I'm currently reading a 100-year-old book called The Lord of the World. It's been updated for modern audiences, although I don't know what changes were made. Nevertheless, it's filled with pages and pages of narration. Doesn't bother my enjoyment of the book one bit. If your story is good, you can break the rules, and if your story is garbage, the rules won't save it.
1,976 2018-07-24 20:55:23
Topic: Old books with heavy narration (1 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
1,977 2018-07-23 18:41:51
Re: Indenting with Kindle (2 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Thank you, Rachel.
1,978 2018-07-23 18:07:43
Re: Savior of the Damned (the Connor series) by Dirk B. (1,492 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Thanks, Rachel. Yes, Lehaye is my principle competitor and the primary reason the Protestant Dispensationalist POV dominates the Internet, even among many Catholics. Fortunately, there are 1.2B Catholics in the world who would probably appreciate a Catholic interpretation. I think other Christians might read it too. My story does not follow the Catholic version of Revelation entirely, though. There are plenty of really good study guides if all the reader wants is to understand Revelation. My novels will focus on the Unholy Trinity trying to capture the Church and destroying all three Abraham religions. I still have huge gaps in my outline for books two and the, but book one is coming together nicely. I may put up a trial chapter in a few months, after which I plan to go deep with the rest of my research, probably until early 2019.
1,979 2018-07-23 17:01:20
Re: Savior of the Damned (the Connor series) by Dirk B. (1,492 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Thanks, Rachel. I settled on The Lord of the Earth after researching over twenty potential titles, all of which were overused on Amazon. The only thing close to mine that I found was Lords of the Earth, which is a different genre. Annoyingly, I read recently about a book called Lord of the World (recommended by Pope Francis), which is a hundred-year-old telling of the Book of Revelation from a Catholic perspective, which is exactly what I'm writing. I didn't know there were any novels on Revelation from a Catholic perspective when I started. I've read half of Lord of the World and, fortunately, my series will be totally unlike that book.
1,980 2018-07-23 13:01:16
Topic: Indenting with Kindle (2 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Does anyone have any experience indenting text inside Kindle? I'd like to indent text from both the right and left, if possible.
Thanks
Dirk
1,981 2018-07-23 12:56:35
Re: Savior of the Damned (the Connor series) by Dirk B. (1,492 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
The overall real estate worries me, although there will be few names outside famous ones such as Moses, Caesar, and Hitler. I'll try it your way, with a relatively detailed vision in places where I would normally "tell"a vision.
1,982 2018-07-23 05:34:21
Re: Savior of the Damned (the Connor series) by Dirk B. (1,492 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Technique question.
My Connor character experiences frequent painful visions. Some are physically painful as he feels the pain of those in the vision, while others are emotionally painful because he has great empathy (one of his supernatural abilities). The visions range from Old Testament violence to Roman Era bloody battles to the Inquisition to gas attacks in WWI and so on. In the spirit of show don't tell, I'm seriously considering showing the visions to the reader as Connor experiences them. He'll narrate the visions. There are enough atrocities throughout history to have one vision per chapter for all three books.
My concern is how disjointed the result will feel. That'll be a lot of page space dedicated to visions that, while connected, won't be revealed as such until the end of the series. The reader will know something strange is going on since the characters will discuss the visions and their possible meaning, but I don't plan to make it easy to figure out before the final reveal.
The reason to have Connor narrate the visions is to create a connection to the rest of the story. For those who saw the original Dune movie, you heard Paul Atreides's thoughts whispered by the actor who played him. Same technique.
Thoughts?
1,983 2018-07-23 03:54:37
Re: Maiden and other stuff (52 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Can one have "melancholy brown eyes"?
1,984 2018-07-19 02:12:24
Re: The Galaxy Tales - Dirk B. (1,217 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Chapter 40, Post-Battle, is up. It's a cleaned up version of the same chapter from v2. Painful number of edits. I left a few of the larger problems until v4, like the fact that Joseph and Apollo should be at each other's throats. Of course, Joseph is more focused on throwing himself off a cliff.
Only one chapter to go!!! Not sure if I should split it in two. It has a very short final scene for each of the MCs.
Thanks for reading.
Dirk
1,985 2018-07-18 23:19:47
Re: Addressing other characters? (8 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
All mindspeech in the book between Joseph/Apollo and the various entities in their minds (God, dead relatives, etc.) is done in italics. I rarely use italics for anything else, except for occasional emphasis of a word or two. I tried various ways to do mindspeech when I started in 2012 and italics was easiest to read.
1,986 2018-07-18 13:41:37
Re: The Galaxy Tales - Dirk B. (1,217 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
I agree with you, though. Those require an exclamation mark. My opening chapter, though, had dozens.
