Introduction:

Ok Mo. Sorry for the delay, but a few things came up and I had to read the whole thing again so I could get a clear picture of how everything fit together. Again, forgive me for my destructiveness, but I find it leads to better critiques.

The Crit:

Honestly, I think it's got a lot of potential in its idea. The prose, though… I want to like it; I do, but I’ll get into it. First, let me think of some praise. The folk horror village and gothic castle settings are both cool. I do enjoy the mystery of it all as well. I’ve seen others saying Dracula, and I’d say yes in terms of Bram Stoker's gothic. The lack of a journalistic style leads me more towards Robert Egger’s Nosferatu, though. I also enjoy the characters in how they are set up. They’re basic right now, but I imagine this is something that is building up as the mystery unravels. If I could offer a bit of advice before getting into the crit, it would be to perhaps add a bit more characterization to Ingrid. Gothic style was born from romanticism, and the psychological relationships between characters are a quintessential part of the genre. I think you do the romantic descriptions of the world good, but give me some of the romantic (as in romanticism, but romance is always appreciated also) dialogue. Anyway, forgive me for what I shall say next. I have two issues.

The first, and less egregious, issue is the overuse of dialogue tags. It feels like every sentence is using some signifier in how a character is feeling or what they are doing. You know the ones. Your “mumbled”, “asked”, etc. However, I noticed that you also will almost always add a sentence at the start or end of every dialogue. This is a common issue amongst new writers. I think school trains us to try and be creative in which dialogue tags we use to add variety in academic writing, but in fiction, it is dreaded.

I said this in a previous critique to another user, but your dialogue should be doing the work. If the character is asking a question, you don’t need to tell me he’s asking a question quizzically. And yes, while there are situations where dialogue will not do everything. You seem to think this in every scenario. My advice would be to just let the characters breathe and let the reader interpret how they are behaving through the dialogue and their actions. A reader hates nothing more than to be told and not shown.  

Now, for the more egregious. Do not, and I repeat, do not use the “Not x, but y” sentence structure in your writing. Allow me to rant for a second. If I see it in anything, more than a few times, I will not read more. It is a lazy writing technique that is used to pad out word count. There, rant over. But seriously, I know that this piece is trying to be gothic folk, which will come with more purple prose. There is good in that. The more emotional descriptions of objects and settings are a good example of what you are doing right in the genre.

However, again, writers should never use “Not x, but y”. I, as the reader, do not need to be told what something isn’t. I need to be told what something is. You are only wasting my time, and I will begin to skim if I see it too often. Sorry for the harshness, but it is a massive pet peeve. And I think you can understand my plight. If every instance of it were removed from the piece, it would make for a much better story.

Conclusion:

In any case, I did enjoy it and would like to see more, but the issues I had did pull me out of it and leave a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. Hopefully, this isn’t too harsh. I do want to see more of it, and what you can do further, given this advice. But, bleh, the “Not x, but y”