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Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

Not glowing-- perfectly fine blue eyes as they murder people?

Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

Is it the concept of glowing irises that you object to our the word itself?  FYI,  Connor has increasingly sparkling blue eyes as his powers grow. I was trying to reserve glowing for red eyes and sparkling for blue, but I'm open to suggestions. I stayed away from yellow because it was used in Star Wars and the Exorcist as signs of evil.

628

Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

Object? No... rather, I question that only the one sense is being used. No scent of sulfur... cracking of phosphorous or screams of the damned. Taste of blood in the air... I wonder if eyes are the ideal fallback

Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

I use temperature, fog, and demonic sounds in addition to the eyes. Also, in the case of the reverend mother, I added that the room smells of decaying flesh. I can add something to the appearances of the dark being. Nice catch.

Thanks
Dirk

630

Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

Maybe sometimes they smoulder?  If you substitute, do it with effect, or do it during description.  In action or dialogue, keep to the regular, non-distracting form.

Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

Just watched the premiere of Witcher, a Game of Thrones wannabe. I lost count of the number of people, places, and things named in the first fifteen minutes, and I have only a limited idea of what the episode was about. Moving on...

Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

I'm debating whether the Antichrist should be more hands on in the murders of the cardinals. Currently, the suspicion of the detectives is that they are pursuing a powerful demon who may be taking his orders from the Antichrist, who is a supernatural human. If the Antichrist is hands on, that means he's personally involved in the break in at the orphanage, the killings, the attacks on Connor, and the videos of the dark being. I think there's more tension in hunting the Antichrist directly rather than one of his demons. Also, demons are easy to spot. Throw some holy water on someone and, if they disintegrate, they're a demon. That doesn't apply to the Antichrist since he's human. Makes him harder to track down. The only tricky bit is that humans can't slip under doors like my current demon does, so I would have to fall back on the Antichrist's supernatural nature to make that possible. The other advantage of a hands on Antichrist is that I don't have to waste time linking the demon to him. The clues lead directly to the Antichrist, not his henchman.

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Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

Hard to say. My cross-story central villain never kills anyone directly, but then... everyone knows exactly where she is. I might have a better answer once I reach the end (hint hint)

Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

Finally started the next chapter, although I still have old stuff to fix. Finding and interrogating the missing gravedigger turns out to be easy. Interrogating Father Coppola may break a few things I already wrote. I have two more scenes left involving Connor in Act I, so the two interrogations will fit nicely in between. I think I have a good cliffhanger for the end of the act.

Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

Cool. I wrote the draft interrogation of the gravedigger in one day. I'll clean it up and post it sometime Tuesday. Still have to make up names for the new characters and try to verify a few Italian police procedures, assuming I can find any in English. There wasn't much the last time I looked.

Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

Scene 3.4, The Gravedigger, is up.

Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

Ray & Kdot, please ignore the comment at the top of my latest scene (the gravedigger) that the detectives already believe they are hunting the Antichrist. There simply isn't enough setup for that assumption yet (all they have are sightings of someone powerful and a ring). I'll see if I can work more evidence into Act II that causes them to change their minds about whether it's a demon (their working assumption) or the Antichrist. TBD.

638 (edited by ray ashton 2020-01-02 22:48:17)

Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

Dirk:

Here's a tip: Put your word processor aside, do what I do: Get a few fancy writing pads, a bunch of HB Soft pencils with very sharp points or a fountain pen that glides along the paper so smoothly you never want to stop writing, and write up all you wanta say: sentences, words, descriptions, ideas, sudden flashes of brilliance. Check out thesaurus.com to avoid unnecessary repeats of words. Let it roll.  Free association. Don't go to bed. Smoke a lot. Get drunk, for Chrissakes! Did you know Graham Greene wrote 1,000 words every morning? And he stopped at word # 1,001. And then the next afternoon he would read what he wrote the day before and, occasionally, throw everything out. When you've eventually written what you feel should be written, use your PC or laptop, and paint the picture. Chances are you'll stumble across some things that don't make sense, which is what you want. Make sure you've got your last chapter pretty much lined up, and anything your cast of characters want to do between the beginning and the end is all up to them.

And that's all I have to say about that.   :o)

Did I mention listening to Miles Davis helps a lot?

Good luck!

Ray

Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

Miles who? I prefer Celine Dion and the Canadian Tenors. Home grown stuff. They're getting rich, I stream them so much.

640 (edited by njc 2020-01-03 02:15:51)

Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

Mahler, Symphony of a Thousand.  The von Neuman recording, if you can find it.

Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

Couldn't find the von Neuman, but the Symphony of a Thousand is decent. Not my preference for background music while writing, though. Il Divo is awesome, too. I prefer that while driving.

Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

njc wrote:

Mahler, Symphony of a Thousand.  The von Neuman recording, if you can find it.

Yes, good stuff, although I prefer the first movement of his unfinished 10th. It's all too complex to write by, though.

Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

Interesting. Celine Dion is worth $800M. Makes me wish I had stayed in the choir in elementary school.

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Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

ray ashton wrote:
njc wrote:

Mahler, Symphony of a Thousand.  The von Neuman recording, if you can find it.

Yes, good stuff, although I prefer the first movement of his unfinished 10th. It's all too complex to write by, though.

Dvorak's Symphony from the New World, almost any Sibelius Symphony, either Book of The Well-Tempered Clavier, or a good organ recording of The Art of the Fugue.
The symphonic presentation of the LotR score.

Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

njc wrote:
ray ashton wrote:
njc wrote:

Mahler, Symphony of a Thousand.  The von Neuman recording, if you can find it.

Yes, good stuff, although I prefer the first movement of his unfinished 10th. It's all too complex to write by, though.

Dvorak's Symphony from the New World, almost any Sibelius Symphony, either Book of The Well-Tempered Clavier, or a good organ recording of The Art of the Fugue.
The symphonic presentation of the LotR score.

I frequently play Glenn Gould's Goldberg Variations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwas_7H5KUs&t=9s

646 (edited by Dirk B. 2020-01-07 01:41:07)

Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

Is it just me, or is the bolded sentence incorrect? Specifically, Campagna is the POV character, but the sentence reads to me as if someone else were the POV character. Is it reasonable for the narrator to withhold information from the reader even as the POV character receives it (i.e. the details of the call)? She discloses the information in a paragraph that follows, simultaneously revealing it to her colleagues and the reader.

Inspector Campagna sat in her makeshift office in the basement of her precinct. Her phone rang. “Yes?” She listened intently for a time. “Excellent! We’ll head right over.” She ended the call.

Thoughts?

Thanks
Dirk

647

Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

The sentence doesn't reinforce the PoV, but it doesn't contradict it.
As to holding info back: mystery writers do it all the time.

Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

Thank ye, kindly.

Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

Hmm. I need a demon in human form to impregnate a woman in my story. I set it up in the exorcism chapter by giving the chief exorcist a complete human body, including on the inside. That means he has bodily fluids, including blood and semen. The tricky part is whose DNA does a demon carry? There has to be a male chromosome since the offspring will be male. It's not enough for the demon to possess a male body and use his DNA for that purpose. I need the offspring to be part demon. That's how the child will inherit demonic powers.

Suggestions?

Thanks
Dirk

650 (edited by njc 2020-01-09 01:20:43)

Re: The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B.

What demon?  Does a demon come into existence at conception, or does a demon already in existence take up residence?  In Larry Corriea's Monster Hunter universe, demons take over when someone succeeds in animating dead human flesh.  Risk of a spoiler:

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The Frankenstein myth gets invoked.