone she particularly enjoys being around. The character of Darius I thought about expanding on the portrayal by Mary Renault in the Persian Boy of this entitled abusive king, but he was never given power of an Empire in my world. When many other members of their family are killed in battle and Isarina steps into her role of succession, she has a mentality of assigning people into roles that match their skillsets, and Darius is someone who gets bored with prolonged periods of being in court and prefers to be on the battlefield where he can be overtly aggeressive. However, there is no longer any buffer of other familiar family members around him, and she is the one who now bears the responsibility of how to "handle" him.
An editor working with me was discussing how Isarina handles tension. The editor thought about Queen Elizabeth who is stoic and never shows any emotion in public, which I do not find to be a good inspiration. It might be helpful to consider the role of a head of state, but aside from that modern example, I do not find the current Queen Elizabeth II to be a helpful inspiration. In graduate school, I wrote a paper on leadership based on Queen Elizabeth I, and I considered the dynamics surrounding her when I wrote Isarina. QE1 spent her reign trying to proove too hard why she was strong enough to retain power as a woman. She had two men around her, Cecil and Raleigh. Cecil had his own agenda when he advised her, but she may have been dependent on doing what he wanted to gain from the political leverage he brought to her corner to prevent her Court from overthrowing her. While Raleigh appears to be someone she considered an intellectual equal, which the recent film adaptations with Cate Blanchett have explored, she would never allow herself to marry him. In her mind perhaps he would not bring added political leverage she needed. However, she also refused to marry for political alliances to other European royal families. She was afraid, quite contrary to Queen Victoria, that motherhood or being seen as subservient to a man would also weaken her control and claim to power.
Isarina has two men in her life who I drew those similarities between Cecil and Raleigh, but I wanted Isarina to be stronger and more confident in her power. Her political advisor is there to support and serve her, not use her as a puppet to play out his vision for the Empire. He is there to advise her how she is to play out her own vision. Her love interest and intellectual equal she marries and raises to a position in government to support her, not let others view him as the ruler in her stead. Also in contrast with QE1, Isarina was not chosen because there were no other options. She was chosen instead of all of her siblings who might have been elligible, and her parents, members of the royal council, and the religious leaders were all in agreement that she represented the ideals of what they felt their god instructed them for good leadership for prosperity.
I always say rather than drawing on literary or modern depictions of any of the Queens of England, Henry V was a much stronger inspiration for Isarina. Like Hal, she was expected to succeed to the throne. There were no surprises. Henry V also handled leadership both in court and in battle, with both control and passion. Those who dared to test him knew exactly where they stood when they had crossed the line, and were delivered lines leaving no question whether it was acceptable or would be tolerated by the crown. He was confident in his pursuit of love, even where it might benefit him politically, and never questioned whether he was worthy or qualified to hold power. Yet, he was still able to relate to people on all tiers of his subjects, and hold the inn keeper of his youth to the same expectation for loyalty which he held his other members of the nobility. This level of confidence is a much better model for Isarina as she steps onto the page, for readers to expect how she will handle the dynamics of power.
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