Scholomancer 122115 rdpulfer 47, 48 and 49 (3157 words)

[rdpulfer]

Robert Renfield betrayed his Master Dracula and left him at the bottom of the ocean. One year later, the hunters of Westenra continue the search for Dracula, unaware of their development. Their lead agent, Stephanie Van Helsing, is suffering from mysterious visions and soon finds herself on the run after being framed for the death of a colleague. Tracking down Renfield, she is eventually brought before the Council, a group of monsters who opposed Dracula. Alongside the werewolf Bannister, the Bride of Frankenstein Evelyn and the mummy Rewer, Stephanie and Renfield find the Wisdom of Solomon responsible for triggering Stephanie's visions. After finding the scroll, they are attacked by rogue hunters sent by Stephanie's treacherous mentor Irving. Stephanie is forced to kill one of them to protect her allies. When more hunters arrive, Renfield provides a distraction while the others escape, planning to move the Wisdom of Solomon to a secure location. However, Stephanie is betrayed by Rewer - revealed to the be the Buyer - while the hunters catch up with Renfield. 

[Mandamon]

This was a better section.  I like both Renfield and Stephanie being proactive to get out of their situation.  There were still some logical problems which I marked below, mainly about who has what information.  Glad to see things are coming together.  How many more chapters are there?

 

 

Pg 1: If Irving recognizes the buyer, wouldn't he have to know it's Rewer?  Has he ever met the buyer personally?

 

pg 1: “What are the kids saying these days?” the Buyer shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

--Are they saying that?

 

pg 1: "Evelyn Lancaster, suspected accomplice."

--Westernra doesn't have very good information on the monsters it hunts, does it?

 

pg 2: "salvage this all after all"

 

pg 3: "Nothing. His life would mean nothing."

--This goes back to my earlier complaint that Irving tends to brush Rebecca off, 

 

ignoring her when it's convenient.

 

pg 3: "He was effectively enrolling in the Devil’s semester"

--The Devil's College, maybe?

 

pg 5: "Sixteen minutes and three teeth later, Renfield spat blood onto the safe house floor."

--good line

 

pg 7: "He saw her smile . . . the small one he gave her right before he left."

--She gave him

 

pg 8: "which inside case resides beneath the oak desk."

???

 

pg 8: "Renfield flipped the switch with a swift kick of his foot."

"He heard yells of frustration as he grabbed his meager possessions."

--wait, how did he reach the desk?  I thought he was tied up?  how did he grab anything?

 

pg 13: "She had a knife in her feet"

--That must hurt.  Maybe in her boot?

 

pg 14-15: This is trending toward infodumpy, but I'm still ok with it.  I more wonder how Irving knows all this and why Westernra (and the van Helsing family) don't.

 

pg 17: "Hopefully I don’t run out of Pig Latin anytime soon."

--That's awesome.

[rdpulfer]

Thanks Mandamon!

 

My feeling is that Irving will keep calling Rewer "The Buyer" because it reflects the formality of their relationship . . . he really doesn't want to be on a first name basis with this guy. But your point about Rebecca is right on the money - this is his most powerful motivation, so I think it needs to be the most consistent. 

 

A knife in the feet would definitely hurt . . . I think it was supposed to be in her shoe, or concealed along her leg. 

 

I also have it in the notes to explain why Irving knows so much and Westenra knows so little. 

 

Thanks again for the feedback! 

[Robinski]

Detail below, but I was very frustrated with parts of this submission. This first chapter was okay – good to see Irving fighting with his conscience, but second chapter was VERY ANNOYING!!!! Renfield’s escape was a farce. Got a prisoner? TIE HIM UP! Ludicrous – the hunters have been stupid hacks throughout. And you can’t hotwire modern cars, not possible, can’t do it, coded ignition, steering column lock, etc.

 

I enjoyed the confrontation between Renfield and Stephanie, but I did have some issues with it. There were things revealed that I did not understand. I felt like there were things coming out that had not been foreshadowed.

 

I stopped commenting on most typo issues a while back, but for the avoidance of doubt, they’re still there   ;o)

 

Good progress of the story. It really feels like we’re getting to the sharp end. I do struggle a bit with Irving’s grand plan. Who knows what I would be like in that situation, but his judgement and his logic seem shaky, and he seems so logical and controlled to believe that any dealing with Father of Lies can have a good outcome.

