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Does anyone knows of a good writing book that encompasses most (all?) of the writing elements highlight in this blog post? I'm currently reading the Write Great Fiction series, but it's just an excuse to charge $10 for each major story element.

John Hamler made an interesting observation of my scene 1.2 (the one where Vitale is buried alive). Initially, I referred to the antagonist in that scene as "the man", albeit with demonic attributes. However, as I tweaked it, it evolved to the point where he identified himself as the Antichrist up front, which I figured is obvious from the book summary anyway. That means my book's antagonist appears and kills his first cardinal in the second scene of chapter one. There's little build up of tension leading to his first attack, except for him caught running out of the orphanage at the end of scene 1.1. Although it may be happening too soon, a lot depends on the murder, especially scene 1.4, which introduces the two detectives and the start of the murder investigation, something I want to include in chapter one. My other option is to kill scene 1.2 and move directly to scene 1.4, leaving the reader with some unanswered questions about the killer. As is, digging up the cardinal in scene 1.4 holds no surprises, since the reader saw him buried alive in 1.2.

EDIT: One benefit of scene 1.2, in my opinion, is that the reader can see that the burial is not as horrific as one might imagine if the body simply turns up in 1.4 and it's discovered Vitale was buried alive. I want to try to avoid gruesome deaths, and Vitale's is relatively benign, given how scary it would normally be for a person being buried.

Thoughts?
Dirk

Are you finished with [T I a]? I noticed Mrs. [B l u e] is back.

There was a movie by that name, too. I never saw it, but the title stuck.  When I needed something for my book opening, I went back and found the original quote. It sounded like a good opening line to hook the reader, so I structured the scene to be able to place it at the very top and very bottom of the scene. Thanks to Ann for suggesting I find a way to balance the two parts.

I see you attended the less is more academy. Me thinkst your right. Since it's a thought, I'll use italics and let the test that follows explain where it's from.

Thanks
Dirk

I was wondering what people think of the following ending to scene 1.2 (burying alive of Cardinal Vitale):

Is the idea of the Antichrist singing (The Prayer or Time to Say Goodbye) too silly?

Thanks
Dirk

Bobbie, are they members of Premium? And are they publishing to Premium? It requires points to publish to this group, and new members often bypass publishing to Premium because they don't have enough points. You need to be a member of a group to which they published.

What error message do you get?

Thanks, Gacela. Good summary on deep point of view. However, my gripe was with the idea of switching between 3rd person, past tense (indirect inner dialogue) and 1st person, present tense (direct inner dialogue) in the same paragraph, with nothing to distinguish when you're switching from one to the other and back again. I plan to ignore that fad.