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Thanks, Amy. I'm still trying (and failing) to include a third prayer at the end of scene one. :-)

thanks

Thank you, both. Retrofitting that stuff into the existing scenes on the fly may not have been the best approach, since I forgot so much stuff. After the initial burglary, there should be a comment in scene 2.1 about the police sitting outside in a patrol car (the cardinal can comment about that, so I don't have to show it). Also, Romano and Cardinal Gallo should discuss the initial event. And once it occurs a second time, they shouldn't just sit in the chapel for a friendly chat. I'm already working on intensifying the "battle" between the fog and Connor in the chapel to up the ante. All of the above will keep me busy for at least a week given how little time I have right now for writing.

I am thinking about the next scene, though. I have some idea of what I want next in the hunt for the Antichrist, but I need to be sure I'm not moving too fast through that part of the story since it needs to go in lockstep with Connor, where I have at least four scenes left before the end of act 1. I may have to kill another clergyman in act 1 to get enough material for Campagna and De Rosa to chase down. I have the outline for Connor well-defined, but not the detective's hunt, which is slowing me down. There's only so many clergyman I can kill before the book becomes unfit for its target audience. I've already decided there have been more deaths than the three I wrote about, but they happened before the start of the book, so it's less gruesome. They took place around the world and the Church is trying to suppress the evidence to avoid scaring the world about what may be the Apocalypse, so I may send the detectives on a trip of their own in acts 2 and 3 that parallels Connor's tour of the Holy Land. TBD.

Following are the changes to the two scenes so far related to increasing the threat to the MCs, as suggested by Kdot.

Scene 1.1:

Scene 2.1:

Will just read 2.1 today and felt there wasn't enough setup for the threat. I don't think he saw the added material above in scene 1.1 since I didn't republish. I just inserted the new material into the already published chapters.

I should add that I forgot to include the initial threat of scene 1.1 in the discussion between Romano and Cardinal Gallo, the Secretary of State in scene 2.1. I'll fix that.

Anyone have any thoughts about whether the above material works in the chapters you've read?

Thanks
Dirk

I have a question about how to handle characters in my book crossing themselves. Until now (three scenes), if a character was going to pray, I was always explicit that they crossed themselves. However, I think that's going to get tedious over the course of the books. I'm considering slowly shifting away from saying it and just leaving it implicit that it's part of praying. I think the best way to handle it is to base it on whether I'm writing a detailed prayer scene vs. a simple summary that someone prayed. In the former case, I would be explicit that they crossed themselves, then have them voice (or think) the actual words of the prayer. In the latter, I treat it as a given that it's part of praying, without bothering with the details.

I plan something similar with kneeling. If a character kneels to pray, I'll always state it, since kneeling is a more profound form of reverence. If they don't kneel, I won't mention it, unless it were relevant to the scene.

Thoughts?
Dirk

And the winner is:

I decided the partial quote didn't work/was too clunky.

It was better than your first one, but if you're willing to bend trademark rules, George's ship or a picture of the Tardis will get you more reads. Because the images on this site are so small, I don't know what's on your cover other than a (your?) face. The stuff to the left is too blurry. Maybe have the face looking at a futuristic ship launching. My working cover for Galaxy Tales evolved over time and yours probably will too. Word to the wise: I have OCD and sweat the small shit. Doesn't mean you need to.

Since this is a private site and a draft copy, it might be acceptable to use a picture of George Jetson in his spaceship as the working cover. It would instantly make me curious to start reading.

:-)

Or this:

How about this?

The only change I made is to convert references of me to us, since he's praying to protect the whole orphanage, and I cherry-picked parts of the psalm.