1,987 2018-07-18 02:04:55
Re: The Galaxy Tales - Dirk B. (1,217 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Two chapters to go! :-)
1,988 2018-07-18 02:01:29
Re: Addressing other characters? (8 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
My issue is with 'Joseph pleaded'. Let the dialogue do the pleading. Let the speaker tag just say 'said'.
As for the second line, I might do an action instead: God was silent for a moment. "Her time has come, Joseph. Have faith."
Relying solely on said probably means using an exclamation mark in the dialogue. I got schooled for too many of those recently. I took advantage of the italics of mind speech to eliminate God said, although I like that God was silent for a moment. I'll add that in.
1,989 2018-07-18 01:55:49
Re: Addressing other characters? (8 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
That particular scene has Paul in it, so I'm tempted to say "yes"
I used "" here to avoid confusion, but it seems to have had the opposite effect. The dialogue with God is in italics, using mind speech. I took out the tag. See what you think.
1,990 2018-07-18 01:48:19
Re: The Galaxy Tales - Dirk B. (1,217 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Chapter 39 of v3, Joseph's Sword, is up. It's a cleaned up version of the same chapter from v2. I incorporated reviewer feedback, removed a whole bunch of saids, and cut way back on exclamation marks.
1,991 2018-07-18 00:55:55
Topic: Addressing other characters? (8 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
I have many cases in my book where a character addresses another by name. Below, Joseph addresses God. In the second line, do I need to mention 'God said'? Seems obvious who is responding. Obviously, if someone butted into the conversation at that point, I would need a dialogue tag.
"Help her, Lord," Joseph pleaded.
"Her time has come, Joseph," God said. "Have faith."
Thanks
Dirk
1,992 2018-07-16 19:51:35
Topic: Everything you need to know about Canadians (0 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
1,993 2018-07-16 19:20:25
Re: Groups languish (24 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Dagny, I think you're incorrect for the following three reasons:
1.
2.
3.
1,994 2018-07-15 18:10:13
Re: Groups languish (24 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
We may have to rename the group to "Where did everybody go?"
1,995 2018-07-15 03:07:36
Re: Groups languish (24 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Kdot wrote:@Debbie: You don't need those elements to join the group. All genre are welcome
Really? Okay. I'm joining.
The usual format for the thread name is Story Name - User Name, although there are exceptions. The definition of "Story" is up to you (novel, trilogy, series, etc.). I now have two active threads, one per trilogy.
1,996 2018-07-14 21:44:14
Re: Groups languish (24 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
The Medieval/Fantasy Magic group is very active. A bunch of us set up shop there years ago, each with a single thread about our respective WIP. We use the threads for brainstorming, writing questions, additional feedback about a review, and sometimes just for fun. I sometimes encourage new users to create a thread there for their own stories. Some of the threads aren't even about fantasy. At least three are sci-fi. My new thread is for a supernatural thriller. I considered placing it in the Mysteries & Thrillers group, but no one posts there. I tried out the Sci-fi group years ago, but couldn't get much feedback, so I moved to the Medieval group. I'm surprised people don't set up little cliques like ours in other groups. I've found the threads invaluable to my writing.
1,997 2018-07-13 05:40:50
Re: How to avoid repetition when referring to a character in a scene (2 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Thanks, Jeff. I'll check out the links.
1,998 2018-07-13 03:35:00
Re: How to avoid repetition when referring to a character in a scene (2 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Thanks, Jeff. I misunderstood your review.
I'm still interested in the original question, though. Do I use both Joseph's mother and Regent to reduce repetition, or stick with Joseph's mother? Ditto for his father, the Prince Consort. What about Crown Prince instead of Joseph? I do at times refer to Joseph as a teen, which I think is fine. The others I'm not sure about.
1,999 2018-07-13 02:32:25
Topic: How to avoid repetition when referring to a character in a scene (2 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
One of my reviewers noticed that I make a staggering number of references to one of my characters, Joseph, throughout one of my chapters. It's partly because his father and mother are also in the scene, so there are references to 'Joseph's father' and 'Joseph's mother', adding to the problem. For example,
Joseph's father said, “‘For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.’”
Joseph's father is the Prince Consort to Joseph's mother, the Regent. I could replace some references to Joseph's father with Prince Consort and some references to Joseph's mother with Regent. That would allow me to mix it up a little. However, other reviewers have told me that Joseph wouldn't think of them in those terms (Prince Consort and Regent) and I should stick with calling them his father and mother.
Similarly, I used to replace some references to Joseph with his title, Crown Prince, for the same reason.
Having eliminated all of those, I'm stuck with dozens references to Joseph in one chapter.
How do others handle this?
Thanks
Dirk