Reading Excuses 20150824 Scholomancer Chapter 6 rdpulfer

[rdpulfer he/him]

My apologies in advance for this chapter. You guys said you wanted to know more about Westerna. Well, you're going to get it . . . this chapter is a beast, and not in a good way. It's just under 5,000 words. I'm sorry for the length, but I'm very curious what you think should stay and what you think should go.

 

Robert Renfield has betrayed his Master, Count Dracula, leaving him at the bottom of the ocean. One year later, Stephanie Van Helsing and the vampire hunters of Westerna continue the hunt for Dracula, unaware of what's happened. Stephanie investigates a series strange visions, helped by her partner Jason Harker and mentor Hank Irving. She is unaware Irving is pursuing an ulterior motive of his own involving the vision. Meanwhile, Renfield struggles to adjust to normal life, aided by the Terminal, a community of monsters living beneath the streets of Dallas. But his time as Dracula's aid has not been forgotten or forgiven. Frustrated by his chilly reception in the Terminal, Renfield plans to flee Dallas altogether and start a new life elsewhere

[Shrike76 he/him]

Quick note regarding punctuation and grammar: There were a lot of errors in the second half but I noticed that the first several pages were cleaner than your previous offerings and wanted to complement you on the effort.

 

General:

P1 - Is "Westerna" deliberate or should it be "Westenra" throughout, like it is in Dracula?

P11 - I actually cringed reading the description of Quaris employees practicing their shooting in the middle east. I think what they're actually doing there needs to be clarified, because it almost sounds like they're there for sport, casually shooting locals.

P16 - Stephanie almost kills herself on the stairs and Jason's reaction is to laugh. If he's visibly worried first, then laughs once the tension is gone that's one thing, but the impression this paragraph gives is that he's bit of a sociopath.

P17-18 - Where is the pressure to have kids coming from? I'd rather see this as a conversation with someone else than as an internal monologue about how she needs babies but doesn't want them yet. It's a little bit cliche

P20 - Maybe it's because I missed the first few chapters, but where did this darkness come from that it engulfs her "once more". Am I supposed to be familiar with this darkness, or with the symbol? Also, after the scene break, if the dark liquid is over her, how can she see figures emerging from it?

 

Language:

P2

 - "medium-size desk" - It can just be a desk, unless the size is important later

P3

 - "replaced the shadows" - by/with shadows?

P5

  - alternatively should probably be alternately

  - "made her more away" - move away

P7

  - "not that both her brother" - now that both

P8

  - "Sean putting his hands on the desk" - put

  - "private-owned company" - either private company or privately-owned

P10

  - "coming in the fold" - in to the

P12

  - "tired being ignored" - tired of

P13

  - "get another changed" - chance

  - "I announce this as the assembly" - to the

  - "about be demoted" - about to be. Also there's a superfluous quotation mark at the very end of the paragraph.

P15

  - "to descend down" - Too wordy. Descend is fine alone, or go down.

P18

  - "It's not that life with Jason Harker." - This sentence is missing stuff

  - "But she did have to have them now?" - did she

P19

  - "faded into the back of his head" - I think there's a better, clearer way of writing this. You're writing about supernatural stuff so it's plausible that his eyes actually did fade away, but I don't think that's what you meant.

[Asmodemon he/him]

I’ve been out of critiquing for a while, let’s see if I still know how. This is the first chapter of your story that I’ve read, though I am going through the backlog since I like the premise. My first impression is that this feels like a Monster Hunter International type of book, and I quite enjoy that.

 

Language: The language usage is cleaner throughout this chapter than the prologue and chapters one and two, since in those chapters you often had sentences that switched tracks halfway or had parts missing entirely. That made this a lot easier to read, so good job on that. Though the second part did feel like it had some crucial words missing, as Shrike pointed out.

 

Elsa: I like the Disney reference, but Stephanie is complaining that it’s very, very, hot. Obviously the glass building is acting like a greenhouse, so the comparison with an ice fortress is jarring. And really, they can’t afford air-conditioning?

 

Clothing: I don’t get why Stephanie is still wearing her body armor in the office, nor why she didn’t change after (or before) coming in. Apparently this is somehow normal, since you make a point of having Stephanie rue the fact that she can’t wear comfortable clothing like the people in Ops and has to wear body armor (I really hope this is only for missions, but I didn’t get that impression so you may want to clarify that a bit).  

