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I'm trying to decide if the guards in my book should use
1) discrete earpieces with mics on their sleeves (like the Secret Service)
2) visible headsets (e.g., a bluetooth-style earpiece/mic), or
3) a wisewatch with 2-way audio-visual communication.

These guards all wear uniforms and/or armor, so it's always obvious who they are, essentially eliminating the need for a discrete option. Wisewatches are ubiquitous in my galaxy for communication, so I'm inclined to use them, except an earpiece or headset is easier to hear through in a loud setting, and limits who can hear what is said.

Thoughts?
Dirk

Bill, why not use the x-line tab within the review screen to see all of your comments (and author replies) at once?

I finally saw Rogue One on Netflix. I lost count of the number of planets/stations in the first 15 minutes of the film (5 or 6, I think). Some of the casting/characters were excellent. Loved the blind Jedi. The CGI of Tarkin was meh. For some reason, Vader's costume seemed off as well. I'd give it 3 stars; less if it didn't have all of the familiar Star Wars elements going for it.

A meter perhaps?

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.

Thanks, Janet. FYI, the link doesn't work.

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

Thanks

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

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

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?