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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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?
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?
I count myself among those who never understood Shakespeare without the Cliff Notes. I'm currently rereading Wuthering Heights, and I'm frequently forced to slow down to be sure I read it correctly. The hardest part is trying to understand the Bible-thumping servant, Joseph, whose speech is rendered in a thick dialect. Emily Bronte died from consumption (TB) at age thirty, only a year after writing the novel. Most of the Bronte siblings died young.
Gacela, you can print out all regular reviews by going to the chapter view of the chapter in question. They're all collected at the bottom. Use your browser's print capability. As for inlines, I usually open each inline review, print it, mark it as applied, then go to the next one. I'm afraid that's fastest way to do it. I suggest using your browser's print capability for inlines too, because the site's print function doesn't include the closing comments and reply.
Thanks, Alan.
I'm wondering what people do when it comes to writing numbers in a story? I typically spell out numbers <= 100, but also write numbers like one thousand as words rather than 1,000. I eventually settled on a rule that if I could write it out in three words or less, then I would do so. As a result, numbers like 500, 10,000, 1,000,000, etc. all get written out. I tend to include 'and' when writing numbers, so 350 would be three hundred and fifty, which is four words, so I wouldn't write it out. One of my reviewers recommended I write 350 as three hundred-fifty in a line of dialogue, hence this post.
Thanks
Dirk
If you use the Print feature of your browser, it should have an option to print to pdf. I use Chrome. Not sure about the others.
The scene is up. Talk about damaging one of your main characters. The other, Inspector Campagna, is already a mess because her baby boy was kidnapped many years ago from the hospital where she gave birth. I can't wait to introduce her to Connor, who looks surprisingly like she envisioned her son would. However, Connor's parents were killed in a car accident when Connor was seven, so it couldn't be him, right?
Alan, my best wishes for your wife's full and speedy recovery. Please keep us up to date.
Thanks, njc. I realized today that it doesn't have to be a suicide. The distraught former lover could simply run out of the orphanage and into the street without thinking, where he is hit by a bus. And to really mess with Romano's head, the dying man could refuse to receive the last rites, pretty much guaranteeing, from Romano's perspective, that he died in a state of mortal sin.
