Perspective

End of Reason is presented with each chapter from a specific character's perspective. This was a mechanic that I was initially shown by Michael Crichton (though George R.R. Martin would also employ this mechanic). He gave primary characters their own chapters in order to show the events from their eyes, often using their own skills and knowledge to propel story points forward.

I use this mechanic similarly, but I noticed that it can serve a different purpose.

In my childhood years, at my Grandmother's house in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, there hung a sketch of my aunt above a mantle. It was greyscale pencil, well shaded, encompassing 80's 'glamor shot' glory with a more artistic flair. It very much resembled my Aunt, but there details missing. When I noticed that it was indeed hand drawn, I had asked my Dad a question.

"If everyone had the same skill. And we all drew a picture of the same person, would they look different?"

He replied, "I think everyone looks a bit different to everyone else. So, yeah, we could all draw the same person, or thing, and they would look slightly different to each other. Or maybe even a lot different. We don't all see everything exactly the same."

It was a casual response to a casual question that actually stuck with me for a very long time.

The notion that different people can see the same thing differently was a driving proponent for why I wrote from specific character perspectives in EoR. It is why I have some points of backtracking and overlapping, in order to display events from varying points of view. I try to get the reader into characters heads, with either their limited scope of knowledge, or their raging tendencies, or to explore the Black Swamp through new eyes. It wasn't easy. And sometimes I really had to deliberate which character was going to take the lead for certain chapters. But if you, the reader, found resonance with a character (good or bad) because of this writing style, then my mission was accomplished.