 

Keep it coming!

 

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We seem to be in Irving’s pov, but he can hear Stephanie’s ramblings before he gets out of his car? Didn’t seem right to me.

 

“at least it seems the Buyer has that effect on everyone” – lol

 

“He thought for a moment.” – Statements like this are effectively padding. If you skip it (them) and go straight to the next sentence, no-one would feel any different.

 

“Perhaps he felt killing something would make him feel more like a hunter again, and less like a traitor” – good line, this is the kind of complex internal thought process that I find makes a character really engaging. Irving’s is the clearest internal conflict. Stephanie doesn’t really have one, and Renfield’s isn’t all that clear, I think.

 

“I’m not doing this for my livelihood” – this is Irving’s answer to the buyer mentioning him living to 100 years old – did you mean longevity?

 

“Perhaps a small part of him wanted Stephanie to escape, thus ending the Scholomance before it started” – I think a reminder of what the scholomance is would be good around here. I can’t remember what’s going to happen and why Stephanie is required. Might be Weekly Reader Syndrome. The scholomance is going to create a new Dracula, or rebirth the old one? Stephanie is the only person who can read the scroll? Sorry, it’s just my ageing brain being incapable of reading 4 stories at once.

 

“If only the Devil taught on Udemy” – I don’t know what this means, and I don’t think I should need to G**gle something to understand the story.

 

“Stephanie was stabbed to a gurney” – strapped, right?

 

“more of a father than Stephen was had been, disappearing on her his daughter to chase this lead or that lead all over the seven continents” – Steph’s father is dead, right?

 

“He saw her smile . . . the small one he she gave her him right before he left” – I think

 

“one more person’s death die on my conscience”

 

“which inside in this case resided beneath the oak desk”

 

“the room was illuminated in a bright blast of light, blinding the hunters” – I don’t buy this. The room would have sufficient lighting for normal levels of comfort, surely. Switching on a central light is not going to blind anyone – and how are they seeing to beat him up? If they have goggles, then how can he see what they are doing? This scene doesn’t hang together.

 

“Thankfully, it was like riding a bike” – I don’t think this is credible. Modern cars are not like those in the 60’s / 70’s / 80’s. I don’t believe you can hotwire them. This all feels far, far too easy. These hunters are complete idiots. Why was Renfield not tied up?

 

“without any need of a key” – impossible, modern vehicles have coded ignitions that can only be operated with the key.

 

I'm looking forward to this meeting between Steph and Irving...

 

“The whole room lunged” – this makes the room sound sentient – lurched?

 

Repetition of ‘resembling’ is weird.

 

“And not once did you think of using that to help her” – Hmm, interesting. I'm thinking, why would he expect anyone else to think of this when he knows it’s wrong, and is having conscience issues with it?

 

“All I see are two chumps” – lol

 

“You’d be surprised how much one is willing to pay from class from Professor Satan” – really though? I struggle with this.

 

“And some probably are well-groomed to think it’s a risk” – I don’t get the meaning of this.

 

“wheels searing smoothly” - ??

 

“You are the Solomonari. You are the missing piece...” – did we get any hints at this? Maybe I missed them, but this seems to come from nowhere – it’s probably just me being dense.

 

“Stephanie waited a few more moments and then opened her eyes” – When she has seen the scroll before, she has been out for some considerable time. Is she playacting here? I don’t get it – it doesn’t seem consistent. “she wasn’t going to fall for it twice” – but how does she control it this time? There’s no explanation.

[rdpulfer]

Thanks Robinksi

 

I think next time I'm going to submit my first draft to my proofreading friend just to catch more of the typos before I submit to the the writing group.

 

I definitely need to make the hunters feel more competent/sympathetic in general. Plus Renfield can't just snatch their car two or three times in a story . . . 

 

The hunters did have night vision goggles, so that's why there were blinded by the light.

 

I'll also put my explanation on how Stephanie avoided the Scroll this time so the reader knows she is playacting. 

[Robinski]

I think next time I'm going to submit my first draft to my proofreading friend just to catch more of the typos before I submit to the the [LOL] writing group.   Joking aside, you might even get better comments, because people can read more continuously, without being tripped up by typos.

