According to the Funeral Fund Blog: There is no minimum safe depth at which a body must be interred. The depth of an in-ground burial can vary from 1.5 to 12 feet, sometimes even deeper. Individual jurisdictions specify their own minimum depths, but most are nowhere near six feet. The origin of the idiom “Six feet under”.
I went with a meter.
A meter perhaps?
For those who read Turning Point, I decided I have too little use for Billie going forward, so Joseph and Paul bury her on consecrated (church) ground to force her out. I still got to use the (partial) head twisting from the Exorcist, the raspy voice, and speaking in tongues. Since she's technically not destroyed, she could make an occasional reappearance, although I doubt it. I didn't bother republishing for points since it's a minor change.
Dave, my two MCs both hear voices, one of them from four distinct entities. I use italics for all such mind speech, using regular dialogue tags like said, asked, and replied as needed between the mind speakers. The MCs generally think to themselves using indirect thoughts in 3rd person past tense, although I do rarely switch to first person present tense to emphasize a thought, adding a thought tag if needed to be clear. With all due respect to Stephen King, I found that using special characters to surround mind speech is hard to read. It looks more like a page of html code than a novel.
If you're interested, have a look at chapter one ("Boys With a Destiny") of my book Into the Mind of God v3 to see the result. The scenes involving Joseph include God and Joseph's dead grandmother talking with him.
Done did reviewed. All I found was a few nits. I like the added depth to Alda in the chapter, especially the last line.
Thanks, Janet. FYI, the link doesn't work.
I like it, Amy. Are you going to go into Jaylene's POV while she and Alda are separated?
The latest chapter, Turning Point, is up. This follows Joseph during and immediately after the battle up in space, led by Apollo. He's still in South Haven following his kidnapping. Billie's true nature is revealed.
I am just flying through these chapters compared to my usual pace. I have one chapter in Act II that needs a complete rewrite, but the rest of the book will probably roll out at about one revised chapter per week or two, which is a good thing, because I am sick of writing this story. It'll be 7-8 years total on one book. Sheesh.
I want to move on to my book about the Antichrist plotting to seize control of the Vatican, based on the short story I wrote a while back.
Quick, go read!
Dirk
Thank you, KLvK. That was my original idea. A simple reward for people who go out of their way to give an exceptional review. No one else would be involved. Just me and the reviewer.
Sol, I know I asked about this once before, but was wondering if you'd consider it again. I have over 900 points and would love to donate some to my better reviewers as a thank you for the extra effort they put in compared to those who just drop 5 inline comments. It seems like this would be a feature you could add that wouldn't affect those who don't want to use it, so it shouldn't get in other people's way (e.g., an optional numeric field next to the Save Reply button). However, I suspect others are in a similar position as me and might use it, too.
Thoughts?
Forget reading. Write!
Thanks
njc, your Galactipedia entry about the starlanes and time travel is up as chapter fourteen.
The Attack on New Bethlehem chapter is up. It's an updated version of the same chapter from v2. The original battle in this chapter was total crap, so I moved some of the book's final battle here (from the Caligula! chapter). I didn't want to do two large battles since that would just be repetitive, so this one is short. A bit heavy on telling. Please let me know if it's too short and what you would add. Also, please let me know if I need to say more about battle chess. It's really just a treaty-permitted way of ensuring limited, fair fights, rather than having battles escalate into all-out war.
Quick, go read!
Dirk
My Galactipedia entry for the starlanes (my version of hyperspace) is up as chapter 14.
This entry makes use of njc's initials in FTL and time travel equations developed by Professor R. Hinkley. Apparently, there's a mysterious link between the equations.
Quick, go read!
Dirk
The chapter "The Havens Explode" is up. It's a modest rewrite of the same chapter from v2. Major changes include Joseph and Paul being kidnapped and the reintroduction of the little girl who briefly ended up in Joseph's head before I punted her from the last draft. Here her name is Billie, named for TNBW user Bill K. who inspired her, and she has a very different personality that will soon horrify Joseph.
Quick, go read!
Thanks
Dirk
What about female guards? Guardswoman? And what if it's both men and woman? Still use Guardsmen?
I need to rehash something. I have several guard forces in the story, referred to as the Royal Guard, the Praetorian Guard, and the Elite Guard (to replace the Candidatii, which I dislike). Rather than constantly refer to these guards as "members of" or "officers of" the Praetorian/Royal/Elite Guard, I was considering simply referring to them as Praetorian guard(s), Royal guard(s), and Elite guard(s). So, the entities are always capitalized (e.g., the Guard), but the members are always lowercase (the guard(s)). Is that enough of a distinction to be clear? Another option is to simply refer to the individuals as Praetorian Guard(s), Royal Guard(s), and Elite Guard(s) and allow the reader to figure it out from context. For ambiguous cases, I can always be explicit. Seabrass uses City Watch and City Watchman.
Thoughts?
Congratulations.
Wow! Impressive. Most impressive. Obi-Wan has taught you well.
Very helpful.
Dirk
P.S. Why aren't you teaching writing courses?
MrBillyD, I suggest posting your request for reviews to the Premium group as well to get the largest possible audience. This group is small and you may not get enough feedback.
Hi Peony. Welcome to the site. I have a sci-fi (space opera) book called Into the Mind of God up on the site, as well as a mystery/thriller short story called Connor. I noticed you haven't posted anything yet. You'll find a lot of people here who would be glad to give you feedback.
The design of the guards' helmets is straight out of Star Wars.
When I reverse translate that, I get emperor of Japan.
More searching turns up koutei as the generic version of emperor. So Baka Koutei is the martial art, which Apollo thinks may mean mangled testicles.
