301

(63 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

This thread isn't sticky, but VQF is. Do you want me to unstick that one?

302

(44 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

May I suggest using an alternate timeline? tongue

See Deu 29:1 for discussion on 28:69 vs 29:1. I suspect the Bibles you checked that are missing 28:69 have it as 29:1.
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/c … eronomy/29

Looks like clicking a link from within an email generated by the site is being intercepted again:

Suspicious page blocked for your protection
https://email2.booksie.com/ls/click?upn … vaew-3D-3D
Your connection to this web page is not safe due to an unmatching security certificate.
This means that the certificate was issued for a different web address than the one it is being used for, and you run the risk of exposing your data by accessing this page.

Sol, any idea why this bug keeps coming back?

Thanks
Dirk

304

(13 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Thank you, Sol.

305

(13 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Found it. You actually have to open one of your posted works to see it.
My user id is Dirk B. same as on TNBW.

Thanks
Dirk

306

(13 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Sol, I was looking for a link to BOB, but couldn't find one. The help guide has a page on it, but no link to it. Also, the Search field at the top doesn't bring it up either. I checked, and it looks like my Premium membership on Booksie has lapsed for the moment. Is that why I can't see it?

Thanks
Dirk

Kdot wrote:

More moving parts might not be a good thing

Yeah, I'm coming around to that conclusion too. I already have a hard enough time finding stuff for Antonio to do. Add a dog, and the chapters will either grow longer or everyone else gets less screen time. As is, I already have to add a few paragraphs in later Holy Land chapters to incorporate Connor's groupies, who chase after him from place to place to see him perform miracles and post the videos/pics online.

The battle between good and evil animals will definitely be included, though. I'm almost certainly going to add an extra murder in Rome, which allows for a few extra chapters in the Holy Land to visit areas where Jesus went but Connor didn't. The all out Watership Down-like battle will go into one of the new chapters near the end of the trip.

I knew about the angel of light disguise, but not the idea of his minions disguising themselves as good. It's an interesting idea, but I can't think of a reason why he would need a demonic dog. In fact I'm having trouble trying to figure out a dog's reason to be in the story except that Connor is sick and they get him the dog to cheer him up. Not much of an addition to the story.

An all-out battle between good and evil animals I definitely intend to do.

I thought of a great addition to the Holy Land chapters. Since Connor is frequently attacked by and/or saved by animals, I figure it should build to an all-out battle between dark animals, who bow to Satan, and light animals, who defend "Christ".

The dark animals are easy since they can each be possessed by a demon who know how to drive the animals into an attack. They do that with the hyenas at Capernaum. The light animals is trickier since Connor is the AC, not Christ. He can definitely make himself liked by animals, which he did a few times in the first draft. In fact, the whites doves even came to his rescue when he was attacked by the wild cat at the baptism site. Ditto for when the pratincoles saved the group from the demonic locusts.

It does beg the question how is Connor able to steer an entire army of animals to defend him? Obviously, he can't be in all their heads at once. The best way, which I think is already implied by the pratincoles and doves, is for him to be able to give off some "good" vibe that brings the unpossessed animals to his defense. I can also use some of the animals in the final battle of book 3.

I'm also thinking of giving Connor a dog throughout the trip in book 1. But I need to figure out what major contribution it can make to the story beyond merely giving a sick kid a dog, although it could reinforce the image of Connor as a sweet kid if his dog adores him. I doubt pets are allowed at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, though, not to mention at other tourist attractions, and in all the churches they visit.

>>I just have to be careful that his holiness doesn't ruin him as an interesting character.

What I meant was if it's not written correctly, the character will become boring (for the reader and the writer). The plot and his character arc still need to happen beyond him becoming holy. It has to serve the story somehow. Perhaps as he becomes more holy, he becomes more insightful about Connor and the dagger, and realizes the Sea of Galilee would cure him. Also, if I bring him back for books 2 & 3, I would then have to think up ways to use his holiness to benefit the rest of the story. And he probably wouldn't be the right person to get caught up in some violent event, although perhaps his growing holiness makes him a good choice for tackling demons. Stuff like that. Details TBD.

I was told many years ago that the story was becoming boring because, every time anyone runs into trouble, Connor prays and solves everyone's problems. Zero tension with that. It's the reason I added the demonic dagger and the various stages of Connor's sickness from it. Despite that, Seabrass thought things in the Holy Land were too predictable. He suggested I kill a few of the guards, but I couldn't do that since that would make Connor a murderer since he controls the events in the HL. If he's a murderer, then there's no point in having him fail to kill the pope too. Can't go that way. I'm still pondering how to address his concern.

