Scholomancer 122815 rdpulfer 50, 51 and 52 (L,S) 3634 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 

[Mandamon]

This was a pretty good submission.  Nothing big happened, but I can tell things are building up to a close.  Renfield proves himself to the Council.  There was good tension in the section with Stephanie and the mercenaries, and I liked the conversation between Irving and Stephanie.

 

I don't know if I'm just noticing it now, or if it's been going on for a while.  You tend to overuse the same word, for instance Renfield's name on page 3, or "syringe" in the last paragraph.  This is editing level stuff, but I thought I'd point it out in case you hadn't seen it.

 

Notes:

 

pg 1: "Deep grooves cut into the gravel like corn crops"

--Is this a midwest thing?  I don't get the description.

 

pg 3: top of page, "Refield" three times in three lines.  Maybe use "he."

 

pg 3: "The pallid figure didn’t budge as the goon laid into Renfield with a fury of backhands."

--laid into Bannister, maybe?

 

pg 4: "like an action star hero"

--action hero

 

pg 5: "Cedar dust sprayed from the walls"

--are the train cars made out of cedar?  I assumed metal.

 

pg 13: "The two men audibly gulped as Stephanie relinquished her grip on the knife."

--Why didn't she just take it?

 

pg 14: "Then it was Stephanie’s turn to stop breathing"

--This seems a little overkill.  I would expect Irving to 1) know pig and regular Latin and 2) know Stephanie enough for her to expect him know show she's faking it.

 

pg 16: “My dad doesn’t like board rooms. He likes the smell of wooden stakes, like the one he’s going to cram down your gut when he finds you.”

--Might be weekly reader syndrome, but I forgot Sean wasn't Stephanie's father.

 

pg 18: "he saw the bond was broken – cut apart by a knife."

--ok, this answers my question about the knife...

 

pg 18: "Stephanie twisted away the syringe from her neck, and started to point it at her own"

--HIS own

[rdpulfer]

Thanks Mandamon! I already have it down to quit overusing a character's name once they are established. As for one of your other points, I'll make sure it's established Sean is Stephanie's uncle. She never calls him Dad to my knowledge, but that might not be enough. 

[Robinski]

Straight into the comments – summation at the end,

 

“Optimistic much?” – I hate this type of expression, but that’s a personal issue of mine, however twice on one page had me gnashing my teeth. There is other repetition of words and phrases there too, which I found awkward and disjointed.

 

“It’s was a sad sign when hunters are were an improvement from gun-toting mercenaries” – tense slippage, or this sentence should be italicised as his direct thought.

 

“Of course, all it would take would be one well-placed sniper shot to prove me wrong . . . and take off my head” – suggestion: I feel the sentence is much snappier without stating the obvious at the end. I'm a firm believer that allowing the reader to make these connections is more satisfying for them, even when they are this obvious. Spelling it out tends to insult the reader’s intelligence.

 

“At first Renfield thought he was hearing things. No, there’s definitely someone in there, Renfield he thought, nearing closing in on the voice’s location. The voice It penetrated through the wooden walls of the train cars. Renfield He put his ear to the train car nearest the source of the voices.” – I know I’ve commented on this before, but this paragraph really highlights it again. Using his name time after time sounds so awkward. Also, there’s mention of a voice, but at the, end it becomes voices.

 

“or fry ‘em with the third rail” – I recommend researching this. I think you will only find a third rail on underground train systems, where they do not use catenaries (overhead power lines). Overland heavy rail will use overhead power lines. It’s a cost vs. safety thing.

 

“What Why don’t we just do that?”

 

The conversation between the goons was really not engaging or interesting.

 

“His clothes were torn and shredded” – these are the same.

 

“The pallid figure didn’t budge as the goon laid into Renfield Bannister with a fury of backhands” – flurry of backhands? Also, why would the prone figure still because Bannister is getting beat up?

 

“Renfield gasped as Evelyn’s glassy eyes starred back at him, empty” – I feel this would be the first thing he would see on looking in the train car, since they must have been pointed at him from the beginning. I mean, she hasn’t moved her head. Or has she?

 

“like an action star hero”

 

There a lot of confused phrasing in the fight sequence here. I’ll just paste the last bit “The man dropped to his feet immediately afterward” – what?

 

Evelyn is probably the only person he was not going to hit.

 

“Any ideas where they took her?” Renfield eagerly leapt to the next question.” – I find some of the dialogue tags very cumbersome to read and mostly unnecessary. What does this bring to the story or the character?

 

“we were hasty for in sending you off”

 

“her feet dangling limply off the train car floor like that those of a rag doll”

 

“you Renfields” – huh?

 

“the torso of either each figure”

 

“her bounds” – her bonds

 

“It helped that the man was leaning right over her”

 

“everyone needs a hobby” – lol

 

“His hands moved further up her chest, and Stephanie had a pretty good idea what the man had in mind for his groping crescendo” – good grief, you really, really don’t need to spell that out, and also his hands are moving unrealistically slowly. It seems clear that the pace of his progress is determined by the writing, not that situation, that he could be caught at it.

