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Thanks, Max.

Welcome, kl. There are a lot of very competent writers on the site who will gladly help you improve your writing. The site works largely based on reciprocal reviews. If you want to have your work reviewed, you simply do the same for others and most will respond in kind if your story matches their interests. Also, reviewing earns you points with which to post more of your writing. The site's regular reviews are great for high-level feedback, and the inline reviews are excellent for detailed feedback about individual paragraphs, sentences, words, and punctuation. Although I don't write about werewolves and vampires, my story is a Catholic tale of the end times, so there are a few demonic beings lurking about. Check out my book's content summary to see if it might interest you.

See you around the site.
Dirk

I tried searching against received inline reviews and posted inline reviews. The search against received inlines works; the search against posted inlines does not. Haven't tried searching against regular reviews.

Easy peasy. He already knows it's stigmata brought on by exposure to evil deeds. He's been living with it for a long time. His colleagues, including Campana, know too. Needs a few minor tweaks to chapter four (where we first meet him). From then on, it flares whenever he confronts murders, including that of Alessandro. This fits perfectly into the overall story. Much better than a medical condition that doesn't really exist. I still need a reason to show the reader the cross around his neck, though, which plays a role later. Burning or bleeding at the neck would give me the excuse I need for him to open his shirt.

I'm trying to improve on Inspector De Rosa's idiopathic acute systemic inflammation. Originally, he was coughing all the time, which was too annoying. Now he almost never has a flareup, which is too little. It's actually important later in the story, so I'm thinking of making it psychologically/supernaturally induced, with flareups/stigmata whenever he's confronted with grave sin, including the crucifixions of the cardinals. I could have another flareup when Connor and Alessandro are struck by lightning. If I go with stigmata, he'd have to wrap his wrists a lot to hide it/keep from bleeding over everything. The neck wound could be in the shape of the cross to match the one he always wears. The bloody cough would remain unchanged, and I'd add a raw throat. He's going to need a lot of handkerchiefs and uniform shirts. :-)

In real life, a condition called hematohidrosis is thought to be a possible cause of stigmata. Basically, people sweat blood in response to intense emotions. The Bible mentions that Jesus's sweat was like blood while praying in Gethsemane before his arrest. Another possible cause is malignant malaria, which causes bleeding from the hands and feet. St. Francis of Assisi is thought to have suffered from that.

EDIT: Another alternative is to go with full stigmata (hands/wrists, feet, side, and forehead) and get rid of the bleeding neck. I'd keep the bloody cough, though, as I want him to suffer, not just bleed externally.

Yes, those rules are discussed on most grammar sites. However, in the examples I gave, I can't tell if the two examples are equivalent of not. As I noted above, example two is correct and what I intend as the meaning. What then is example one saying, if not the same thing?

It's doable but a royal pain. Probably a day of research, and I won't really know if I got the layout right since I usually have just photos to work with. Also, I took advantage of the outside of Saint Lawrence's Basilica during the shootout with the first demon (eg there really is a small grove of trees for Campana to hide behind).

Hi Maureen. Welcome to the site. I try to perform minor edits as they come in. That way, reviewers see an increasingly polished chapter or short story and don't all give me the same feedback. It allows them to focus on other things besides the most obvious errors. Also, if everyone gave me the same feedback, I would later have to wade through them all, identifying the important suggestions from the duplicates. Admittedly, sometimes the reviews come at me so fast, I don't have time to keep up, although that's rare.

Some suggestions require more substantial reworking of a story, so those I may leave until a future draft. Admittedly, I spend more time than many trying to keep up, which slows down my writing pace, which is glacial at best.

I'm case you're not aware, you can "edit" chapters that you've already posted, which doesn't cost extra points, or you can "publish" newer versions of the same chapter/story by incrementing the version number and posting it using points. I use editing when I just want to update an existing chapter with minor changes, and I republish when the changes are substantial and I want my regular reviewers to rereview it. By republishing, it appears on everyone's home page once more, and they receive points for looking at it again. Simply editing it doesn't put it back on the home page and doesn't pay points if someone were to review it more than once.

Clear as mud? Hope that helps. FYI, this forum is largely unused, so feel free to post all your questions to Premium, where you'll get the most replies.

Dirk

This is too cool not to share. It's from the latest season finale of The Mandalorian. Someone recut the final battle and set it to an epic version of The Force theme. Too bad The Rise of Skywalker didn't end with this kind of a bang.
https://youtu.be/5NmKRVTP-3E

Open the review, click on the x-line tab near the top, click on each inline comment (on the highlighted text) that you want to reply to individually, then scroll to the bottom and leave an overall reply, then submit. You don't need to reply to inline comments, but it can help the reviewer understand your rationale for something they highlighted.

Down under.

The purged guys are kicked out of the Church. Since the Church doesn't want a public brawl with the AC, the purge comes in the form of retirement (with a pension!). If it wasn't for holy water, the AC could place demons into the Church, who might be more careful, but they're humanoid, with cadaver DNA, and have human weaknesses, so no help there. I'll add that to the discussion somewhere.

The AC is trying to place his followers into many important positions around the world to lead Catholics away from God before the Final Judgement. Influencing the Pope (through his Council of Cardinal Advisers) about those positions is a key part, but even they are mostly old men. As for the task force, his best bet is to infiltrate that too. I was thinking of using an annoying systems analyst in the task force and making him the infiltrator, but I punted that character, at least for now.

The AC himself is half human, so he can't switch bodies (my rule). As a result, if he became Pope, there's no way to hide an impossibly long lifespan. However, a youngish Pope (say in his sixties) isn't out of the question, and he could rule for at least forty or fifty years before becoming truly suspect. In fact, long life might be viewed as a sign of the Pope having found favor with God.

By the way, there's some big-ass satanic subterfuge going on about all of this, which won't be revealed until the end of the first book.