Search options (Page 54 of 169)

Violá!

That's a combination of mine and Temple's, although I ruined hers by keeping the radar dish ... for now. :-)

My thanks to everyone for an interesting/helpful discussion.
Dirk

Thanks, Temple. He's actually doing more than concentrating. He's sensing things others cannot. Think of it as scanning from side to side with his mind. I want to avoid "tell" words and realized that the technical POV slip is a reasonable assumption for the POV character to make. Why is it that we can allow the POV character to use all of his senses down to level of minutiae, but don't allow him to use his brain to make a commonsense assumption, allowing for a faster pace? The slip is a little jarring, even to me, because I've had modern POV rules drilled into me. Doesn't mean I always agree with them.

Just thinking of loud...
Dirk

Absolutely. Go for it JP.

My Galaxy Tales was loaded with characters and mayhem. I didn't realize it until I looked at the row count in my spreadsheet. Some were historical, though, such as Dr. Amy Ess.

Technically, there are really only two villains in book one, both of whom are needed in the whole trilogy. Book two adds a third as the Unholy Trinity reaches full strength.

Interesting. It occurs to me that one could keep the above POV slips based on the fact that these are Romano's assumptions. The rest of the chapter is also written from Romano's POV, and he makes other assumptions that are routine in novels, such as saying 'Connor looked at X.' In the latter case, how would Romano know exactly what Connor is looking at? Connor might be admiring the exorcist's shoes, rather than the exorcist's actions. Romano's thoughts (whether correct of incorrect) could be considered part of his POV as well.

Naturally, this would never get past any experienced reviewers on this site, but it is annoying to have to use words like "as if", "probably", "seemed to", etc.

Dirk

Note to self: expired diet Pepsi tastes nasty.

I'm not in the mood to write a new chapter, so I decided to take another crack at Connor becoming possessed by Legion. The damn scene screams for the possession. To differentiate the transfer of the demons from the one in The Exorcist, I can do it by Palermo (the reverend mother) biting into his throat or simply by kissing him.

The tricky part is that once Connor is possessed, there are up to three possible voices coming out of him: his own normal voice, his supernatural commanding voice (deep/reverberates), and the many simultaneous voices of Legion. There will be a conversation between these voices, with Connor on one side and Legion on the other. I could potentially differentiate them by using 'Connor said' and 'Legion said', although that's inconsistent with how I wrote the rest of the scene, where Palermo is identified as Connor's external opposition. Palermo has the many voices of the demons throughout the scene, but Connor can't identify them as Legion until fairly late. Even then, I continue to refer to her as Palermo throughout, for consistency. Does it matter if I shift from 'Palermo' as the external opposition to 'Legion' as Connor's internal opposition? Worse, every physical action Connor takes must be referred to as 'Connor did X', regardless of who (Connor or Legion) caused the action, since the POV character (Romano) can't tell which of the two is acting, only who is talking. This has the potential to be very confusing.

Thoughts?

Thanks
Dirk

Totally forgot that Romano is supposed to start unraveling because of his guilt at the death of his former lover. Changed the beginning of the chapter to this:

I was tempted to have Connor say, "Are you a demon or a vampire?" just before she bites him. It's actually combined with wolf-like growls.

I eliminated the shivering. As currently written, he closes his eyes, furrows his brow, and turns his head from side to side while the exorcist is praying. Half a page later, he throws holy water on the exorcist, who screams as his body dissolves to reveal that he's a demon in human form.