311

(63 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Very cool.

Sol, you never responded to the bugs I reported on this page (seven and counting; eight if you include Jack's issue). Some of them are new, others seem not to have been fixed. I just want to make sure you don't accidentally overlook these.

I suggested a priority for each of them in red: 2 very high, 2 high, 3 medium. I would also suggest high priority for Jack's reported issue about some forum posts disappearing too soon from the home page. One of the other high priority issues - getting the user support contact info right across the site - should be easy to do before digging into Jack's reported issue.

By the way, I'm pretty sure I've seen the same problem as Jack for years, but I never tried to reproduce it.

Please let me know if you need any help either reproducing these problems or testing fixes. I'd suggest we also involve more end users in testing fixes. I'm happy to coordinate that and to post short notes here as warranted to let people know when we think an issue has been fixed.

Thanks
Dirk

Sol, I retested the points calculation the site does and the ratio is still 5-to-1.

I posted a new book called Points Calc Testing which is 1760 words long according to MS-Word. It cost 5.38 points to post and pays 1.08 for each review. That's still a 5 to 1 ratio, meaning you have to review five 1760-word chapters in order to earn enough points to post 1760 words.

It was supposed to be changed to 3 to 1 to be much easier to encourage trial members to collect points and post. It should also be easier to do than most similar sites to this one, which don't offer an inline review system as good as ours, yet are thriving.

What really matters in the long run is of course the review-trading relationships among authors, not so much the points. If someone is unwilling to do even a few reviews at 3-to-1 to collect points and begin to develop those relationships, then this is not the site for them.

PRIORITY: High. Until this is fixed, we have the same big hurdle in place when trial members are trying to get a feel for the site. This ratio doesn't affect most long-term members since we've accumulated more points than God.

I managed to purge the word timeline from Satan's 4th century documents. The new terminology is river(s) of time, or river(s) for short. Seems more appropriate to the time period.

Cave-Dwelling Theologian (Satan) wrote:

A remarkable side effect of the Last Challenge is that, as time goes on, there shall be an increasing number of differences between the events of our world and those prophesied in the Bible right up until the Day of the Lord.


But how is this possible when we know the Bible to be free of error? The answer is, we no longer travel on the same river of time as the Bible’s prophets. It seems there can be many such rivers, branching off in different directions to different destinations.


The prophesies about a particular event or outcome apply only as long as we remain on the same river as those, like the Apostle John, who foresee events to come. However, the prophets see only what lies ahead on whichever river they travel. Only God sees them all.


Had there been no challenge, we — humans, angels, and demons — would have continued along the same river, and future events would match the Bible, including, eventually, the Apocalypse as prophesied in Revelation.


However, due to the challenge, changes are now inevitable. Rather than allow them to invalidate the Holy Bible — the flawless word of God — he created for us a new river in time that branches off the original and is therefore not bound to its prophesies.


The two rivers — which, prior to the challenge, were but one — share an identical history up to the moment the new one came into being. As a result, we have carried with us the same Bible along both currents, even though its prophecies apply only to the original river, whereas the challenge exists only along ours.


Thus, the Bible itself remains entirely free of error, provided we read it as God intended — a Bible for us as we existed on the one united river prior to the challenge. Although we share that Bible, it is no longer meant for us. The challenge takes us into uncharted waters for which I have included new prophecies given to me by the Holy Spirit.

No, the portals and the other worlds are for mortal sinners. They get there via the lake of fire, which is not the case for sinners going to purgatory. Granted, I could just wave my magical fiction wand and make it so, but it seems very clean at present in terms of a reader wrapping their minds around the story, especially a Catholic reader. The more I deviate, the harder it gets for them, and the less they're likely to like the story, imo.

Technically, one doesn't get a glorified body until after the Second Coming, so I guess you're just a disembodied soul waiting in Heaven for the Second Coming. Eve, if you recall, does get her glorified body, so she could be at the center of events to keep an eye on Adam/Connor, although that part of her mission doesn't begin until book 2.

Antonio will be the example of what purgatory is like in this story. It's not truly Catholic, but then not much is known about purgatory. I figure if you want absolution from a priest, you usually need to do some penance. If Antonio wants out of purgatory, he needs to make things right with Romano, which includes telling Romano the truth (that Antonio had already gone to confession prior to being hit by the truck, but he allowed Romano to think he died in a state of mortal sin). I'll treat what he did to Romano as a venial sin.

