I used "with matching shoes" a lot when describing Aphrodite's outfits in v2. I copied that style from someone else, but I can't seem to get used to it. Is it common?
She wore a cream-colored, wraparound dress made of lightweight silk, with matching shoes.
Just read that Star Wars 8 will be introducing an Elite Praetorian Guard for Snoke. Seriously? Why not introduce iPhones as well if they want Earth terms in a galaxy far, far away. The Praetorian Guard plays a substantial role in my book, but at least my story is based on the real Roman Empire. I wonder how long it will take before they have Legionarii, Classiarii, and Candidatii. I better get my butt in gear before they trademark the damn thing.
For those who dislike my Galactipedia articles, you'll be happy to know the one about New Bethlehem is gone. After I dropped the Trump-inspired preacher, it served no useful purpose. The key content from that article is now two paragraphs in the chapter that follows it. That leaves just The Great Collapse of Civilization and The Rise of the Julii. There will be one more soon in Act I about Prof. Hinkley and his discovery of FTL travel and the coconut-powered time machine. Those may be the only ones in the book, actually, since there's plenty of nonsense in the epigraphs from here on.
I think it depends on the dose. I tried coming off of it, but then I couldn't sleep at all, and my pain rebounded, worse than before.
The hidden injector is necessary for the story. He hits it more and more as his stress builds, and he's addicted, although I haven't written that in yet.
When he can't wear it, like during the Samurai's mud wrestling, he risks exposure. Ditto for when he didn't have enough narcotics in his hidden patch at the Colosseum.
I've been on fentanyl in the past and that stuff packs quite a wallop for such little patches. In Apollo's case, he adjusts the dosage as needed. He even surreptitiously hit the injector several times while standing in front of the Imperator.
She is sympathetic to his cause, since she secretly provides narcotics for his Aggressi-tic disease, which can only be controlled by those drugs. She risks death to her and her family for hiding his mental illness, which is a huge deal among the Julii, who live by the motto "Only the mentally fit shall rule!" Technically, though, narcotics can be explained away as being for some sort of pain condition. However, for her to further defy the Imperator, especially when there are other medical personnel involved as witnesses, is not something she would do.
Thanks. Interesting coincidence. I'm on gabapentin for chronic pain.
Got it. I think. Caps because of this:
It was your destiny to be Queen (the British Queen, rule of one).
It is your destiny to be Queen.
You will be Queen.
You'll have to do the same when you're Queen.
So, ditto for King.
Can anyone tell me if king should be capitalized in the following sentence:
You’ll have to do the same when you’re king.
I'm trying to follow K's "rule of one", so I normally capitalize references to king (e.g., the King is here), except when it's plural, non-specific, etc. In this case, it's the Regent talking to the Crown Prince, so he's not king yet. Caps?
Thanks
Yes. And does it matter if it's: "a remove frontier world, Wild West" vs. "the remote front world, Wild West".
Can someone please tell me if I need a comma before Wild West in the following sentence: Realm agents executed a raid on a suspected Aussie hideout on the remote frontier world Wild West.
I think I do.
Thanks
Dirk
Any word back from Aussie?
I think you're referring to K's recent post to my thread. He has a rape scene that he didn't "show", but his reviewers were asking him to do so.
Thanks, Amy. This is getting tricky. Crispers have an impact, like a body blow, which makes them great for blowing things up (e.g., heads, chests, transmitters, headlights, etc.). They're also great for burning things (bodies or parts thereof). The latter makes them ill-suited for bleeding. I'll have to go back and check, but the only instance I recall where I need profuse bleeding is the colonel in the prologue when his arm is blown off.
Lightsabers are supposed to burn tissue, yet I recall the scene in Star Wars, where Obi-Wan slices of the arm off the guy in the Cantina, and when they showed the arm on the ground it was covered in blood. Ditto when Luke cut off the arm of the snow creature on Hoth.
I could just say "it's space opera, stupid; roll with it." I'm leaning that way.
It's almost done. No body parts, circling birds, or clouds of buzzing flies. Over one hundred dead and injured cadets, though. This will be my most adult chapter. Others like where I destroy the planet are more like Star Wars violence, not really shown. I finally decided to keep your scene in the prologue where Ensign Ecks blows open the chests of two invaders. After a whole chapter of desperate losses, I figured the reader would root for that moment. After which I pull a K and kill off everyone who's left. The student has become the master.
