As Lara is the narrator, I had to have her never think about her sisters, because obviously she is aware they are alive. Readers were still going to go through most of the novel believing Lara a cold-hearted b*tch for murdering her sisters, and that risked a lot of people DNFing before I was able to redeem her. It was this version that went to my editor and to my agent, but from my agent’s feedback in particular, I determined that this still wasn’t going to work for two reasons. So I decided to rewrite the beginning with a few clues that Lara had only faked her sisters’ death, with the reveal that they were still alive happening when Marylyn showed up at the end. Even if I could, readers would spend the bulk of the novel hating her, which really wasn’t ideal. I did start writing the novel that way, but very quickly I realized that I couldn’t create a redemption arc that would allow readers to forgive Lara for the selfish/unprovoked murder of eleven of her sisters. Concept Lara was a level up on the ruthlessness scale from Published Lara.
I had this chapter sitting in my head for YEARS before I sat down to write this novel and the version you’ve all read is identical to that vision with one rather large exception: in my vision, Lara actually killed her sisters. Not only is it exciting and shocking, it clearly establishes the conflict and the stakes, as well as gives readers a great taste of Lara’s character. The Bridge Kingdom has my favorite first chapter of all my novels. The Broken Ones (The Malediction Trilogy: Prequel).Warrior Witch (The Malediction Trilogy, #3).Hidden Huntress (The Malediction Trilogy, #2).Stolen Songbird (The Malediction Trilogy, #1).The Endless War (The Bridge Kingdom, #4).
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