 

As usual, thankfully, the submission is full of action which propels the story forwards at a good pace and it’s fun. The characters are larger-than-life and the narrative has that tongue-in-cheek humour that I continue to enjoy. As usual, however, there is some character behaviour that fails convince me and, as usual, I find certain grammar and style elements distracting.

 

Bring on the next submission. I am looking forward to the big, set-piece finale!

[Robinski]

I don't know if I'm just noticing it now, or if it's been going on for a while.  You tend to overuse the same word, for instance Renfield's name on page 3, or "syringe" in the last paragraph.  This is editing level stuff, but I thought I'd point it out in case you hadn't seen it.

 

Here, borrow my drum, my hand's tired from banging it since Chapter 10  ;op

[smgorden]

Chapter 50 ====

 

"The hairs on Renfield’s neck remained flat." awkward way of saying that nothing is happening. Picturing the back of his neck with flat hairs is sort of a creepy visual, unless we need that information (or if it's a running gag of some kind?). Your next sentence explains the idea better.

 

"Optimistic much? Renfield concluded." Can a question be a conclusion? Or is his conclusion referring the previous paragraph?

 

Scene and Tone: The railroad line itself- your descriptions of Renfield's doubt as he moves through it- that's working quite well for me. I haven't read the previous chapters, but you've got the tone down, I think. 

 

"Black Kevlar over khakis and dark baklavas", I think you mean balaclava- the clothing item, not the Turkish dessert. Yes?

 

"The pallid figure didn’t budge as the goon laid into Renfield with a fury of backhands." This looks like a typo. Renfield is watching from outside. Did you mean that the goons are beating Bannister?

 

"Num-nuts", "Asshat", etc. These terms are making me laugh in the context of the creepy railyard. The action and banter are taking on a comedic tone. If that's intended, awesome.

 

"“I hardly think now is the time for a theological debate on fate versus free will, Robert.” Evelyn said." Don't understand this statement. Was there a debate? The Judas comment seemed like sarcasm. Does it refer to some previous ongoing argument these characters have? 

 

Chapter 51 ====

 

“Will you get some balls, man?” Texas said. “Geez, if it helps, you can have a feel when I’m done.” /// “It’s not the feel. It’s the smell,” East Coast said. “The guy smells like a freakin’ mortician.” 

One guy is talking about Stephanie, the other guy is not? Conversation doesn't flow very well here. 

 

“I mean, we can’t always have golden parachute.”

“Yeah, well, I’d rather my own golden parachute not turn into a lead balloon..."

Same issue as above. Doesn't quite make sense to me. Why are they talking about golden parachutes? As a colloquial sort of metaphor, it doesn't seem to fit very well here. Unless... did they have a golden parachute in a previous chapter? If it's a literal statement, that would be funny. Not sure what you're going for, though.

 

"Then it was Stephanie’s turn to stop breathing." Did she die? Gasping for breath? Is this meant to be a cliffhanger ending? Unclear.

 

Chapter 52 ====

 

"He relinquished his grip on Stephanie’s cheeks. She spit all over her hoodie as soon as he did, before giving him a defiant glare." Why does she spit on herself? Typo?

 

Thoughts ==== 

 

Seems like I've come in late to this story, but it's got momentum. Assuming the text gets a good revision for clarity, you've got a good ride here. Looking forward to the next part!

[rdpulfer]

Thanks Robinksi and Smorgden! 

 

I definitely have a lot of grammar errors I need to clean up in this submission. Thanks for pointing them out! I'm also going to research third rail thing Robinski mentioned. I don't believe it plays a large part in the story, but now I'm interested to know if that works or not for future reference! 

[Asmodemon]

Another step closer to the climax, which is good. It feels more and more that the big finale is coming and I like that. Like the others I do have a couple points that didn’t work well for me.

 

Incompetent evil overlord: Shoot first, then hand over the disposal to your minions. This is where Rewer is being an idiot because the plot dictates that Renfield save Bannister and Evelyn. If you’ve got your enemies at your mercy and you don’t need them anymore, they should really be killed right away. After all the narrow escapes everyone had so far Rewer should know better than to give his enemies an opening. And so we get another pair of incompetent mercenaries/hunters to oversee the disposal of Bannister and Evelyn.

 

Aim through walls: Renfield can’t do his best not to shoot Bannister. He can’t see anyone through walls.

 

Cutting free: I’m having a hard time picturing how she could try to cut herself free without the men knowing, feeling, and/or seeing what she’s doing. Also, they sound like wannabee bad guys. No offense, but I’m getting an ‘idiot’ vibe from these guys as well.

 

Robes: Bit of a cliché to have them wear dark robes. Also, if these are the ‘scholars’ and ‘businessmen’ who are going to do the ritual, why is one of them carrying around a big knife? I didn’t get the impression that a sacrifice (save the one guy the devil keeps and, oh boy, is the devil getting the worst in this deal) was needed.  And if one is needed, Rewer or Irving (who are clearly in charge) should be the ones to do it.

[rdpulfer]

Thanks Asmodemon,

 

I think Renfield's whole rescue sequence needs work . . . Rewer definitely veering into predictable Bond villain territory.

 

The robes are definitely cliche, but the guys wearing them are idiots - they are businessmen, not soldiers, who are taking part in the ceremony. But since isn't clear, it definitely needs more explanation.