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Re: Involuntary reactions... as I've hinted before, they don't bother me as a reader, but I don't see them as useful. if a writer could kind of reach out of the book and ask me what I prefer, I'd say I didn't care what the reactions were as much as getting on with the story

involuntary:

Equivalent:

To me, the above are the same: They both force surprise onto me. It's like an exclamation mark used where there is insufficient context to infer it.

Preferred:

That said, Many mass market high selling authors have sentient body parts. Annette Marie in particular sets records with "My hand reached up to take the letter"and "My feet walked me to the altar" all over the place

Nice

Funny... the site doesn't let me continue a message once I've replied. There's no way to do a followup reply until you reply back

Naw, I get stuck all the time. Usually when I do, I muck around with [L o r r a i n e]'s story because it's just a senseless man-vs-alien free-for-all and can be written on autopilot. She's kind of my healing character when the others break my head.

I switched tracks though, because I'd sorta like to have J3nn@ hit print in December. That timeline is a little ambitious, but I think I can do it or come close to it

"Bad" was about the last thing I thought. My boss would likely have agreed though he might have asked what it had to do with the sales report I was supposedly working on.

Images of Africain American women and women of colour in positions of strength can be hard to find. Best to just accept what you get or rewrite the scene

In reply to your other question, I mostly troll deviantart for royalty free or stock images.

I don't think cursing will work unless you're Heather

I'm near the end of the marketing phase for [K i m]. This phase always seems to feel like starting a fire. You rub sticks together, kinda fan the sparks, before long, there's a tiny flame going and you have to feed it baby fuel until the blaze is satisfying. Sometimes when the fire doesn't burn hot you ask yourself if you used woo much wind or too much fuel, or maybe you're supposed to do it on one foot. Who knows. Anyway, she's at the "sparks" stage so time for the fuel (GoodReads Giveaway) and see if it catches.

While I wait for that pot to boil, I'm back to whacking away at development projects. I also find marketing interesting but exhausting. Zzzz.

oops posted by accident. Editing.

re your italics question, I would like to side-step it and mention there are different kinds of 3rd person narrators, which affects your choice.

I often use "3rd person subjective" which is wildly unpopular on here and will get you told off. My [L 1] short is one such story. Your 3rd person subjective narrator can sit on the character's shoulder and narrate character thoughts seamlessly without needing to switch to italics. It's borderline having the character narrate the story.

Comparatively, [K i m]'s story is 3rd person omniscient so there's a bit more distant. I'f I was going to do inner thoughts, I would definitely switch to italics or risk what Charles called "an uninvited intrusion into the narration". I might also use "(italic)XYZ, she thought" [which Temple would correctly label filtering]. I also use "likely" and its class of words in my 3rd person omniscient to show the narrator is only guessing.

I rarely describe a character from their own pov. I think Tia hits chapter 16 or so before she gets one

Actually, it's not the word module I'm chasing, but rather the words around it.

Consider:

This tells us very little about what's going on

This tells us the module is providing energy

This tells us the module is a tool and it (probably) requires energy

Just seeking a sprinkling of words to help maintain the fictive trance. Otherwise, I'm stopping to try to think what's going on.

I think you've discovered the same with aliens. Some readers are happy to hear a few details and make up the alien around them. Some readers need coaching. Some need coaching and reminders. I'm probably in that last group. If I was reading a star wars book and saw "The Ewok wagged its tail" I'm off to google to find out if Ewoks have tails. Or, at the very least, I stop reading for a few seconds and think about it.

This it why I've suggest replacing module with something. It might help you see it with the confused reader's eye. "Bob picked up the electric something" will probably jump out at you and you'll know what words to put around it to clear the confusion