Nuts. I was counting on you tell me my solution was crap, so I could justify slaughtering them all. Having written the battle scene, it comes off as silly, especially because the violence is identical (over a hundred cadets are down, the attackers pick off the ones who are left, etc.), until the reader learns "surprise", just kidding. On the plus side, I found yet another item made my Warheads Et Cetera. :-)
Nice work, Sol.
How about this as the justification for not slaughtering hundreds of cadets? It leverages the Neuer Mond Treaty and Battle Chess, which I like, but it doesn't have the punch of a mass killing.
“What I don’t understand is why they didn’t kill the cadets. Obviously, the attackers’ weapons were set for burn.”
His mother nodded. “The Imperium’s fingerprints are all over this. The assailants followed the Neuer Mond Treaty to the letter. It forbids lethal assaults against minors. The Realm has been trying to negotiate with the Imperium for the removal of the word “lethal” from the treaty for years, but the Imperium has yet to agree. We will respond with equal force, but for better or worse, this event doesn’t qualify as an act of war under the rules of Battle Chess. The dead police officers are considered combatants, making them legitimate targets.”
The other option is to keep the mass killing, but remove some of the gratuitous elements, such as dismembered limbs, circling birds, and buzzing flies.
Thoughts?
Dirk
Thanks, but the scene was too gratuitous for v3. I've been dialing down explicit violence since chapter one. The same number of people get killed, but I show only what I really need to accomplish the story goals. If I follow Neuer Mond Treaty rules, I can still burn/hurl a lot of teens without killing (m)any of them, otherwise it's an overt act of war. I'll also trample some in the resulting stampede. Law enforcement, on the other hand, are like stormtroopers, just dying to be shot.
Another option is to involve the Imperium again. They wouldn't dare kill cadets since that would be an act of war, but limited engagements, known as Battle Chess, among evenly matched members of the military are fair game, already covered by the Neuer Mond Treaty in v3. Technically, it already includes one-on-one combat among shipboard Marines. That would explain why the perpetrators use non-lethal means to attack the cadets. I'm liking this one...
I seem to have hit a brick wall in one of my chapters. I've generally reduced the violence in v3 to broaden the potential audience down to age 14 (from 16 or 18). However, I have a scene from v2 that I need to keep for story/character reasons, but the major event in that chapter is a deadly attack on a parade square filled with teenage cadets. There were some gratuitous elements from v2 I can definitely get rid of (body parts strewn about, birds circling, flies buzzing), but I can't think of a way to further reduce the violence. The attackers are pissed about the hanging of their comrades, so I'm not sure they would be merciful enough to use non-lethal weapons, especially since the guards protecting the parade will shoot to kill. Perhaps some shoot it out with the guards, while the rest set their weapons for "burn" rather than kill? Meh. I suppose all of the attackers could set their weapons for burn in spite of the fact that the guards are shooting to kill, based on the idea that they don't want to bring down the wrath of the government on their families and friends. Iffy. Another possibility is for the attackers to shoot guards to kill, but they throw some form of non-lethal explosive at the cadets in order to cause panic and show what they could have done. Again meh. Or just go with the deadly attack minus the gratuitous elements.
Thoughts?
You can't copyright a title of a book, song, or movie. You also can't copyright a phrase. That's why so many books have the same lines in them.
May the Force be with you?
Boiling fluid sounds cool. :-) I think my problem may be that I'm calling them crispers, which suggests burning. As far as I can find online, burns can leak a lot of fluid, but there's no discussion of bleeding.
I've seen the same book title appear on Amazon multiple times for different books. I'd suggest using a working title if you're concerned about someone using yours.
Amy, I have a question about burns. My characters use crispers in battle, which are basically my version of blaster rifles. In chapter one, I used one to blow the arm off a colonel, who then goes on to bleed profusely from the wound, eventually dropping dead from blood loss. Can a severe burn go on to cause profuse bleeding like that? I have a new scene to write with a lot characters getting hit. I'm wondering how much to make them bleed, if any.
Thanks
Dirk
