My current WIP is a Catholic-oriented supernatural thriller based on the Book of Revelation. Although I use numerous Catholic sources, there's nothing like having a knowledgeable Catholic to read it. I'd be happy to swap reviews.

About this Series: The End Times have come, and the Unholy Trinity — the Antichrist, the False Prophet, and Satan — is gathering for war. But the Bible has already foretold their doom: Jesus Christ will return in power and glory to conquer evil forever. In a desperate bid to avoid an eternity of torment in the Lake of Fire, Satan has issued one last challenge to God the Father that could upend the prophecies, destroy the Messiah and his Church, and give Satan everlasting dominion. But why would the Father agree to such a dare? What is so important that he would risk it all? Find out in this exciting series who ultimately becomes … Lord of the Earth.

About this Book: Fourteen-year-old Connor, an orphan in Rome, has special gifts. He comforts the grieving, heals the sick, and casts out demons from the possessed. As the Catholic Church struggles to understand his supernatural abilities, a police investigation into the deaths of several cardinals in the city uncovers a centuries-old conspiracy to topple the Church from within. Soon the Pope’s Council of Cardinal Advisers concludes they are being stalked by the Antichrist, and Connor becomes his main target. The Council must move swiftly to save Connor, who may be their long-awaited Christ returned as a boy, something that seems to defy Scripture. Thus begins a desperate struggle between good and evil that will decide the fate of humanity.

Thanks
Dirk

As long as you can work out the orbital mechanics, go for it!

j p lundstrom wrote:

A planet that "revolves" (moves in a circular trajectory) around two different suns in a "figure eight"? Forget about reality--you left that a long time ago. (As have all the other authors who postulate two suns per planet.) Just relax and enjoy the unique world you have created!

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.

Scene 3.1 is back up.

Thanks
Dirk

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 a new, small prologue up, and scene 3.1, the funeral of Romano's former lover. I've been looking forward to writing scene 3.2, where Campagna first meets De Rosa's godson. She's going to spiral as badly as Romano in 3.1. After that, Connor "observes" an exorcism. :-)

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.

Kdot, I tried using international time as opposed to American in the story as you suggested, and it turns out, international time is mostly used for official purposes (e.g., airports, train stations, etc.). In Italy, spoken time is so complex it's not worth the effort to convert it to English. I had a mishmash of different ways of presenting it (one for narrative, another for spoken when am/pm is obvious, another when am/pm is not known, etc.). I finally settled on hours:minutes a.m. and hours:minutes p.m. I can die happily now.

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.

There was a bit of a site hiccup earlier this evening as I was cleaning up my prologue (it showed chapter one instead). That problem is now gone. The "latest" chapter showing on the home page should be the prologue. I wanted to open the story with a bit of a thrill.

Thanks
Dirk

1,461

(3 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

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.

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(3 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Now that you've published a couple of chapters, post a note in Premium introducing yourself, describing your story, the problem you're trying to fix, and asking for reviewers. You should get a pretty good response. I'll review them as soon as the sun comes up.

Cool book cover, by the way.

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(4 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

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.

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(4 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

I frequently submit inline reviews shy of five. They always save. This is the first time I can recall that I left no comments and submitted just the summary. It gave no error message but didn't save. That's the bug.

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(4 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Sol, I just discovered that it is not possible to save an inline review unless there is at least one inline comment (at least I think that's the problem). I read a very short chapter (0.5 points) and found nothing to nit, so I just left a summary comment and clicked submit (I didn't care about the half point). The review wasn't saved. I had to switch to a regular review to save my summary comment. I won't complain about the half point I gained, but the system didn't warn me that the inline review hadn't been saved.

Dirk

I definitely prefer shorter posts. It makes it much easier to review parts in one sitting, which is why my current WIP splits each scene out as a TNBW chapter, same as what you did for Maiden. Rather than split the short story Into multiple short stories, I suggest publishing it as a book on this site.

I just finished writing the part for the medical examiner. There are seven references to her, but she's in a room where meeting participants did a round of introductions. I didn't actually write any introductions (too boring); I just said they happened. I think that means she needs a name like everyone else. The director general's there too.

My current WIP is set in Rome, and most of the characters are Italian. My major characters have both first and last names (e.g., Gregorio Romano). Since many Italian names are rather complex for English speakers, I'm trying to limit the total number of foreign names. As a result, I'm wondering what to do about secondary characters. Should I give them names, or try to refer to them by just their role or title (e.g., medical examiner, director general)? For example, the medical examiner will give a verbal briefing of an autopsy, then disappear for at least several chapters, if not permanently. I had a senior constable in one scene whom I referred to solely as senior constable. However, I also had a nameless chief inspector but was eventually convinced by a reviewer to give him at least a last name. Referring to him as chief inspector over and over became too much.

Thoughts?
Dirk

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(3 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Beginner's luck is right, JP. I only remembered the above four elements to the story, yet got a hit.

Rachel, as I mentioned in my review, I had a great deal of difficulty understanding your prologue. I may just be dense, but I couldn't figure out what was going on, who the players were, etc. It wasn't until I got to chapter one that things smoothed out nicely into a regular story.. If you're going to keep the prologue, it needs more detail about who's who, how they got there, why they're foes, etc.

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(3 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

I recently remembered a book about the Revolutionary War that I had read about forty years ago. I wanted to reread it, but didn't remember the title or author. I plugged in a few keywords: older brother dies, stolen cow, father killed, etc. Up it popped on my first try. Only $3 on Kindle.

Wow!
Dirk

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(8 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Thanks, Will. You're right r.e. respect from Catholics is, for the most part, the same as from most people, although the hard-core Catholics in the forum I frequent would definitely steer clear of them.

Close. It's Antonio, formerly Davide. I didn't like the latter. I would leave out actual mental dialogue, but I think haunting Romano with whispers and ghostly appearances of Antonio would be good.

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(52 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

I'm rereading Wuthering Heights. Lots of expressiveness to the eyes, including this latest: eyes full of black fire. As Temple once noted, it's not the eyes, but the muscles and folds around the eyes that give them expression.

Given how Romano's former lover dies (Romano's fault, the lover refuses last rights, he's going to hell) and the devastating impact it has on Romano, I'm debating whether Romano should start hearing the dead man's voice. I could do it as ghostly whispers that pass him quickly at every turn and send chills down his spine. Additionally, he could think he keeps seeing his lover in crowds. Basically he's haunted or suffering from mental illness. It would allow me to keep this particular subplot going throughout the book.

Thoughts?