In almost all the stories I’ve written so far, both lead characters have been conventionally attractive people. I cycle through different hair colors, I give them different eyes and voices and distinguishing features. But I always default to woman with slim waists, long hair and breasts big enough to feature in their own paragraph if needed…

So I guess I thought I’d try something different this time. Why not have a more voluptuous heroine?

I myself am on the skinny end. I’m short and have lived all my life knowing that when I buy a cute size 6 body con dress online, it will fit me every time. I’m not afraid of short shorts, my thighs never chafe and I probably save loads of money on body lotion. Don’t be jealous though: I’m also the woman who needs a push up bra to even pass myself off as small chested, and my body type’s invariably the one most strenuously excluded from those Dove everyone’s-beautiful ad campaigns. I’ve been told more times than I can count that my figure is “boyish.”

I’m pretty content with my body, but truth be told, I’ve always admired women with figures the exact opposite of mine. I’m picturing Salma Hayek or what’s-her-name from Mad Men. You know what I mean: gigantic bosoms, big ol’ hips, and a teeny waist in between somehow holding it all together. Top it all off with big flouncy hair, bee-stung lips, great big doe eyes and you have a woman who’s just …too much. In the best way possible.

So, I wrote Becky to be all that. Whereas I’m mousy, she’d be a brassy redhead. While I’m a little aloof, I wanted Becky to be loud, in your face and charismatic as hell. I’ve often been in a store and picked up a pair of earrings or a scarf that I loved but I knew would just stick out like a sore thumb on me. What kind of a woman could pull off super dangly earrings in several shades of pink and a silk scarf printed with Egyptian leopards? Well, Becky, that’s who.

I know that not every large woman is a diva and not every skinny-ma-link is a wallflower like me. But screw it, it’s my story, and that’s what I went with. I decided to model Becky off someone I know in real life, let’s call her Real Life Becky. Real Life Becky was the kind of person that just had her own gravity. Seriously. Whatever room she was in, she instantly became the center point. She was big – fat, actually, and used that word happily to describe herself – and had a larger than life personality to match. People loved her.

She was always wearing something outrageously colorful, always talking loudly, gesturing with her hands, laughing so hard her chest would jiggle and send all her many necklaces rattling. I’ll be lying if I say she was everyone’s cup of tea, but the men who liked her, liked her a lot. As a beanpole who had physiologically never experienced jiggling of any kind, I think I understood their admiration. Her body was just so in your face, so there. It was a thing of wonder. In appearance, in movement, she was the furthest from a man you could possibly be.

I usually associate bigness with men and daintiness with women, but Becky showed me that there was another possibility, another flavor of femininity. Her nails were always manicured and she wore millions of rings, and there was something so graceful in the way they tapered down to points from her ample arms. She had big, pouty lips. The few times I dressed up and went out with Becky, she almost seemed like a different creature altogether, like a bird of paradise. Real Life Becky was a riot. She had a kind of force field around her, and there was never a dull moment when Becky was telling a story.

But, since I’m not writing total fantasy here, I wanted to make Story Becky like Real Life Becky in one important respect: like most women, she had a complicated body image. Her weight bothered her and she was constantly trying to get the willpower to slim down. I wanted Story Becky to show that no matter how awesome and accomplished you are, no matter how large and in charge, or how many people admire you, that you’re not immune from feeling down about how you look occasionally.

I thought, I don’t want to make Story Becky “curvy” or full figured, I want to make her fat. Not like a magazine pinup. Not like all the body positivity models in corsets and heels and red lipstick. But fat. And I wanted Hugo to be madly in lust with her not because he was some fat fetishist nor because he was secretly hoping she’d change. I wanted to make her fat just because she was fat. I didn’t want her to be a statement about how we should all love ourselves. But I also didn’t want her to be a figure of ridicule, warning against the perils of obesity. I just wanted her to be fat in the same way I decided she should have red hair. In other words, I wanted her to be like Real Life Becky: a genuine, complicated human being with a genuine, complicated relationship to herself and the world. Who happened to be fat.

Besides, I use “little” way too much to describe my heroines, it would be a good challenge to push out of that comfort zone, wouldn’t it?

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