 

Security: Are they attacked in their offices a lot, for her to have concealed weapons in her desk? I get that as a monster hunter (and as a female Van Helsing which apparently makes her a target of choice for uber-vampire Dracula) she’d be paranoid about being attacked unawares. She’d have something stored away. But that natural paranoia is offset by the fact that she has no idea which drawer holds what. That seems very dangerous and reckless and defeats the purpose of being prepared.

 

Sean: Sean seems like a very confident man up to the point where Stephanie confronts him with the option that vampire hunting was no longer their focus. It doesn’t seem natural, and makes me think he’s mind-controlled (by a vampire? By Dracula?) and gets flustered because talking about vampires creates a conflict between the mind-control and his own mind. If that’s what you’re going for, good. If not, you may want to lay some more groundwork for this insecurity.

 

Callous Jason: If the woman you love almost falls down the stairs struggling to hold your laughter, as a first response, doesn’t seem very loving.

 

Kids: The pressure Stephanie feels to have kids, and the quote ‘But she did have to have them now?’ Comes out of nowhere for me, where was this ever an issue that she had to have children now or ever? Yes she’s a female Van Helsing, but what does that have to do with contributing to the Van Helsing legacy? Are all the males in the family sterile, or are there no pure blood Van Helsings left except for her? Is she the only one who can keep the line going? That seems unlikely given Sean, her father and her brother.

 

The key thing here for me is that her desire to have kids and the conflict between that wish and her job feels like a cliché. Just about every woman in fiction who has a dangerous job/life gets this as a character conflict.

[rohyu he/him]

I like how you set up Westerna Corp. I could picture the operation easily. I like the idea of twisting a lot of other stories and fitting them into a new story. Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, Van Helsing, Dracula, (even Poltregeist, and Frozen to an extent) all added to the refitting motif in my opinion. You have to be careful not to be cliche, but I don't think this chapter is cliche. 

I agree with Asmodemon and Shrike76 about the pregnancy idea. I think if set up properly it could work, but the generic "the world (or her family) says she should have kids, so she should have kids," isn't very interesting.

It was hard for me to discern what Stephanie was thinking and what was prose. Italics or apostrophes would help. 

 

pg1:

"My own personal ice fortress, Stephanie herself, just call me Elsa."

 

 I think you forgot the words 'thought to'

 

 

"below her office. Below her office,"

 

 

I think you can get rid of one of these.

 

 

pg2:

I don't understand why people don't bring in flowers like Stephanie did. Is there a reason it has to be garlic? The fact that garlic hurting vampires is a myth is interesting, but I think it feels forced in here.

 

 

 

pg3:

In an instant, the blinding, radiant lights flickered off, replaced the shadows, her only source of soothing cold.

 

 

This sentence confused me.

 

 

"The one on her left contained absolutely nothing, but one sharp kick would splinter."

 

 

I think you forgot the word 'it' at the end, or I am confused by this sentence.

 

 

Pg4:

“:Aha!”

 

You put in a colon by accident.

 

 

Her search for the cigarettes makes her seem unorganized, but prepared. I haven't read the previous chapters of your story, so I am not sure what Stephanie is like.

 

pg5:

"A normal workday consisted of alternatively chasing or running from something trying to eat here, and consisted of little stargazing outside of checking for full moons."

 

This sentence felt clunky.

 

 

Given her preparedness, I feel like she would know what a call sounds like right away.

 

pg6:

“Sure, Uncle Sean.” Stephanie said...

 

  I think after Uncle Sean there should be a comma, not a period.

 

 

What is Seans nickname for Stephen?

 

pg7:

"more curious than ever not that both her brother and father had been mentioned."

 

 

I think 'not' should be 'now'.

 

 

 

pg8:

"Sean putting his hands on the desk"

 

I think you meant put.

 

 

Sean says they are waiting for Jack, then you say Sean enters the room and closes the blinds. I thought he was already sitting at a conference table with Stephanie, Andy, and Jason.

 

pg9:

“Well, I kinda was.” Andy said

 

I think you need a comma instead of a period after 'was'.
 

 

“Shut up, Andy.”

 

Needs a comma.

 

 

I liked the chair squeaking like a mouse. It made me think of Andy as a greedy rat.

 

pg10:

"Quaris Enterprises is coming in the fold"

 

I think you meant 'coming into the fold.'

 

 

 

pg11:

"...provide logistics . . . “ Sean started before Stephanie cut him off.

 

 

 Instead of the ellipse, I think you should use a dash. To me,a dash indicates interruption, ellipses indicate that a person trailed off or paused.

 

 

 

pg 12:

“Andy, if you interrupt one more time...."

 

Andy didn't interrupt her though.