Antonio will continue to travel with the group like in the first draft, but he also needs to do some good works before he gets out of purgatory. If you recall, he "cured" Connor of the spiritual poison by figuring out the solution and dunking Connor in the Sea of Galilee. Naturally, Connor wasn't actually sick, but Antonio didn't know that. Still, I'll probably make that the last thing he needs to do to complete purgatory, even though Antonio won't know it right away.

So, for some reason, he remains with the group throughout the entire trip. Eventually, he'll get a chance to ask Phanuel what else to do to complete purgatory. He's told he already did complete it, and he may go to Heaven whenever he wishes. But he decides to do a few more good works by staying with Romano to oppose the efforts of the Unholy Trinity. My other option is to simply keep Antonio in the story, while he thinks he's still in purgatory, whereas in reality he cares too much about Romano and Connor that God knew he'd rather stay in purgatory long enough to finish his life's work. He would then find out at the end of book 3 that that's the real reason he's still on Earth.

One thing I'd like to include, though, is the idea that Antonio becomes more and more holy as he does more good works. It's a transformation that would happen automatically. It slowly purges him of sin, so he can go to Heaven, which definitely is Catholic. I just have to be careful that his holiness doesn't ruin him as an interesting character. I figure he can still say sarcastic things without them being sins.

Did I answer your question? :-)

Thanks, George. Looks like Dante beat me to some of the ideas by a "few" centuries. smile

Below is part of the writeup for the 4th century documents written by Satan, pretending to be a couple of future saints. Some of it is true (e.g., there is a last challenge) and some is total malarky (e.g., Christ coming back as a child). The part below is intended to allow me to say, yes the story events don't match the Bible, but that's because the characters are on a different timeline from the Bible prophets, especially John.

Cave-Dwelling Theologian (Satan) wrote:

A remarkable side effect of the Last Challenge is that, as time goes on, there will be an increasing number of differences between the events of our world and those prophesied in the Bible right up until the Day of the Lord.

But how is this possible when we know the Bible to be free of error? The answer is, we no longer exist along the same flow of time as the Bible’s prophets. It seems there can be many such flows, each of which I shall refer to as a timeline.

Had there been no challenge, we — humans, angels, and demons — would have continued along our original timeline, and events would match the Bible, including, eventually, the Apocalypse as prophesied in Revelation.

However, due to the challenge, changes are now inevitable. Rather than allow them to invalidate the Holy Bible — the flawless word of God — he created a new timeline for us not bound by the original prophesies.

The timelines share an identical history up to the moment the new one came into being, meaning that both have the very same Bible even though its prophecies only apply to the original timeline, whereas the challenge only exists in the new timeline.

As a result, the Bible itself remains entirely free of error, provided we read it as God intended — a Bible for us as we existed on the original timeline, not for us now that we exist on the new timeline.

Dirk wrote:


How clear is the above explanation? It’s a little long-winded, but it has to be clear enough for a 4th century theologian to understand, who has never heard of timelines. It will allow me to eliminate the silly statements/musings in the first draft that the Bible seems to be wrong. While I wasn’t keen to introduce an alternate timeline into this story, it closes the glaring plot hole.

Of course, God could simply decide to invalidate his own Bible, but I really dislike saying the Bible is wrong and/or God simply ignored it. I think my target audience is more likely to buy an alternate timeline than an erroneous Bible. Remains to be seen as I get more feedback about this chapter.

Unless someone has an even better solution....

As I try to think through some of the elements of the book that I included in the first draft, I'm having a bit of a problem explaining why the Unholy Trinity (or anyone for that matter, especially the reader) would believe a spiritual poisoning of Christ (from the dagger) is even remotely possible.

In the story it's quite clear in several places that Connor/Christ seems to interact with the Holy Spirit even though Connor has yet to realize who he really is (and for some reason, the HS doesn't tell him). Naturally, all that is made up by Satan & Connor since Connor has never been baptized (not yet, anyway). I could have left that whole element out of the story, but given that other people far less pious than Connor have interacted with the HS in the past (true of both Romano and Campagna), it wouldn't make sense for Connor of all people not to have access to the HS, even though he's faking it.

