Judson Roberts: Serve the Reader

What guidelines do I personally use to steer my course as a writer? I try to always keep in mind what I hope to experience as a reader—what I'm hoping to find, whenever I open a new novel and begin to read a new story.

For me, my most wonderful, memorable experiences as a reader have been those times when I was totally swept into a story. The world it was set in was so vividly portrayed it became real, a place I could see, could experience in my mind, and the characters came alive for me—I cared about them, I gloried with them in their triumphs, and wept for them at their tragedies. For those all too brief hours while I was immersed in the book, the life I lived was not my own, but that of the characters and the world of the story.

Some of my favorite books, ones that have taken me on that kind of journey, include The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien, and Shogun, by James Clavell. Shogun gave me the additional wonderful experience of learning about a past culture and period of history I'd previously known nothing about. I believe that understanding history is vital, because what has happened in the past shapes, often in subtle ways, what is occurring in the world today, and what will come to pass in the future.

My hope, in writing the Strongbow Saga, is to give readers all of those same kinds of experiences I most treasure as a reader. I strive to create stories in which they will vicariously experience the adventures of Halfdan, a young Dane, as he struggles to find his way in the face of treachery and danger in the ninth-century world of the Vikings; that they will be able to really see the world he lives in, to understand the fascinating culture of a people who valued above all else courage, honor, and integrity; and will learn at least a bit about the many ways, now mostly forgotten, in which the Viking peoples shaped the history of the Western World.

My advice: As a writer, strive to be a storyteller and serve well those who will read your work.

Judson Roberts
Author of The Strongbow Saga, Book One: Viking Warrior (available now in paperback!) and The Strongbow Saga, Book Two: Dragons from the Sea—pre-order your copy!