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supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

I have a few questions about paragraph usage. Here's the first snippet in question:

    It warms my heart when you quote Bible stories, God said.
    It warms my heart when you don’t, Apollo said.
    Apollo’s head jolted.
    “Whelp of a lupa!”

The italics is mind speech. Double quotes is normal dialogue. I use new paragraphs whenever there is a new speaker, even if it's mind speech. I'll add that God has the ability to cause muscle spasms and does so in Apollo's neck whenever He's annoyed, causing the head to jolt.

I originally had the last three paragraphs as one, since it's all about Apollo. However, the jolt is also God's "response" to Apollo's mind speech, albeit a non-verbal one. Apollo's response to the head jolt is out loud.

One paragraph or three?

Thanks.

Have you tried testing the compatibility between Open Office and Word? No doubt they say they can produce Word docs, but so does Google Docs. The conversion from Google was so bad (not a single conversion option worked), causing all kinds of formatting errors. I manually copied what I had written in Docs and created styles in the resulting Word doc. Google is way behind on styles, which is the source of most of the conversion problems. I would have bought a Google Chrome laptop some months back, but I'm very dependent on styles, among a few other key features.

I can't have an uncertainty here initially. It's either a divine miracle that Apollo survived or he's dead. The third option (faulty estimates from the AI) doesn't crop up as a possibility until later. I need to get the three numbers sufficiently accurate up front that we'll never know whether it was a miracle or a computer error (the AI burns out before anyone can check). There seems to be a wide margin for error here due to differences between individuals, so it shouldn't be too hard to get the numbers within the correct range.

I managed to pry the back off my cell phone. Does that count?

There is definitely variability. Following is the wording I used:

That wording shows the numbers are estimates. Clearly, though, I'm mostly ignoring the variability.

There is definite pressure loss, since the air (not just oxygen) is leaking out of the ship. I read on Wiki that humans can only survive complete depressurization for about 90 seconds, after which death may be unavoidable.

I have three variables as the air leaks out: time until they become unconscious, time until they die, and time until they can no longer be resuscitated. I'm hoping to keep the three to about ten minutes total. I have complete freedom for the first, which is based on the size of the leak.

I used a seatback to slow the air loss enough to set the three numbers above to 6, 9, and 11 minutes, although I pulled those three figures out of my hat. Since there is potentially significant loss of air until they slow the leak, the first number (time to unconsciousness) can be as short as I want (e.g., 2 minutes), leaving plenty of time for the other two variables.

I don`t want someone using their body to block the opening, since their pain/swelling then becomes the focus of the scene, which makes it unusable.

Finally, I'd like Apollo to be able to walk out unaided, since there are hundreds of his military arrayed on the deck of the flagship, and he doesn't want to be carried out in front of them. He can still show signs of decompression sickness, which can be treated in a hyperbaric chamber after the scene ends.

Given all that, are there any candidate figures for my three variables better than 6, 9, and 11? Perhaps 4, 9, and 11, to allow time for the heart to stop after 5 minutes of unconsciousness (9 - 4)?

Thanks.

Kill me now! I am so fed up with caps inconsistencies. Here's the latest distilled down to two lines:

"The emperor no longer exists, Governor," Apollo said.
or
"The Emperor no longer exists, Governor," Apollo said.

I had decided that I wouldn't use capitalization for titles like emperor and queen. I treat them the same as crown prince or governor. Otherwise there is mass chaos among my numerous titles.

Some time ago, Seabrass indicated that when there is only one (e.g., Apollo is referring to himself here), it should be capitalized. Is that a separate rule, or just the same rule I quashed above?

If you tell me that Emperor should indeed be capitalized, what then of the reverse sentences:

"The governor no longer exists, Emperor," Decianus said.
or
"The Governor no longer exists, Emperor," Decianus said.

Thanks!

IIRC?

Amy, no need for the medical details about decompression. Wiki has good articles about it. I wasted a day on research/writing before deciding it dragged the chapter down.