 

"I recruited Dr. Jekyll. I’ve given four years of my life to hunting down his bloodsucking pal, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let a pink slip stop me!”

 

 This confused me. Are Hyde and Dr. Jekyll two different people? And I don't think Sean implied that Stephanie would be fired.

 

 

 

pg13:

You said on page 11 that Quaris would be in charge of logistics, but here you say that Westerna is doing the logistics.

 

get another changed

 

I think you meant get another chance.

 

“Yeah, well, guess which finger I’d like to show you right now.”

 

I don't know if her use of fingers was set up in earlier chapters, but the "right now" seems out of place.

 

“To find Jack and let him know he’s about be demoted.” Stephanie said, without breaking a step.”

 

You added an extra ", and you need a comma after demoted.

 

 

Needs a comma.“That’s a fact.”

 

 

 

 

 

pg 18:

But she did have to have them now? 

 

I think you meant "But did she..."

 

pg19:

The papers once pinned to the walls were no torn apart.

 

I think you accidentally included the word no. Or you forgot a 't' on not.

 

pg 20:

I was confused about where Stephanie was after the darkness engulfed here. At first I thought she was still in Seward's apartment, but the lightning in the distance made me think she was outside.

 

The end of the chapter was catchy. I would definitely read the next chapter. The story feels like a mystical, monster filled murder-mystery story. I feel like the story is heading in the direction of a major conspiracy story involving monsters, Quaris, and Westerna. Stephanie's family seems like the central characters.

 

I am curious about who attacked Jason and Stephanie. I am also curious about the symbol that caused her to be engulfed in darkness. 

Edited August 25, 2015 by rohyu

[rdpulfer he/him]

Hey Shrike, it's supposed to be Westenra, but I probably just forgot to actually look up how to spell it. Thanks for that catch! And I definitely don't want Jason coming off as a sociopath. One sociopath per story is quite enough To clarify the chapter's story, I'm trying to depict Stephanie having a vision, but I think I'm running into trouble on how to actually show that from her perspective.

 

Asmodeon - thanks for catching the Elsa contradiction. It also sounds like the issue of Stephanie's child-bearing is too hamfisted - I'll definitely work on that in future drafts. I think the security is present due to the worry of vampires and the like infiltrating the company, not necessarily a direct attack. I will work on improving Sean's characterization. He is not mind-controlled . . . he's just incompetent.

 

Royhu - I think I started using italics to show Stephanie and Renfield's thoughts after this chapter. It's the first time I've used the format, so I'm still trying to figure it out.  I'm glad you like the story so far. Thanks for all the corrections! 

[Mandamon he/him]

I thought this a better submission than the last couple.  We get to know more about the threats to Westerna.  Have we heard of Quaris before, or am I just forgetting due to Weekly Reader Syndrome?  To me, the conflict fell a little flat just because I'm not fully aware of what Quaris represents.

The same with the tension between Stephanie and Jason.  The romance there sort of sprung out of nowhere, and then you explained how they knew each other after the effect.  It would have a bigger impact if we already knew how much they had done together.

The others mentioned Sean laughing at her almost falling, and the kids coming out of nowhere.  I had the same reaction as the others.

I was also a little confused at the darkness at the end of the chapter.  With the ellipsis, I assumed it was in her head, but it felt like it was supposed to take place in the apartment.

 

As to staying and going, I didn't think the first section really added anything except that Stephanie smokes.  The description of the objects in the desk was nice, but could be added in elsewhere. 

I liked the section with Westerna being "taken over," and the inter-office politics.

I put my thoughts on the relationship section above, and that could be tidied up.  

I also liked the section where Stephanie finds Seward.  I think this and the politics are the real aim of the chapter.

 

Notes:

 

pg 1: "My own personal ice fortress, Stephanie herself, just call me Elsa. "

-- I think this needs to be in italics, and possibly and new paragraph, to separate that this is Stephanie thinking.

 

pg 3: "virtual tanning bed outside"

--This struck me as odd since a tanning bed is replicating what the sun does.

 

pg 3: "Not an option, Stephanie thought, in these clothes or this heat.

With no option left"

--repeating that she doesn't have an option

 

pg 3: "In an instant, the blinding, radiant lights flickered off"

--I think you can assume the reader knows how a light switch works.

 

pg 4: "but one sharp kick would splinter"

--but WITH one sharp kick would splinter?

 

pg 17: "Ford Focus "

--you can probably abbreviate this the second time around

 

There are several places with repeated words or phrases right after each other that throws off the flow of reading.

