Emily Goes to the Range

The hero of my second book is an ex-Army Ranger-turned-cop. There’s one scene where Tyler goes shooting with his friend Micah (the hero from book 1). It’s a turning point in the book, where Tyler finally confronts the reality of his feelings for Erica. The scene was dangerously close to bordering on mushy, so I figured I’d send the characters to the range where they could hash things out in a more male setting. Under hail of gunfire seemed pretty good.

Since I’ve only been shooting once, and that was about seven years ago, I figured it would be a good idea to check it out again. Actually, it was Jason’s idea. I think it was retribution for having to listen to the emotional heart-flutterings of my characters for the last several months. Off we went to throw some lead downrange, so I could place myself in the scene—remember the sights, smells, and . . .

Oh yeah, sounds.

It’s not easy to communicate with plugs in your ears as you’re blowing through boxes of ammunition.

“How are Tyler and Micah going to talk to each other?” I yelled to my husband. “This could be a problem!”

He shrugged. “They can holler.”

“These are men. It’s emotional stuff. They don’t talk about it, let alone holler it to each other over hail of gunfire.”

Yeah. I’ll be doing some tweaking on that chapter.



I started with a Browning Buckmark
(I'm told that's a .22 pistol. Fun and easy to shoot.)

Pretty good grouping for a newbie, I think.

Then I moved to a Glock .40 subcompact.
Much more kick. I'm not posting the target results from that one.