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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.

Will, people work Bible quotes into their novels all the time, although mostly as simple phrases (e.g. turn the other cheek) without including the whole quote. Nevertheless, that's a great question for my Catholic forum. My second prayer borrows from Jesus's prayer to the Father before his arrest in Gethsemane.

On a related note, someone in the forums pointed out that most (all?) modern Bibles are copyrighted and some charge royalties. Some  book publishers shy away from certain Bibles for just that reason. I may have to write a few letters to Bible publishers before settling on a final version. One of them (can't remember which) allows limited quoting (e.g. 500 short quotes). My preferred source of Bible quotes is the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition. Say that three times really quickly.

Unfortunately, life intrudes. My mother is in the hospital and needs to go in a care home, so I'm scrambling to find something suitable before they dump her in the first available one. Calgary is a sprawling city, so it could take up to an hour each way if they put her too far away. Also, my car got hit, so I have to deal with that too.

I'm still tweaking the first three scenes since I don't have enough free time to focus on new stuff. Back to semi-normal in a few weeks.

Thanks for hanging in there.
Dirk

I took out the above prayer from scene one and made it a prayer spoken by Connor in scene three, when the fog first tries to approach him from under an exterior door in the chapel. In scene one, Romano uses Psalm 140, but without a direct quote since it's too long:

Kdot, thanks for your suggestions.