A tradition that I started with my first Joshua Jones novel is that the first chapter is always zero. If you’re a programmer, you get this right away. If you’re not, you may be wondering why I do that.
In programming, an array of “things” is always counted with a zero: zero, one, two, three. Here’s a good definition of the programming construct called array. Okay, so arrays start with zero because they are referencing a spot in memory. Got it. So, why do I start with Chapter 0? Because, chapters are but a string of similar items contained in a book. So you could define a book in programming terms as an array of chapters.
In the above image, I’ve created a book array of chapters and it starts with 0 and ends with 7. I then add another chapter to the book array, by referencing its place in the array. It’s in the 9th spot, counting from 0. When I print out the book array, it now has 8 chapters.
Looking at it like that, it makes perfect sense. Think like a programmer. Because the Protagonist is a programmer and this is a Cybercrime novel, not a Police Procedural.