[rdpulfer he/him]

Thanks Mandamon. That's just what I needed. At this point, I'm really thinking about scrapping the first proper chapter. I have a piece I wrote for a writing exercise of Stephanie in the field hunting down a target, and I think I'd re-work that to be the first chapter, and build the relationships therein so they come into play better in this chapter. Thanks for noting what works and what to cut! 

[Robinski he/him]

Why is she struggling to hold the Coke?

 

What makes an opulent white? I'm not sure what to picture.

 

I can’t remember who Elsa is, so I didn’t get the ‘ice fortress’ comment. Maybe just weekly reader syndrome.

 

Why does she dread to think about the places the sweat is accumulating, or indeed any other places that sweat would accumulate? My armpits are not my best feature, but I don’t feel that strongly about them. (Pop quiz, do you know the word oxter?)

 

You use the word ‘office’ 4 times in four lines – ouch!

 

Stephanie comes across whiny in this section. She does not seem to be motivated to serve the great good, or to protect and serve. Maybe that’s her personality, but I didn’t take that from her first sections.

 

‘Office’ again, 3 times in 5 lines this time.

 

I find it hard to care about what the office (damnation!) smells like, it seems petty. First World problems.

 

I struggled with the first section. It’s all navel-gazing, nothing really happens, and Stephanie’s (presumably sweaty) navel is not that interesting. If she was thinking about the situation, or the people we have met already, that might offer something, but her philosophising about the lack of smell doesn’t seem to do any work in relation to the plot or the characters.

 

There are four ‘Sean’s in the first paragraph, which feels repetitive. After the first one, I think you could use ‘he’ without fear of the reader getting confused. In the same way as ‘he said’, I would say the word ‘he’ is invisible – as the WE crew has it.

 

I laughed at the Ernest Borgnine line, but the memorabilia turned it a bit weird / creepy.

 

Again, ‘conference’ three times in one paragraph seems like overkill to me.

 

Hmm, so we have Stephanie, Sean, Stephen and Seward all mentioned in the one paragraph.

 

So, Sean Van Helsing is her uncle? I'm confused. I can’t keep track of all these names. I think it might be because few of them actually do anything, so I don’t have much to remember them by. Renfield, I can pretty much keep straight, and Hank Irving is the guy who has dealing underhand behind Stephanie’s back, to do with her dreams?

 

I thought Sean was already in the room, but he enters it again? And he was waiting for Seward, then he announces that Seward’s not coming, and he already knows the reason why. This seems like a continuity error.

 

Ha, ha – the drone tracking the ex is funny.

 

Why does Stephanie conclude it’s something to do with money and investors? I didn’t get that from anything Sean said, so far. If it’s privately owned by him, or his family (including Stephanie?) then what investors would there be?

 

What?! With all the security and bars on the window, Seward keeps a key under the mat?! Sorry, that just blew me right out of the story with a vengeance.

 

In summary, I'm afraid I was kind of skimming by the end. There’s a lot of writing, but very little happens. Some of the character reactions seem strange, and I struggle with the sheer number of characters, there are so many and few of them seem to contribute to the plot or events. Maybe it’s just not my kind of story, and I'm looking to learn about the depths of one of two characters rather than having a cast of thousands who are only dealt with superficially.

[Robinski he/him]

Elsa: I like the Disney reference, but Stephanie is complaining that it’s very, very, hot. Obviously the glass building is acting like a greenhouse, so the comparison with an ice fortress is jarring. And really, they can’t afford air-conditioning?

 

Didn't get the Frozen reference at all. I think you need to be cautious about that sort of stuff, it really dates a story and in 10 years, no one will get it.

 

 

And welcome back Asmodemon!!!

Edited August 27, 2015 by Robinski

[rdpulfer he/him]

Good catch, Robinski. I'll be care what pop culture references I use. 

[Kammererite]

I think this chapter helped fill in some of the gaps for me. i felt like the tension was starting to rise.

 

The start of the second scene was confusion to me, i thought i was in seans POV then i was in stephanie's.

Also i thought Sean was in the room, then he entered the room. Sean seemed to be waiting for Seaward one minute then knows Seawards  on vacation the next. i reread that a few times but couldn't figure out what was happening.

 

Sean felt incompetent to me ( i was wonder why he hasn't been disposed as CEO)

 

What bothered me the most was why was Andy at this meeting. He is the new kid but not someone of rank so it felt awkward he would get this news first at the same time as Stephanie who is his boss.

 

I liked the comment about bloodsucking investors.

[rdpulfer he/him]

Good point about Andy, Kammerite. I think I need to work on his character a little too, as he plays a role in the rest of the story.