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Sol,

Unfortunately, a new member created two books today, where it should have been the first and second chapters of one book. This means that not every new member can be counted on to hover over the Create New Work button to discover/read the tooltip.

Is it possible to now move instructions for creating chapters directly onto the Post Your Writing screen? Preferably right below the Create New Work button in a color/font that stands out well enough to not be ignored when the big red Create New Work button draws much of the attention on that screen.

Or, create a second, huge, red button right next to the first one, label it Add A Chapter, and have it bring up a simple popup screen with the instructions of what to do if you want to add a new chapter to an existing book.

PRIORITY: Medium. Not as urgent as other problems on this page, but it still burns (some) new users. For now, I'd suggest we monitor for this to see how often it keeps coming up.

Thanks
Dirk

Thanks, Jack.

I was trying to avoid rewriting it as frowned since the above is really just one example of the kinds of things that come up all the time. I see "he knitted his brow" and "she furrowed her brow" quite a bit as alternatives to frowning, at least from writers on this site. Since I do use them to minimize repetition, I tend to think of frowning, furrowing one's brow, and kitting one's brow as almost interchangeable (there are some minor differences in terms of definition and usage, so I only use the ones appropriate to a given context).

Referring back to my discussion with Kdot, earlier: in a moment of shock for the POV character, one could write (this example is for the purpose of this discussion only, not something real):

a) he shot his eyebrows up (not good)
b) his eyebrows shot up (better but really only works when the action is involuntary)
c) he raised his eyebrows (imprecise without context since it doesn't reflect the speed at which the eyebrows went up)
d) his eyebrows to his hairline, which I could see using in an example like the one below:

When the aircraft engine exploded, Romano jumped in his seat, held down only by his safety belt, his eyebrows to (or at) his hairline. In this example, the words to/at his hairline also don't convey the speed at which the eyebrows went up; once again, context is necessary, which is fine since it's right there in the example sentence.

That being said, I probably wouldn't use alternative c for the example sentence since Romano merely raising his eyebrows seems to dampen just how frightening the event is (e.g., engine explodes, he jumps in his seat, he raises his eyebrows, then goes back to reading). Raising one's eyebrows in an emergency like this one is how Spock might react, but not an ordinary human, IMO).

Hmm. How about: Romano jumped in his seat, held down only by his safety belt, his eyebrows to (at?) his hairline.

That works for both his eyebrows shot to his hairline and him raising his eyebrows to his hairline. For the record, I wouldn't write either since eyebrows can't do that, but I'm pretty sure I do this with other movements that I see regularly, at least on this site (e.g., his eyes popped, his hair stood on end, his mouth fell open, etc.), most of which are cliches and should probably be purged anyway.

Does that mean, in the example of Romano's eyebrows shooting to his hairline, that you would have him shoot them up? That would be weird. I've seen plenty of examples of the alternative, though: His eyebrows shot up, regardless of whether the character is the POV character or not.

Another example from this evening, a character's jaw drops. Did he drop his jaw or did it drop in response to the shock he got? I can't recall any examples of the former (he dropped his jaw), but lots of examples of the latter (his jaw dropped), even when referring to the POV character.

Queen Aussie: I would ask that you free my humatronic brain from this vessel as soon as this mission is over. I find naked apes exceedingly violent, even more so than their turd-flinging hairy brethren.

I'd love to see Alexa talk like that.

Sol, would it be possible to point new members to the Premium forum post entitled "How to Get the Most Reviews of Your Writing" in the site's documentation for new members? It's a detailed list of tips that should help new members maximize the number of reviews they can receive. Please have a look and let me know if you'd like any changes to it.

Thanks
Dirk

Are you saying that was part of your childhood, Professor Hinkley?

Demonic teddy bears! Great idea.

Other possible names for corporeals is demon shells, demon corpses (even while still "alive"), and demon stiffs.

Since I've hated the term corporeal demon since almost near the beginning of the first draft, I'm strongly considering George's term: zombie demons. To be sure no one has a copyright on the word zombie, I googled and found this:

An undead person created by reanimating a corpse is exactly what my corporeal demons are. In the second draft, they won't be grown from DNA but rather will simply involve demons taking over corpses and using their supernatural powers to heal minor signs of decay. The weakest demons can only keep it up for a few months; Satan can keep it up indefinitely.

A typical characteristic of zombies, though, is that they don't speak, whereas many of mine have to. Also, I don't know enough about zombies, but the film clips I've seen over the years had them all moving quite slowly (walking). My demons can move quite quickly when they need to (e.g., the zombie nuns in Nazareth).

Am I violating any well-established rules of zombies if they can speak and run?

I could try to come up with a different word, but the fact that zombies are reanimated corpses, fits perfectly. The downside of the term is that a Catholic thriller with zombies will probably cost me some of the potential audience since I'm going for a mostly serious trilogy.

Alternatives to zombie demons include: physical demons (yawn), solid/hard demons (yuck), bodily demons, and fleshy demons (love this one). I think I like fleshy demons even better than zombie demons.