Many problems can occur when you are making your own brief – even harder than an already made brief. I had to pull apart my idea, which is to make a historically accurate book that contains illustrations to describe certain events in the book. That is one of the theoretical problems: can I really make my book historically accurate, or will I have to compromise some of the history to fit in my story?
But why do I want to make a historically accurate book? Why can I not just go about my own thing, basing it loosely on our Viking ancestors? Well, I wanted to create this book to change peoples’ opinion on the Vikings and show their true side, not this romanticised side that media always wants to show. Another reason why I want to make this book is to include real life events that happened when the Vikings were thriving. Yes – the TV show shows some real life events, the attack on Lindisfarne for example – yet some things they do include can waver people, thinking that the stuff they are being shown in the show in what actually happened. Rollo, the duke of Normandy was not related to Ragnar Lodbrok in any shape or form, had no connections to man, yet the show wanted to make them brothers to show historical figures. In my book I will make sure to stick to the facts – well, the facts that seem reliable.
What becomes evident is will my book ever be historically accurate? No one from the time the Vikings were still reigning are still alive, only leaving behind sagas and books filled with propaganda; can you really trust them? Will I be able to make my own assumptions of the events that happened, tailoring them to make my story more engaging? But then my story will not be historically accurate, only following events which have been documented. What I can do to overcome this is researching other information, like their clothing style as some clothing will still be reserved from their time, and other information that will piece my story together.
Now the audience is quite tricky as I have to think about the different aspects that will be included within my book. Which audience will mostly be attracted to a book heavily influenced by the Vikings? That is obvious: the people who enjoy history in general. But I did some research before this, filtering to see which Viking influenced books are on the market today; no luck. The only book that is popular – even having its own TV show adaptation due to popularity – was The Last Kingdom, a book about a young boy who’s family gets murder, the Vikings then taking the boy under their wing and raising them as their own. It is certainly a problem. If books to do with the Vikings are very unpopular, only some reaching fame, will my book suffer the same fate? How do I engage a larger demographic to like my book? This then resulted in me thinking about maybe adding fantasy – as that is the most popular genre – along with romance, though both of these genres will not dominate my book, it will still be enough to get people to check out my book.
How will I present my book? There are many ways I could approach this, the obvious being making a physical book or making an e-book. Obviously making a book would take a lot of time, while the e-book is simple and much easier to control. But I did research, looking to see what the audience prefer, along with asking people on my facebook to get primary feedback and secondary feedback. Most preferred the physical copy of the book, but how can I get the people who enjoy e-books to also read my book? I could make it accessible online for those who want to read it, maybe posting it on a Wattpad or Achieve Of Our Own; both popular freelance book hosting sites
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