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The way I deal with great reviewers currently is to try to read more of their work than they read mine. The only downside to that is I usually finish their book before they do mine, so I may lose them later in my story, unless they've got another book online that I also want to read.

LOL.

I really like the idea of increasing points as the number of chapters reviewed grows higher. At least that gives us some way to reward long-term reviewers.

I'm not sure about rating reviews. That used to be the case on the old site and most people are too polite to give any less than five stars to avoid insulting/losing reviewers.

Perhaps they might say something about growing old that makes you rethink how to write your poem. Or perhaps you build a relationship that leads to better and ongoing feedback. ... Now you're going to block me, aren't you?

As for Mein Kampf, it's heartening to know even psychopaths can write bestsellers. There's hope for me yet!

Oh, you drunk is the perfect time to read Queen Amy. She's DOA, but I left her up to shame you for helping me create her.

I use MS Word 2007 with Times New Roman. What WP do you use, K?

EDIT: I just tried four characters (cut directly from MS Word and pasted into the WP here on the site): e with two dots, e with a bar (again), e with a bowl over it (same as your s), and a French e with an accent. e with two dots worked. French e worked. Interestingly, the e with the bowl didn't work, nor did the e with bar.

EDIT: I just tried K's s with a bowl. It works, even though e with a bowl doesn't.

njc, does that mean the different languages map different characters to the same (shared) byte(s), or does each language get its own subset of the total byte pool?

Thanks.
Dirk

In doing inline reviews, I often leave two or more comments for the same selected word or sentence (for separate feedback about the same item). I then write my closing comments, which can be long. Today, I wanted to read those secondary and tertiary comments, so I clicked on x-line to see all of them. My very long closing comments were wiped out. Fortunately, I suspected that might happen, so I copied the closing comments to the clipboard. I was then able to paste them back in. Since x-lines are available when leaving reviews, this could easily burn someone. Not sure if there is an easy fix.

I figured someone else might know and, if not, someone else might like to know. Didn't want to bother the poor man with yet another message.

Welcome, Randall, and thanks again for the review. I'll recip shortly.

I use chapter titles to tease the reader, either with a few word summary of a key event in the chapter, or with a little misdirection.

For example, my story builds up over many chapters that one of my MCs, Apollo, is heir to the Imperial throne and is expected to become emperor and lead a holy war. It's pretty much a given that that event will occur, so I give the reader something to look forward to when they check out the table of contents. Through chapter titles, they see his rise and fall, followed by a climax where everything will be decided. As you read it, you know he will fall, but he doesn't. As a result, I have a chapter called Emperor Apollo that includes his coronation, which is the peak of his success before the fall.

It's kind of like when you saw the second death star in Return of the Jedi. You know a big battle will occur, but not the how, including the fact that Emperor Plapatine has planned the whole thing. So, there were still a lot of surprises left to be had in ROTJ. Dune did something similar. It used epigraphs at the top of each chapter (I use them too) to give historical information about Maud'dib, the protagonist. You know from early on that Paul Atreides will become Maud'dib, but you have to tear through the book to get there and see how it happens.

The other example, misdirection, I do for fun (my story tries for a fair bit of humor). I have a title called Joseph Enters Heaven. He's a religious character, so it could be interpreted as him going to Heaven (in some form). In reality Heaven is the name of a prison.

By using both types of chapter titles, I also keep the reader guessing.

If you want the whole story to be a closely held secret and only unfold through the content of the chapters, then leave them out. If you prefer to tease them with some information, then use chapter titles. The latter also gives potential readers a little more information about the book when they're deciding whether or not to buy it. You have the book title and the book summary to sell your novel, but a few interesting chapter titles in a TOC might help seal the deal. In my book, a chapter titled "Worlds Collide" let's the reader know that, as suggested in the book summary, the quests of the two MCs will indeed collide.

Hope that helps.
Dirk

Dune uses omniscient POV and is the best-selling sci-fi novel of all time. Today, publishers are so focused on a POV style that masterpieces of the past would never even get published.

I started with omniscient because I didn't know any better and was strongly encouraged to drink the cool-aid and switch to 3rd person limited. I'm glad I did because there are several key chapters that wouldn't have worked if I had been inside both MCs heads at the same time.

That aside, I plan to self-publish, so I have no problem breaking a few rules to tell the story the way I would like to read it.

Mike, if it helps, my prologue is 5000 words (about ten pages). I'm going to put up version 4 tomorrow. As NJC mentioned somewhere in this thread, make the prologue a good short story. If you decide not to go with it, you'll have fleshed out the details of the past to use to fill in the rest of the story.

From what I've read of your story, I think the flashbacks would work well as a prologue, unless there's more of the past than I've read so far (Clay's interrogation and guilty plea). There's nothing quite like trying to squeeze a ton of story into 10 little pages. Tonight I deleted a lot of stuff I previously thought was essential to the prologue, all to pick up the pace.

The other way you might consider going is to break up the flashbacks into a long guilt trip for your MC. Have him think of it in short recollections that coincide with your main story unfolding. Only you would know if that makes sense here.

Cow brains and eggs? Now that brings back memories. :-)
Dirk

Many articles I've read equate omniscient POV, multiple POV, and head-hopping, as if there were no distinction, which is how I learned it. Interesting to see the subtle differences. To the best of my recollection, Dune (mentioned in the article) uses not just omniscient, but head-hopping. I'll have to look for it again the next time I re-read the book.