Book Tour Q&A: Salt in the Wound by Benjamin Aeveryn

Today we're taking part in the book tour organized by Escapist Book Company for Salt in the Wound by Benjamin Aeveryn! Continue reading for the book blurb and a Q&A with the author.

---

About the book

Our world is lost to time. Only our myths remain.

Once rain was a symbol of hope and harvest. Now it brings only death.

Humanity survives in sheltered cities and canvas-covered towns. Travel between these patches of safety is rare and dangerous.

It’s what Galahad lives for.

But while seeking a lost cache of salt—a fortune he plans to use to build a shelter over his hometown—Galahad is betrayed by the friends he holds dearest.

They leave him for dead. Unfortunately for them, he lives.

Torn between seeking justice or revenge, Galahad knows one thing for certain: that treasure is his, and he’ll do anything to reclaim it.

---

On to the interview...!

Thank you so much for joining us for this Q&A! We’ll start off with one of our standard podcast opening questions–tell us something great that’s happened recently.

How recently is recent? I got engaged in October and am still feeling pretty giddy about it.

What are you currently reading or what’s up next on your TBR? What made you pick up this book?

Just started reading Glen Cook’s The Black Company. I picked up the trilogy in a sale a while back and am only just getting around to it. I’ve heard this series was ahead of its time, and informed a lot of the later grimdark movement, so looking forward to reading it from a “history of genre” perspective as well as recreationally.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what inspired you to start writing?

I started writing at around 4 years old, so it’s difficult to say what first inspired me. Lord of the Rings was fairly foundational, which I read when I was 8. A lot of core memories are from camping in the English countryside while I was growing up and that influences my work a lot.

How do you spend your free time when you’re not reading or writing? Do you have any hobbies or interests that you can talk to us about?

I play videogames a bit, but not as much as I used to. I enjoy cooking. I used to be super into coffee, but I can’t really stomach the caffeine anymore, which is a shame.

Who are your favorite current writers and who are your greatest influences?

Okay, let’s give this a try. Favourite current writers: Amal El Mohtar, Patrick Rothfuss, Joe Abercrombie, Susanna Clarke, Arkady Martine, Emily St. John Mandel, Brandon Sanderson. Biggest influences would be all of the above, plus Ursula Le Guin, Tolkien, Andrzej Sapkowski, Kentaro Miura.

If you could collaborate with any one author, who would it be and why?

I think I could learn a lot collaborating with Amal El Mohtar.

What is one thing that you love about the current state of SFF and what is one thing that you wish you saw more of?

I love the variety and the imagination. These past couple of decades the scene really feels like it’s opened up as to what’s possible.

I wish I saw more appreciation of sentence-level craft and style. It’s something SFF used to be pretty great at, but I’m seeing less attention paid to prose lately. I think that’s a shame.

What is one book you want to shout about to the world? What about it makes you love it so much?

The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin. It fundamentally changed my outlook on the world; that’s a pretty big deal.

What are your favorite types of stories? Of characters?

I like to be in the moment. I want stories to be emotional and crafted with a fundamental mastery of style. I need a sense of energy or I get bored. I enjoy stories about people and nature. Discovery and longing. I treasure being enthralled over being surprised.

How much do you plan when you write? What’s your writing process like?

I used to be a discovery writer but over the years, as I studied structure and craft, I found myself outlining more and more. These days I’ll do a few pages of handwritten notes for worldbuilding etc, then a 2-3 page outline for the novel. Each chapter gets a short paragraph explanation. I usually start the process using MICE quotient to get a feel for which elemental genres I’m working with and where my resolutions need to land.

Is this your first book? If so, what lessons have you learned from writing it? If not, what lessons did you learn from writing earlier books that you brought into this one?

Salt in the Wound is my 9th full length novel. I’ve also written 3 or 4 novellas and dozens of short stories. It would take too long to go through everything I’ve learnt through practicing over the years, but I’ll say that I didn’t feel happy with my work until around book 7. It took a good few years to find my “voice”.

What do you think characterizes your writing style?

Dreamlike descriptions, raw characterization, naturalistic dialogue, rhythmic prose.

How much of yourself do you write into your stories?

Depends on the book, though I’d say everything is in some way informed by my experiences. Especially emotional moments. Some characters have a little more of me in them than others. Fay’s experiences in Salt in the Wound have a lot of my personal life experience in them.

What comes first to you when you’re writing, the world, the characters, or the storyline?

Often these will come separately and the order varies. There won’t really be a book until I smash several ideas together. I will say that the world informs the characters and the characters inform the plot. For instance, I knew I wanted to write a revenge story, but I needed to develop the world and characters more before I could pin down exactly how that would play out.

They say to never judge a book by its cover, but a cover is still a marketing tool that helps sell books. Can you tell us about the idea behind the cover of your book?

I didn’t want to spoil anything from later in the book, so the cover depicts a scene from the very first chapter. My artist, Houssame Khairane, is really great and I gave him a fairly rough brief with a lot of leeway to do his thing. We went through a few revisions to get the feel of the piece right, and I couldn’t ask for a better end result.

Can you give us an elevator pitch for your book?

A post-apocalyptic fantasy with folkloric monsters, magic whisky, and bloodshed over a fortune in salt.​

Describe your book in 3 adjectives.

Gritty, pastoral, anachronistic.

How different is the final version of this book from the first draft?

Honestly very similar. Mostly just tighter. Not a great deal of structural changes were needed.

Can you tell us a little bit about your characters? What are your favorite kinds of characters to write?

I like damaged people doing their best.

If you could choose one worldbuilding detail (a place, ability, or creature, for example) from your book to exist in the real world, what would it be and why?

The “monsters” from British folklore. Scary though they might be, I just think it would be cool if we shared the world with creatures like that.

In your opinion, what kind of reader would like this book?

Someone who likes gritty books with naturalistic characters and a tight plot. People who read for exposition might struggle, as that’s not something I frontload. The world is revealed only as much as the characters see, so that’s something to bear in mind.

Also, fans of The Last of Us, The Witcher, and The First Law will probably love it.

What would you like readers to take away from this book?

I’d like them to think about it afterwards, spend some time unpacking the themes. My favourite kind of books are the ones that really get you after you’ve turned the last page. The kind you keep coming back to in your mind.

Do you have a favorite quote from your book that you can share with us? What about this quote in particular makes it your favorite?

I truly don’t have a favourite! But when pressed I suppose I’m quite proud of the first flashback chapter. It’s written from the point of view of the protagonist when he was 8 years old. Capturing that sense of childhood wonderment was a fun process. Here’s the opening lines of the chapter:

Rain were fallin’ real hard. It drum-drummed on the canvas. Other kids was scaredful, but not Galahad. It put him to jumping and twirling. All fulla energy. In his dance, he stumbled to the edge of town. There was the awning. And the beyond. And the rain.

Is there anything you can tell us about any current projects you’re working on?

Currently drafting the sequel to Salt in the Wound. Also in the early stages of planning my next series.

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer a few questions for us! Do you have any parting thoughts or comments you’d like to leave for our readers?

I think I’d just like to say happy reading and stay out of the rain!

And finally, where can you be found on the internet if our readers want to hear more from you?

benjaminaeveryn.com or follow me on Twitter @BenjaWrites

---

Where to buy the book:

Universal Link: https://mybook.to/saltinthewound