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It occurs to me that I still have the attacks against Connor for thrill (e.g., my new prologue) and the cardinal deaths for murder/mystery. Only the manner of death will change. While I was relying on the different types of "forced" suicides to give the book some variety and avoid it becoming repetitive, I'll have to see if I can find other ways to maintain interest in the murder/mystery. Gives me something to think about this weekend.

The cardinal deaths came to mind again while reading a recent review by Clairedeplume. I've been trying to minimize the violence in this story to make it as palatable for my target audience (mainly Catholics & Christians) as possible. It was one of the reasons why I chose suicide over murder as the cause of death for all four cardinals that will die in the story. It's also the reason I limited the number of deaths to four (two before Connor goes to the Holy Land, and two after he's there, eliminating him as an obvious suspect given his supernatural powers). It's eventually revealed that, historically, over the decades (centuries?) there were many dead cardinals who appeared to die by suicide.

Buried alive is my favorite of the bunch, which normally would be considered quite gruesome (the detectives think so), but I show the burial as it's happening and the cardinal just lies there peacefully praying while being buried. He can't fight the satanic being who wants to kill him (the being is too powerful), so he decides to allow himself to be buried to avoid extreme torture, which is an acceptable excuse for suicide according to the Church. In other words, he'll still get to heaven. FYI, the reason the satanic being doesn't want to kill him outright is that killing a prince of the Church comes "at a cost" (suffering) for the being.

I've been debating since the beginning making the cause of death non-violent for all the cardinals. The first dead cardinal could still show up in the cemetery, so most of the story remains unchanged. Even scene 1.2 (Cardinal Vitale's death) may be partially reusable, up to but not including his actual death, which would have to occur before he's buried. All of the cardinals would be positioned in the form of an upside down cross and would wear a ring engraved with the numbers 666, the mark of the Antichrist.

What do you think? Can a thriller maintain tension if the cause of the four deaths isn't violent or gruesome? I was thinking if no one knows how they die, that would maintain the tension. In other words, someone is stalking cardinals and killing them, probably using some unknown poison. The trick becomes how the Antichrist gets the poison into them without it being obvious.

Thoughts?
Dirk

Thanks, njc. I need early evening to make it clear to the reader that there is still enough time left for the whole scene to play out (at least an hour before darkness). Needs tweaking. If the (whole) sky is already orange, there isn't enough time. And, yes, watching is better.

Thanks
Dirk

I came across this article a few years ago and tried taking it to heart. I switched comma-then to "before" which, technically, solves the problem, but didn't sound natural. As for his reference to the Bronte sisters, he obviously hasn't read Wuthering Heights in a while. The language of literature has changed substantially since then and continues to evolve. Multiple excellent writers on this site have since convinced me that comma-then is just fine.

Actually, astronomers have already found binary star systems with planets. If I remember correctly, the planets tend to orbit both stars, like Tatooine in Star Wars. And let's face it, watching sunset with John William's music was awesome.

Had to take 3.1 (the funeral) down. Turns out I wrote almost all of it in the form of telling. Duh. Should be back up later this week.

I have things like time of death for the corpse, which falls in a range of specific times. It's not just the Italians. I speak German and would need to convert their way of expressing time to American if writing in English. Think of it as UK time.

If the planet is moving around the large sun and the small sun is close enough to "seize" the planet into its orbit, I would think there's no way to get it back out of the small sun's orbit. NJC would definitely know better than I would, though.

I haven't started reading yet, but one thought that springs to mind is to create a list of all chapters and a list of information "items" in chapters 2 through 4 that you want to move elsewhere. Map the items against the chapters (where would/could you move the items without breaking the story). That's your to do list.

I'm oversimplifying, but you get the idea. You may also decide if some items of information can be eliminated entirely. Cut, cut, cut.

I do it inline when appropriate, otherwise I do it in the summary. Had I cared about the half point, I would have switched to a regular review. I found a bug, I reported it. I would appreciate it if people would stop hijacking this thread to teach me how to do reviews.