Explanation:
Martina wanted me to try to explain my rationale for starting with Koral instead of my protagonist, Lyndon, and get your thoughts. After this, at Martina’s suggestions, I’ve provided the first page of Chapter 2, which begins Lyndon’s POV.
After that scene with the siblings in Chapter 1, an old woman and a man in a black cloak appear on Koral’s doorstep. Sensing something paranormal is about to happen, Koral gets excited and lets them in. She thinks this is her moment to finally shine as a psychic. Instead, the old woman’s hand melts, and she coughs out black, tar-like phlegm. The chapter ends when the man in the cloak tells her to find Lyndon Harker because only he can save the old woman. The next chapter begins with Lyndon and he meets Koral, who has sought him out. Koral is essentially Lyndon’s sidekick throughout the book. I switch POVs, from Lyndon and Koral (as well as three others) throughout the novel.
If I were to start with Lyndon, this scene would need to be told as back story or a flashback, both of which I’m not inclined to do so early in the story. Also, as Lyndon is not willing to believe Koral’s story of old women with melting hands and men in black cloaks in the beginning, I wanted the reader to have the information firsthand from Koral. As she is a main character, second only to Lyndon, I need the readers to empathize with her rather than think she’s insane like Lyndon initially will.
Start Chapter 2:
Lyndon Harker’s living room was covered in mounds of paper. Shredded paper to be exact. Lyndon counted dozens of tiny mounds of ripped up, cut up, and obliterated stationery scattered about the apartment. Mostly unused telephone books and out-of-date magazines. His home looked like a mole field.
“Isaac,” he sighed, shutting the front door. He glanced into the open kitchen and saw the oven clock: 3:02. His interview was in twenty-eight minutes. He didn’t have time for this. His unexpected lunch shift had cost him enough time.
He could hear his brother grunting back in his own room. Lyndon dropped his server’s apron next to the front door, crossed to Isaac’s room, and knocked.
“Hey, Eyes,” he said, using his brother’s nickname. “You in there?”
The grunting continued but there was no response. Lyndon considered this permission to enter.
Lyndon Harker’s twin brother sat on the floor with a pair of scissors in one hand and a half-annihilated book in the other. Isaac was going to town ripping the text to pieces. A sliver of his tongue poked through his lips as he sliced into at least fifty pages at a time — it was a rather thick book. Thicker, Lyndon noticed, than the destroyed phone books and magazines in the living room. . . .
“Wait! No!”
Lyndon realized what Isaac was chopping into and scrambled for it. Isaac jumped back, flinging the scissors behind him. Lyndon grabbed the remaining half of the text book from his brother, but it was too late. Mass Media in the 21st Century: 3rd Edition had been cut down the middle. It now read, “Mass Me in 3rd Ed.”
