A Matter of Perspective by Jeff Salyards

A few months back, I was lucky enough to be sent a review copy of Jeff Salyards’s first novel, . As well as an excellent premise, what really struck me was the rather unusual form of narrative that Jeff chose to tell his tale. For those who haven’t read the book, Jeff’s protagonist is a scribe who is commissioned by a foreign military to document a mission that our narrator is in the dark about. Because it is in the first person, we’re as much in the dark as he is. It’s in the first person and this, in addition to the way character interactions are handled, makes it feel more intimate than most fantasy I’ve read to date. Upon finishing the book, I got in touch with Jeff and asked him to tell us a bit more about why he went with this form of narrative and how he went about weaving a tale using it. Whether you’ve read his novels or not, I think you’re going to enjoy Jeff’s answer…

The narrator of Bloodsounder’s Arc is a nerd. Some might think of him as an endearing nerd that grows on you as he himself grows. Others might think of him as a truly infuriating nerd that should get offed in as horrible and protracted a fashion possible so maybe someone else can step in and record the tale. But there is no getting around the fact that Arkamondos begins the tale as a naïve, bookish, inexperienced, reticent, rambling nerd. Inquisitive and decent as well, but hardly heroic or even anti-heroic.

There have been fictional and non-fictional accounts of chroniclers accompanying military companies before (The Black Company with its cynical surgeon/annalist Croaker, and The Chronicles of Froissart with its uptight nobleman journeying with armies during The Hundred Year’s War immediately spring to mind). But I was always intrigued by the idea of having a chronicler who was not embedded at all, not of the same class or ilk of the men and women he travels amongst, but an outsider who signed up to record the exploits of a military company without having the slightest idea what he was getting himself into, totally out of his depth.

It’s hard to be more outside than Arki is at the beginning of Scourge of the Betrayer. The Syldoon soldiers he joins are educated and smart, so there’s that slim commonality, but they are also coarse, crude, rude, jaded, and almost always brutally pragmatic, whereas Arki has rarely seen anything more violent than a barroom brawl, and has a worldview (limited as it is) and moral compass that just doesn’t jive with the Syldoon approach to things at all. I wanted to play with those tensions and explore how someone like Arki would cope with crass and occasionally cruel comrades. In most respects, they are worlds apart, and I wanted that contrast to be stark.

What’s more, Captain Killcoin and his company are involved in a great deal of political intrigue, but because Arki isn’t one of them in the beginning and hasn’t earned their trust or respect, no one is in any kind of a hurry to reveal much of anything to him throughout a good chunk of book one.

The idea was always that Arki would begin the series outside the circle looking in, and only gradually and painfully prove himself enough to become privy to what is really going on and understand what the stakes are. And in the meantime, he would be questioning everything, including his choice to go on this dusky adventure as he was equally repulsed and fascinated by these men and women he chose to accompany.

First person point of view is by its very nature limited, locking the reader into seeing the world from that single vantage point. Some readers don’t like first person, and I suspect the exclusive perspective is often a big reason. In books with multiple third-person POVs, if you don’t like one frame of reference, you’ll be sure to pop into another that could be more interesting and appealing. With first person, you have one shot to capture reader interest or sympathy—if they don’t like the narrator, especially early on, well, out of luck, they are on to the next book.

So, to recap. I chose a somewhat annoying scribe for the narrator, prone to long bouts of reflection and internal monologues as he records, both horrified and mystified as he tries to make sense of things. I created a party dynamic that intentionally prohibited his access to the juicy details, so the reader learns everything at the same pace he does, which isn’t especially fast. And I had several characters keep him at arm’s length until he had done proved himself. Looking at it from this perspective, this is potentially a really lousy strategy with the possibility of alienating some readers, especially on the front end of the story.

But I really wanted to see if I could pull it off, if it was possible to lure the reader in through the strength of character interactions, observations from a nervous narrator way out of his depth, the clash of sensibilities, and what I hoped was the compelling main character, Captain Braylar Killcoin. My hope was always that if I could do that, the payoff in book two would make the journey worthwhile, because Arki finally starts coming into his own, begins to truly grow, and proves himself enough that the other characters feel more comfortable not only revealing more of what the heck is really happening, but their backstories, their compulsions, their doubts, as some tentative friendships form and Ark truly gets accepted into the company. The narrative scope grows as well, from intimate and tightly focused in Scourge, to more sweeping and expansive in Veil of the Deserters and continuing that trend with Chains of Heretic, the third and final book in the series.

The goal was always to make it feel rewarding, both for Arki and the reader, when he finally makes some headway, takes initiative, shows some spunk, stands up for himself. Sure, he would still fumble and flounder and ramble occasionally. And sure, some of his initiative would have disastrous consequences that he would have to wrestle with. But I wanted his growth to feel real, organic, not something dictated solely by plot machinations, but something that occurs in spite of not knowing what the dang plot is initially.

I knew this was a gamble, and wouldn’t work for everyone. There were times, both in writing Scourge and after it published, when I second guessed myself. But now that Veil of the Deserters is out, and the reception has been better than I could have ever hoped for, I’m glad I took the risks. They might have been a little foolish, but hey, it is me we’re talking about.

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