 

Plus Renfield can't just snatch their car two or three times in a story . . . I don't object to him stealing the car, just the way he did it. Actually, would be pretty funny as a recurring theme... "G'dammit, not again!!"

 

The hunters did have night vision goggles, so that's why there were blinded by the light.  Okay, but Renfield doesn't and he seems to be able to see things they are doing.

Edited December 22, 2015 by Robinski

[rdpulfer]

Yeah, I think I need to have Renfield have a light or something during the scene, to explain how he can see what he's doing when the hunters come in. 

[Eisenheim]

I think my biggest comment here is that the characters seem a little emotionally detached.  Irving, I get.  He's got clear motivation, and I can feel the emotional hooks, but Stephanie seems a little blase about coming face to face with a surrogate father who's betrayed her and is now using her summon the devil, and from this chapter alone, not having read the others, I really don't have a sense of Renfield.  This might just be the effect of coming in late, but I thought I'd mention it.

[rdpulfer]

Thanks Eisenheim - those are good notes regardless of where you are coming from. I'll add that to the my list of revisions. 

[Asmodemon]

It feels like we’re nearing the end now, things are clearly coming to a head. I liked chapters 47 and 49, which is unique since I usually don’t care for Irving chapters. This one was all right, though I do wonder at him leaving his car behind in a trainyard and Rewer letting him. That might send up a red flag somewhere.

 

Chapter 49 was good too, good insight into Irving’s motivations and Stephanie was smart faking another episode, though previous times she was shown the scroll she didn’t seem to be able to look away fast enough. I guess this time she'd prepared herself for that eventuality and that does her a lot of credit. It's good to see competence in the main characters.

 

Chapter 48 wasn’t working for me. I didn’t like the hunters here and I didn’t really believe that Renfield could make an escape, given what was happening.

 

Language: Still rough, with grammar issues, spelling issues, missing words or wrong words. What this needs is a good proofreading.

 

Monsters: Those who hunt monsters should take care not to become monsters themselves. Apparently Stephanie’s team didn’t learn that lesson. Beating down on a captive, even one who works for monsters, should not be done. Excuses might be made for Harker, and the stress he’s under, but not the rest of the team. Apparently though this is common practice, as no one is surprised by it and everyone joins in. It seems more and more that everyone who works for Westenra is either an idiot or a psychopath, or both.

 

And they were beating on him for sixteen minutes! Sixteen! Either they weren’t really trying or there’s no way that Renfield would have been able to move afterward.

 

Light switch: Very convenient that he’s lying where the switch is. The hunters were in there for an easy twenty minutes. And in that time no one thought to move Renfield away from where he was originally (just to make sure he had no surprises close to him) or to see a switch/panel near his legs?

 

Harker’s reluctance to listen: It’s hard to get a positive read on Harker and what the hell Stephanie saw in him.

 

On the one hand I like that he doesn’t want to listen to Renfield. It makes him the opposite of Irving, who would do anything for the woman he loves. Harker believes she is lost and won’t believe anything else – he wouldn’t make a deal with the devil for love, and in a way that is commendable. On the other hand, is that what being in love with someone means for him? Not even entertaining the smallest possibility of hope?

 

He’s also quite sure he knows what has happened. Yes, he got knocked out by Stephanie, but after that he hasn’t seen her. Everything he thinks she did is based on hearsay. And I think she tried to convince him Irving was lying earlier when they’d found Seward’s body. Shouldn’t he have some doubts? Shouldn’t he have more faith in her?

 

Now, if you’re going for an abusive/dysfunctional  relationship between the two of them, that might be interesting. I don’t see that in fiction often. But Stephanie doesn’t read as the kind of person who’d accept that.

 

Udemy: Had to look it up. Apparently it’s an online educational website, but I wouldn’t know that and it’s not, I should think, common knowledge. Could be wrong though, but I didn’t know it and I don’t think I’m the only one.

[rdpulfer]

Thanks for the note on Udemy - I didn't really consider that might not be common knowledge. It's definitely not a household brand.

 

I'm going to make the hunters less idiotic and abusive, and that goes for Jason the most, who definitely needs to be reworked a lot in the next draft. Thanks for the feedback.