Scholomancer Chapter 16, 17 and 18 rdpulfer 2844 words

[rdpulfer he/him]

Robert Renfield betrayed his Master Dracula and left him at the bottom of the ocean. One year later, the hunters of the world continue to search for Dracula, unaware of Renfield's betrayal. One such hunter, Stephanie Van Helsing, is suffering from mysterious visions. Framed for the murder of a colleague, Stephanie finds Renfield, but both are confronted by Renfield's "handler" Bannister, who changes into a werewolf on a full moon and pursues them into a train yard. 

[Mandamon he/him]

Aside from some typos and some phrases that need clearing up, I thought these were some of the best chapters so far.  I really liked the interplay between Renfield and Stephanie in chapter 18. The action was good and I followed the blocking all the way through.  It also starts to give us some insight into the (I assume) main plot of the book, with Stephanie's visions.  We also get some more insight into what actually happened with Dracula, which I had been wondering about.

My only concern now is that there's a lot of build-up to this point and it feels like we're only starting to get into the story.  But you've already talked about potentially taking out some of the previous chapters and viewpoints, and I think that would help.

 

 

pg 1: Stephanie’s heart pounded in lock and step with her feet 

--since hearts don't step, maybe "in time with her footsteps?"

 

pg 1: "She tossed back her hair in agitation."

--then pulled her braid? ;-)

 

pg 3: "I’m not going to let the only head I have get eaten by a werewolf"

--lead?

 

pg 3: Like a parkour runner with rabies

--lol

 

pg 5: "Every time she encountered a tight fit with Jason, he’d make a snide comment about that last piece 

 

of pizza she had, that last French fry, that last donut. "

--He kind of sounds like kind of a dick...

 

pg 6: "Stephanie said, putting her hair on the floor"

--this read very weird, like she was putting a wig down or something.

 

pg 8: "stifle"

--stiff?

 

pg 9: "remove my mother "

--ouch

 

pg 12: “He held some sort of secret ceremony every time he knew the end was coming for him,”

--interesting

[rdpulfer he/him]

Thanks Mandamon. I'm going to spend just a little more time editing my submissions before I send them on, since the typos seem to be extremely glaring. Anyway, I'm glad you liked this chapter.

 

- Definitely going to make Jack seem like less of a dick.

 

- It also sounds like I can cut a lot of the extraneous build-up. Like Robinski said on the last submission, a lot of it can be inferred by the reader. I'm still undecided if I'll remove all or some or Irving's chapters. 

[Shrike76 he/him]

I thought these were very interesting chapters. Definitely I feel like the exchange of information between Renfield and Stephanie moves the story forward, and as a reader it's nice to be clued in to what the characters have known for a while.

 

I had issues with the whole chase scene, but I think with a few easy clarifications it could be very compelling.

 - You mention Bannister (in wolf form) several times ("hurtling towards her", "bounding towards her", etc.) but he never actually gets to her. It's a bit like the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where Lancelot is storming the castle, and the camera goes to him six times but he's always as far away as he was the first time. Only this isn't Monty Python so it wasn't funny. Then she gets into the train car and she takes "a little over a minute" to get from one spot to another before Bannister shows up. Google tells me a wolf can run 800-1200 meters in that time. I don't think she had visibility roughly 1 kilometer away in a dark train yard. So a better explanation of how close he is here would help a lot, or they need to do something like drop debris on him in order to buy themselves time to get where they need to go. (Or if she still had her gun, to wound him but not badly because it's probably not a silver bullet... From a Writing Excuses perspective, this would be a pitch-perfect "Yes, but" moment)

 - Once Stephanie's in the train car I'm completely lost. I don't have a good grasp of the shape of the interior or how she separates herself and Renfield from Bannister, and that's something I think needs to be a lot clearer in this scene.  I like what Stephanie does very much, and I love where the chase scene leaves the three of them for the night, I just need a better visual of what she's actually accomplishing

 

Despite the fact that I say the chase scene didn't work for me, I did enjoy it and I think it works fine for the story. With a few tweaks it could be one of the most compelling scenes in the book so far.

 

As stated above, I thought the conversational exchange between Renfield and Stephanie was excellent, because it answers a lot of the questions the characters had, so it answers a lot of the questions I had as a reader. It does, however, leave me wondering about Renfield himself. At times he seems to know a lot about Dracula (that he performs a ritual to which only vampires are allowed when he knows that an end is near), and then sometimes he has only the vaguest idea of what's going on (like where said ritual actually happens, even though he makes the travel arrangements?). I'd like to know more about what Renfield's actual responsibilities were where Dracula was concerned, it would help me understand why he does or doesn't know certain things rather than just knowing what the plot needs him to know and nothing more.

 

All in all, this submission was good. If I'd had the next chapter handy to see what happens next in their cozy little train car I'd have turned the page eagerly.

[rdpulfer he/him]

Thanks Shrike76 - I think I was still getting my head around the layout of the train when I wrote this. I think I'll have to clarify some things in the description going forward. I'll also have to actually spell out what Renfield's duties were, and what secrets Dracula kept from him. 

[rohyu he/him]

I like a lot of the similes you use. For instance, “Stephanie turned her head like a dog failing to comprehend a command.”

 

 

I felt like you did a good job at doling out information without being boring. Action wise, not much happened, but I didn't really notice that until I was done reading.

 

I agree with what Shrike said about the chase scene. I had a hard time following once Stephanie was inside the train car as well.

 

Pg1:She turned around to see no sign of Bannister since he collided into the train

 

Earlier you said he collided with a bus.

 

Pg4:”The wolf was dragged its large body through the car.”

I think you need to remove was or replace dragged with dragging

 

pg11:”It could only make out one word.”

