The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B. (Page 29 of 57)

Question about the exorcists shadowing Connor. I chose to have two so that at least one could always be on duty, even at night. Theoretically, I could name both and have them appear together from time to time. However, there's a problem with having too many priests in one scene, not to mention too many named characters, especially given that all the names are foreign. My first crack at this was to use Father Luca as both the soccer coach and exorcist. The other one was off "resting". Father Luca carried over to the hospital, guarding Connor overnight after the lightning strike. A long shift, but still reasonable. With the release of my latest chapter, I again prefer to have just one exorcist, so it's Father Luca again. However, I can't keep saying the other one is resting and never have him show up. Stands out like a sore thumb. I think I have to bite the bullet and name them both and have them both appear from time to time, even if they're never together. Readers won't remember who these guys are (bit parts), so I have to remind the reader once or twice per scene who they are (e.g. Father Luca, the exorcist, said ...). It's a limited problem since I will ditch both of them at the end of this act. The Holy Land guide (also a priest) will conveniently also have exorcism training.

Reasonable?
Dirk

Yes. Connor's under repeated attack by demonic forces. It seems like the natural thing for the Church to do. Think of them like guards in a conventional story. However, since the characters interact with them, they need names. There will also be Vatican Swiss Guards in the next act; in their case, I'll only name the senior guard.

Tricky. They're the kind of background characters you would normally want me to punt, but they play a role that I would have to assign to other priests (eg the soccer coach), and since they interact with the MCs, I'd have to name them anyway. I'm stuck with them for act 1. I'll change to two named exorcists and see how it reads.

Thanks
Dirk

Waiting for more feedback is a dangerous proposition here, Dirk. Place is like a graveyard. Wonder how many active people there are here. I mean people who actually write, not those who rest on their mostly unpublished laurels and use this site like Facebook. Also, why lose the buses? You gotta show the reader how they get to where they're going, no? Why do you care if the scene covers 9 1/4 pages? Nobody's interested in a page count. For what it's worth: I didn't like the Star Wars stuff. I have nothing against Star Wars, but anything that came after the first 3 films sucks.   :o)

Ray

The bus contention is my fault. As a reader, I invested into a bus trip only to find they got off like two paragraphs later which foiled my investment.

For me a simple "X & Y got off the bus..." is sufficient. Or even "X & Y walked into the Sistine Chapel" which implies they got there somehow.

And yes, Star Wars has been a large bucket of suckery for the past 20 years

Netflix just notified me of a new upcoming series called Constantine, starring Keanu Reeves, which involves a deal between God and Satan. Winner take all. It's based on a long-running comic book series and a series of novels. I almost freaked. As far as I can tell from the trailer and Wikipedia, many important elements differ. TBD.

After a little rewording, I shaved about twenty words from the opening paragraph. The buses remain, but the stage direction is significantly reduced. Not bad. Naturally, there was other stuff that I wanted to put back into the chapter, which I had previously purged. Same total word count. There's other stuff I can trim, depending on further feedback.

However, since you weren't too thrilled about St. Peter's Basilica, you may hate the second act. Connor will go from site to site in the Holy Land, following in the footsteps of Jesus. Lot's of biblical and archaeological details. He will either be under attack or perform increasing miracles. It's going to be interesting to see how many such miracles I can come up with. The good news is they ride in SUVs, not buses.

Could be made to work.

I'm a fan of getting to the point. If I'm sold on a demon book only to find out it's not a demon book, it can erode my reading experience. I haven't been on your back, because I gather the mystery genre is entirely about not getting to the point until the final chapter.

That said, it seems like such a structural change, should I ask what the goal is?

Forgot that part like I forgot it states Connor lives

Off topic: Line 1 is heavy

Hmm. I replaced the discussion about a powerful demon with speculation about the Antichrist and the resulting scene (Campagna meets Connor) is now eleven pages. Makes the St. Peter's Basilica scene look downright short. :-)