Working on the “parachuting” issue. My friend in England suggested an introductory sentence or two for characters, so readers had a frame of reference as to who they were in the story. He said his character could have been another student, a member of staff, or anyone. My first reaction was, does it matter? I wanted to say the “who” was not as important as the “why” – why was he in the story? It wasn’t because of who he was. However, in looking at where he appears I agreed – I really did need some kind of introduction.
My friend in Ireland, who made the same comment about a different section of the book, turned out to be a slightly different problem. The “why” was “because he happened to be there” – as far as I can remember there was not much else to it. Yet his character is important because of what happened in the scene. I used the simplest solution there is – I told the reader who he was at that moment: a second former.
There are more editing challenges ahead, I’m sure, but at least the story is complete now.