Finally finished. Only one more phrase of overlap: in nomine patris, et filii, et spiritus sanctee; amen. It only happens to be Connor's favorite way of starting and ending all prayers, and he says it three times in my chapter while fighting the demons. Fortunately, in the Exorcist, it's only used to give absolution to the dying priest. It's not used during the exorcism. I'd be cursing like a sailor if it had been the latter. Still, I need to figure out what, if anything, to do about the prayers that overlap.

Nuts! I'm reading The Exorcist and there is far more overlap between my chapter and the book than there is between my chapter and the screenplay. I was afraid of that. However, I only use a fraction of the prayers from the Rites of Exorcism compared to the book. I even went with a different subset of the prayers compared to the screenplay, but the book uses some of those, too. No wolf-like growing or biting yet, although the girl does make animal noises. At one point the exorcist reads the verses from Luke about Legion, but fortunately, there is only one demon in the book, whereas my reverend mother is possessed by all of Legion. I have more to read tomorrow, butt I'm hoping the similarities don't get any worse.

Dirk B. wrote:

Kill me now. I just learned about the Dagger of Mortis in Star Wars. There's a whole history (dark/light) about it in the Clone Wars, and it may appear in Star Wars 9. I'm really hoping it doesn't play a huge role, if any, in the movie. I'm within a few chapters of introducing one myself, which was always intended to be central to the climax of the trilogy. I'm screwed if it's central to the Emperor's demise.

There's hope yet. Disney franchises routinely film scenes that only appear in the trailers, in part to throw off people who leak the plot. In one of the promos, Rey holds the dagger in front of her face on Endor, overlooking part of the wreckage of the second Death Star. It may also be a wayfinder, leading her to something important. A loot box, perhaps? :-)

Memphis Trace wrote:

From Mark Twain:
“Everytime I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.”
...
Memphis Trace

That is so funny.

I highly recommend the Pride & Prejudice movie with Kiera Knightly. One of the best films I've ever seen. Much better than the book.

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Sol, it would really help if the trial period was longer than a week (e.g., a month) so new users have a chance to get up to speed on the site and build a few relationships before having to pay for membership. What's the harm?

https://www.writersdigest.com/online-ed … i=80525598

I had them grouped but didn't like it. I can reword some of them so that the he/she don't all appear at the beginning of sentences. I can also sprinkle in the character names a bit too reduce the number of pronouns.

If you think the last example was bad, check out this one I just noticed in the chapter:

Connor managed to take a breath. “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti! Amen!”
She winced and briefly lost her hold on him.
He inhaled deeply and repeated the words.
She convulsed and cried out.
He forced her hands from his neck and spoke the words a third time.
She shrieked and stepped back.
He closed his eyes and moved his lips in silent prayer.
She came at him again, warily, growling wolf-like.
He concluded his prayer. “Bring it!”

:-)

Here's what I came up with.

The nun said, “Connor, the reverend mother is asking for you.”
He walked to where she lay on the floor and knelt beside her.
Palermo took his hands in hers and kissed them, tears streaming down her face. Her irises had turned from red to a natural brown. “Thank you, my child!” She swallowed with difficulty and struggled to continue. “Beware the road ahead… dark… everything depends…” Palermo squeezed his hands. “God is with… Always.” She breathed her last.
A tear rolled down Connor’s cheek and he closed her eyes. “The angels await you, Reverend Mother.”

EDIT: Oops. Ray, I missed your two suggestions on first read. Your first one uses a filter word (noticed), which are similar to saw, heard, felt, etc. When you leave out the filter words, you get a deeper POV. In lieu of your second example, I simply deleted her letting go of his hands. It's implied by him closing her eyes.

Thanks again.
Dirk

Nice catch. I've been encouraged recently to replace name references with pronouns, assuming no confusion. It didn't occur to me how it reads because I'm too close to this chapter.

Thanks
Dirk

Wow! Nana Mouskouri can really belt out Amazing Grace. I've listened to many renditions of the song over the years. Hers is the best so far.

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(5 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

The answer to your first question depends on whether you can make the chapter names important, such as a hook, a little misdirection, or foreshadowing (e.g., The Emperor's Fate). I would definitely include a chapter number, otherwise people have to remember what chapter name they were on when they last read from the book. Given that you probably have dozens of chapters, I would use Arabic.

Slight change to the end of the exorcism chapter. A little foreshadowing/prophesying.

The nun said, “Connor, the reverend mother is asking for you.”
He walked to where she lay on the floor and knelt beside her.
She took his hands in hers and kissed them, tears streaming down her face. Her irises had turned from red to a natural brown. “Thank you, my child!” She swallowed with difficulty and struggled to continue. “Beware the road ahead… dark… everything depends…” She squeezed his hands. “God is with… Always…” She released his hands and breathed her last.
Connor closed her eyes. “The angels await you, Reverend Mother.”

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(10 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Dune & God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert
The Heechee Saga by Frederik Pohl

Kill me now. I just learned about the Dagger of Mortis in Star Wars. There's a whole history (dark/light) about it in the Clone Wars, and it may appear in Star Wars 9. I'm really hoping it doesn't play a huge role, if any, in the movie. I'm within a few chapters of introducing one myself, which was always intended to be central to the climax of the trilogy. I'm screwed if it's central to the Emperor's demise.

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(5 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

I took a look at one of your chapters. They appear to be formatted like everyone else's, so formatting shouldn't be a problem, unless I've misunderstood something. Once you open a specific chapter here on the site for editing, an edit box appears around the text. That's when you use Chrome's Find feature to mark all of the text items that match your search. It actually looks inside the text box for all instances of the search words and highlights them so you can them quickly. Unfortunately, you then have to manually change each one, but you shouldn't have to reformat anything, unless it's to manually apply italics, bold, etc. I don't know of a find-and-replace feature, although I've never looked for one. For minor name changes, it should go relatively quickly.

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(5 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

I should have added that the two ways I suggested have to be done one chapter at a time.

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If you're using Google Chrome, you can use its Find function to highlight all instances of a word in a chapter, then replace them one at a time.  You have to be in TNBW edit mode for your chapter. The other way is copy your new chapter from your manuscript into the same chapter here in the site. Use Ctrl-c to copy (eg from a Word document), open your site chapter in edit mode, hit ctrl-a in the text box to select the entire old version of the chapter, then ctrl-v to paste in the chapter from Word that contains all your changes. Then save it. Hope that makes sense.

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(12 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Ray is right. Don't publish it to the internet if the book is to be sold in stores/Amazon/etc.

njc wrote:

But does this trouble most readers, or only those looking for trouble?

LOL

Violá!

While the senior exorcist continued to pray, Connor clenched his eyes shut. His brows bunched, and he turned his head slowly from side to side, like a radar dish.

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

My latest attempt. The reference to radar suggests he's scanning, which is confirmed the next time he speaks.

While the senior exorcist continued to pray, Connor closed his eyes and furrowed his brow. He turned his head slowly from side to side, like a radar dish.

Technically, he might still be smelling a fart. :-)

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

While, technically, the words in concentration are a head-hop, i'm leaning increasingly to the idea that the words are a reasonable assumption by Romano, although not necessarily a guarantee that they're the correct assumption. It's not always possible to show without killing the pace, and I find "tell" words like seemed to, apparently, as if, etc. to just fill the sentences with words that add nothing to the scene, except to demonstrate to the world our understanding of how to avoid head-hops. I'd argue this particular case is clearer without the extra verbiage.

Absolutely. Go for it JP.