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Books two and three of my trilogy will probably make Earth someplace you don't want to be. There's a reason they call it the Apocalypse.

Just suffered through a Netflix film called Constantine starring Keanu Reeves as John Constantine, based on a comic book series called Hellblazer. He performs exorcisms; says In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spritus Sancti a lot; the demons have red eyes; and the devil has a son (thankfully called Mammon, not the Antichrist). Connor's real first name, of course, is Constantino. Fortunately, there are more differences than similarities. Still, too damn close for comfort.

In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.

Amen.

One relatively new one for me is that ", and then" has now become ", then". When did "then" become a coordinating conjunction?

MJ, long live the Oxford comma!

Ah. Now I get it. Meditate on this, I will. Scene 1.4's first paragraph is worse.

Line 1?

You're up early.

As the book summary states, the Church eventually comes to the conclusion they and Connor are being stalked by the Antichrist. It's all about getting to that hypothesis asap. The fact that the destruction of the basilica requires great power makes it possible for me to skip demons and go straight to the Unholy Trinity. The hunt for the serial killer then becomes a hunt to mask the Antichrist, which is as originally intended.

After a little rewording, I shaved about twenty words from the opening paragraph. The buses remain, but the stage direction is significantly reduced. Not bad. Naturally, there was other stuff that I wanted to put back into the chapter, which I had previously purged. Same total word count. There's other stuff I can trim, depending on further feedback.

However, since you weren't too thrilled about St. Peter's Basilica, you may hate the second act. Connor will go from site to site in the Holy Land, following in the footsteps of Jesus. Lot's of biblical and archaeological details. He will either be under attack or perform increasing miracles. It's going to be interesting to see how many such miracles I can come up with. The good news is they ride in SUVs, not buses.

The Star Wars stuff came from the first three films. And yes the prequels and sequels mostly sucked. I have  other reviewers of my writing. I just need time to recip to get their input.
The buses will not totally disappear, but that part is clunky. I think I can do better.

Dirk

Tricky. They're the kind of background characters you would normally want me to punt, but they play a role that I would have to assign to other priests (eg the soccer coach), and since they interact with the MCs, I'd have to name them anyway. I'm stuck with them for act 1. I'll change to two named exorcists and see how it reads.

Thanks
Dirk

Question about the exorcists shadowing Connor. I chose to have two so that at least one could always be on duty, even at night. Theoretically, I could name both and have them appear together from time to time. However, there's a problem with having too many priests in one scene, not to mention too many named characters, especially given that all the names are foreign. My first crack at this was to use Father Luca as both the soccer coach and exorcist. The other one was off "resting". Father Luca carried over to the hospital, guarding Connor overnight after the lightning strike. A long shift, but still reasonable. With the release of my latest chapter, I again prefer to have just one exorcist, so it's Father Luca again. However, I can't keep saying the other one is resting and never have him show up. Stands out like a sore thumb. I think I have to bite the bullet and name them both and have them both appear from time to time, even if they're never together. Readers won't remember who these guys are (bit parts), so I have to remind the reader once or twice per scene who they are (e.g. Father Luca, the exorcist, said ...). It's a limited problem since I will ditch both of them at the end of this act. The Holy Land guide (also a priest) will conveniently also have exorcism training.

Reasonable?
Dirk