I suppose I could have it be one of the details of the (fake) wager/challenge. Namely, the fake HS can't tell Connor who he really is (Christ) until the fake Father says so, which happens at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Also, it's the reason Christ, an all powerful spirit, doesn't seem able to enter Connor's mind to fully awaken the Christ within him until the climax. In other words, the Father told them both to wait.

Another issue is that the HS withdrew from Romano as part of the rules for the wager. Satan didn't trust the HS not to reveal something to Romano. Similarly, though, shouldn't the HS withdraw from Connor (Christ) for the same reason? As above, Connor fakes the presence of the HS within him, but then shouldn't he pretend that the HS withdrew from him too?

Just to clarify one item, there are actually two wagers in this story: a real one and a fake one. The real one is the decision Connor eventually has to make about whom to destroy (Christ's human half or Satan's De Rosa zombie). The fake wager is that if Christ comes back as a child and is raised by the Catholic Church, Christ will eventually become so disgusted with it, that he will destroy it. Only the fake wager appears throughout most of the book. At the end, Connor reveals the real wager to Campagna, which Connor himself didn't even know until that day.

Sol,

Would it be possible to get rid of "story" types like essay, article, script, etc.? They don't show on the home page, so new members won't even realize that's the reason they get no reviews. I found an essay from a new member by accident. Those types of works would be better if posted as short stories. Perhaps we need to expand the list of genres to make that work well.

The alternative is to automatically show all of those other types of works in the short story scroll on the home page. I imagine that's more work, but it also seems like a more elegant solution.

Thanks
Dirk

If anyone is looking for a great essay to read, check out Joseph V's portfolio. It's actually a short memoir, written in second person perspective. Since it's an essay, it won't show up on the home page.

Hi Bill. On this site, you can post to some or all of the groups of which you are a member. Only Booksie has the limitation your referring to. Much simpler architecture for the latter I would imagine.

Sol, I managed to find my inline reviews by looking at the bottom of the chapters. I then went back into the Reviews screen and futzed around with the search/filter control at the top of the inline received tab. No change until I hit the black Reset button. That brings them all back, but they disappear again as soon as I leave/reenter the tab.

I tried deleting my tnbw cookies, but that didn't help. Logged out of the site, closed the tnbw tab, closed the browser, and rebooted the machine. No luck.


One thing I noticed, though, is that, after I hit the Reset button (and all my reviews display again), I can hit the browser's refresh button and that doesn't cause a problem. But, if, after hitting Reset, I click on the inline received tab (the one I'm on), the refresh of that tab causes the reviews to disappear again.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions.


PRIORITY: Medium, since this seems to affect only me, and there's a workaround.


Thanks
Dirk

Found them. Had to hit Reset on the search control inside the reviews tab, even though the search values before and after the reset were identical (i.e., no search criteria).

Interesting. I went to look for the missing reviews at the bottom of my chapters, and they're visible from there. Just not from the reviews tab.

Hi. If anyone is awaiting a reply from me on an inline review you left me, please know all my received inline reviews except the last one from George have disappeared. Hopefully, I replied to everyone before things went haywire. Of course, I also don't know if I made all suggested edits to my offline manuscript either.

Sol is looking into it.

Since human souls that go into the lake acquire a new human body before emerging on the other side, I could do the same with all the demons. Put all of them into corpses, in which they get stuck. Satan would probably get the same body back, which had been mutilated/deformed when the resistance took back the Vatican at the end of book 2. I could even put a cross around his neck again to trap him inside. Perhaps crosses around each corpse's neck to trap them all in bodies that undoubtedly experience searing heat and freezing cold?

It's not critical that they be in physical bodies since I could simply write that their spirit forms experience cold/heat too. However, putting them into bodies makes things consistent. A soul goes into the lake, burns for a time to pay for all the pain that person had caused while alive, then gets a non-glorified human body and is transported elsewhere.

The two inconsistencies I have to work out are that, in theory, Adam and Eve are responsible for every evil act since Creation. Eve was given a glorified body with which she returned to Earth as Dr. Lombardi, ostensibly a member of the conspiracy, to keep an eye on Connor/Adam at the Vatican. Perhaps that's why she was given a pass. Yet Connor/Adam will burn like hell until there's nothing left of them but their shared soul in agony.

Also, Satan is much more culpable for evil in the world. He is the reason Adam & Eve sinned, and he continued to stir up evil throughout history. This means he should suffer more than anyone else. The intensity of that heat would have to be staggering.