I think you meant, “I could only...”

[rdpulfer he/him]

Thanks rohyu. I'm glad the similes are working. It sounds like I just need a lot more description of the train's interior (it's a cattle car with multiple floors, hence why Stephanie and Renfield are close together in one section and Bannister is in another.)

[Robinski he/him]

Details below. I enjoyed the banter between Steph and Renfield, but my main issue was that I thought she trusted him rather quickly, going to sleep in his presence, when they had been fighting like hell a few hours before.

 

I'm enjoying the characters now, and the mystery of Steph’s visions, which is starting be built upon, but  there are still times when Renfield comes over as weak and scared, but it seems out of context with his other actions.

 

Another thing, I didn’t really understand that blocking of the rail car and what it looked like / how it was arranged.

 

Looking forward to the next submission.

 

Chapter 16

 

“heart pounded in lock and step” – lock? Is that a typo? Don’t get it.

 

“dark, hairy form” – hairy almost made me laugh, then there’s repetition of ‘hair’.

 

Sightseeing – lol.

 

“keeping her eyes peeled for moment” – very awkward. ‘Keeping her eyes peeled’ is okay, but ‘for a moment’ slows things down. And surely she’s keeping her eyes peeled the whole time? We’ve had description of everything that she sees, so it certainly seems that way.

 

I got the impression that Renfield was bent over looking at something on the ground, so it seemed weird that he was looking for a train car. The Charles Barkley reference was a bit random, but I enjoyed it.

 

“The whole thing seemed like a pig farm” Words like “seemed” are the enemy, I have discovered – ‘felt’ is another one. I’ve come to think that these noncommittal words take the place of other, better words. If the carriage is used for transporting animals, doesn’t it smell like a pig farm?

 

Are they inside the train car suddenly? I didn’t ‘see’ them going in, but Stephanie pushed Renfield into the floor?

 

“parkour runner with rabies” – lol, like this little comic book style comic interjections.

 

“She could feel its hot breath on her face, sound of its long claws rattling inches away from her neck” – This bothered me. If it’s that close to her it must not be planning to attack, or it should have ripped her head off already. Because of this, I'm not convinced by her being able to cage the wolfman. Is see what you’re going for, but the timing felt off to me.

 

“Two wild blue eyes shined shone in the darkness” – couldn’t resist that one.

 

“Every time she encountered a tight fit with Jason, he’d make a snide comment” – Jason doesn’t strike me as such a cad from what I’ve read of him so far.

 

“So what now?” Renfield said aimlessly” – Not sure he’s aimless if he’s considering what comes next.

 

“putting her hair on the floor” – sounds weird, did you mean ‘head’?

 

Chapter 17

 

“causing Renfield to tremble” – tremble makes him sound so weak

 

The repetition of the names in the dialogue is irritating. ‘he’ and ‘she’ are invisible words, like ‘said’. We know who is talking. Using ‘he’ and ‘she’ after the first mention of the names will make the dialogue read much more smoothly.

 

“Stephanie turned her head like a dog failing to comprehend a command” – to me this means ‘Stephanie tilted her head’, it sounded awkward to me.

 

“having obviously struck a nerve” – this thought seems to be from her perspective.

 

“she looked into the distant, dark train yard” – I'm still not picturing the set-up of this train car.

 

“my Master” – I'm thinking it’s a tell-tale that he still calls D this.

 

“wouldn’t kill him in the morning.” – Why would she wait till the morning?

 

Chapter 18

 

“deep-seededseated fantasy involving you, clowns and an angry midget” – seated is the phrase, I believe – nice line. I like the quipping.

 

“Renfield was quiet for a moment. Then he spoke, “I’m not exactly sure.” Sorry, I know I'm commenting on style again, but I reckon you could greatly  improve the flow by cutting a lot of excess words.

 

“loads more well-connected” – I start to question Stephanie’s level of sophistication (and education) when she comes out with phrases like this. At what I presume is her level, I would think she would say something like “much better connected”.

 

“Dracula’s pale white chull” – lol

 

“M-Master” – Huh, is ?

 

“For a crazy bastard, he’s a lot more observant than I thought.” – Her noticing that he didn’t make a phone call is not observant – pretty obvious, I think.

 

“only one of us is on the run from the guy on the second floor” – I'm not sure who that is. Bannister is trying to eat both of them at night, but is he chasing either in the daylight? I thought he was trying to lie low. Isn’t Stephanie more likely to be hunting Bannister?

 

“Another dead-end” She seems quite trusting of Renfield already and what he tells her – especially falling asleep next to him. What’s to stop him from strangling her, considering that they were at each other’s throats a few hours ago?

[Robinski he/him]

It's a bit like the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where Lancelot is storming the castle

 

ROFL

[rdpulfer he/him]

Thanks Robinski - I noticed as I was writing this that it felt like they became too chummy, or at least too accepting of the situation far too quickly. I'm definitely going to have to edit that in future drafts. 

[Kammererite]

Once again i enjoyed this submission and i really like the banter. and the action was good an fast paced. I liked getting some information on Dracula and the scholomance.

 

I agree that the two enemies seam to trust each other a little quicky but given the angry werewolf above them i can get over that.

I am a shocked that after a few hours banister doesn't leave the way he came in as that gate is still open.however i assume its because he is trying to get at the prey below.

 

I am confused on how with three feet the bars are digging into Stephanie when she is lying down or even crawling.

 

Also when the chase starts and Stephanie runs into a hunched Renfield. i got the imperssion he was searching the ground no the train cars

Edited October 24, 2015 by Kammererite

[rdpulfer he/him]

Thanks Kammerite. I think i need to describe the train car a bit more . . . it's one used for carrying cattle . . . but I need to clarify some things, it sounds like.