The Importance of a Belt Buckle

I write this leading on somewhat from my earlier article “Bringing the Vikings to Life”, as I wish to talk about the experience I have had in injecting detail and description to my writings. Now, firstly my background as a writer is as a game designer, writing either fiction based on a world that I particularly liked or later on writing the script for the adventure itself, either as background lore, quest detail or interactions between the players and the denizens of the land.

Part of this has meant my developing style is very blunt and concise, with a heady amount of action driving the plot forward. Working in such a visual medium as this, it was usually better to leave the optical features to the artists, because as they say, a picture tells a thousand words. Now, that I am writing a book it has come about from frequent critiques that I need to add more detail and atmosphere to the text, as I can no longer rely on the visual feedback from the graphics.

My experiences of this have been widespread, ranging from finding certain aspects really interesting (the weather and environment in particular) and therefore easier to write about. For some reason I find it very easily to properly visualise and then put into words a description of weather and its effects, be it bright sunlight on a mid-summers eve to a blizzard in the middle of winter, however detail of the land is rather more difficult. This is part of the reason for my attempts to get as much visual feedback on the Greenlandic terrain, which led to my discovery of the real Hvalsey in the article mentioned above.

Then there is the part of descriptive text which I find near impossible, and this most likely stems from my own (very) casual attitude to the subject, and that is clothing. I realise that what people wear can be as important to their overall characterisation as their actions, but I find it nearly impossible to connect the two. Does it really matter if Gorran wears a blue tunic or a green one? What about Thorvald’s trousers today? Is it enough that I simply dress up the characters in personality and then let the reader imagine for themselves what exactly it is they wear. I hope so, because this is what I intend to do.

This leads very nicely on to my final point, the nature of novel writing is a very different beast to master compared with script or lore scribbling, and it requires different skills and techniques to pull off; but should I really mould my entire writing style to suit this, or would my book come out as stronger if I write along my strengths rather than weaknesses? Perhaps I should start to concentrate more on Leif’s voyage of discovery and worry less about the shape of Erik’s belt buckles...