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The new editing software I purchased (ProWritingAid) has a tool button that scans for "Dialogue" and reports ALL dialogue tags it finds -- even those not involved directly with the dialogue. By that I mean something similar to the following:

I looked at her and smiled. "That should keep you for a while."

or

My eyebrows rose in surprise. "You're what?"

My software will flag "smiled" and "rose" as a tag even though its a tag once removed. This is quite helpful when returning to chapters written months ago before I bought the software. I'm amazed at how many times my characters have "smiled", "growled", "chuckled" and "yelled" a line. I find ways to set up the dialogue with action and then attach the line.

However, there are times I leave the line alone, as written. If it has impact, or my attempt to work the tag into an action before or after the line, doesn't work/fit, then I don't mess with it. It's all relative.

Bill

Too late to modify my last post so I'll just add that I do immediately edit any suggestions/corrections on the current chapter, but I don't post it again until the entire novel is finished.

Bill

I know of what you speak, Dags. I've found a few of mine also. Most of them from so far back I failed to remember what they referred to. Some were on a forum that doesn't exist any more. Go figure.

As for erasing everything you've ever Google-searched, it is possible. You have to go to your Google settings and follow paths down, but you eventually can find the button that says "Erase all past search terms". Click that and you effectively start again after making Google forget everything you've searched for in the past. There is another check box you can set that says "Never remember searches". if you check that, Google won't remember anything you searched for -- thus it can't give you any targeted ads.

Bill

Dags:

I read everything that David Drake writes. In his RCN series books with Captain Leary. The foreword usually makes reference to wars that took place way in the past, such as the Peloponnesian Wars or the constant strife between Troy and all comers. His spacefaring books reflect these conflicts, only take place in the far future. He's changed all the names, but if you read into his novels you can see the give and take of the original war, only now it is between planets.

So, as Rachael says, you could eliminate everything but the basic plot - and only mention Grand Hotel as being the inspiration.

Bill

I'm a relative newby, having joined in November of 2014. But I'm fairly sure that the year of beta-testing the new site started in 2013. I joined Sol's sister site, Booksie, in January of 2012.  My first postings were utter crap. I've learned so much here. I've made some solid friends and for that I'm thankful.

Bill

Shazaam!!!

Pretty decent idea, Mike.

Bill

Thanks, Rhiannon. I can't imagine how I would manage a time travel novel. The paradoxes (paradoxii?) would drive me insane. Well, not actually drive, it would be a short putt.

I am finding bug after bug in the desktop editor/writing software I bought from ProWritingAid. It seems like every day I am bitten by yet another hole in their programming. I wouldn't mind it so much except I've been programming for over 50 years and it really grinds my gears to see such terrible programming. I am pretty sure that when my year is up, I won't be renewing.

The latest bug was a doozy. I spotted it today. If I edit in their desktop editor and replace, say, one word with three words, it looks good in the editor window, but when I save the file, all three words are run together. I can almost hear the editor shrugging it's shoulders and saying: "Hey, what you typed replaced that word didn't it?"

Bill

Yesterday, I sent a chat message on Facebook to the publisher. Their response today was that they happened to be working on submissions when mine popped up in the email Inbox. They read the synopsis and decided it didn't fit what they were looking for.

I thought that was darn decent of them to give me a personal response. When I get other novels ready, I'll definitely submit to them again. They could have remained faceless and aloof, but they didn't.

Bill

This is what I'm thinking, Corra. The response came back about as fast as it takes to load up a 750KB DOC file and scan for given words. Nine minutes from input to reply has to be non-human.

One of the requirements had me put the genre and sub-genre in both the query letter and the name of the DOC file. That could have been the key that rejected it. Maybe they are full up with "Romance" and "Adventure" or "Romantic adventure".

Bill