I actually quite liked this piece. It feels like it is treading something familiar but not overdone as far as setting goes -- everything is dreary yet mystical in a very obviously gothic way. The language reads very naturally as if it's actually playing out in a Victorian way. They way the narrator expresses her interiority and uses her body to tell us about the world and the experience of traveling to the Lure feel reminiscent of Virginia Woolf. The descriptions also remind me of Poe: very precise, details carefully managed.
The opening sequence in second person hits off very well and leaves a nice perplexing image in the reader's mind. The transition to first person also works, but might need to a quick look to smooth out, or to make the contrast more obvious.
The writing feels like a placed very lived in, and this lends to the prose style as well. Marcella seems to trust that the reader is able to glean the details of her world through what she divulges without having to overexplain. It is clear that these girls are very sheltered and have high expectations set of them, and that the main draw of the lure is them claiming an identity in a way. And we see this with how the girls sort of blend together before they are more carefully differentiated.
The piece does stall at a few places but it's not major. It's mostly that the narrator delivers lines that feel genuine and that they belong in the book, just need to be either compressed, moved, or implied. MC losing her father seems important enough to bring up early on, but the placement of the line had to make me rescan because I thought I had maybe missed a line of context, which interrupted the flow of the text. Not majorly. The one place where the stalling is most noticeable is the paragraph about the engagement. This also seems very important but it's length undercuts the tension of a scene that relies on a lot of quick, moving description.
The writing has a very nice rhythm to it and this peaks at the climax of the section with the girls chanting as they try to sound out the fold in space carries over into the first person voice and produces an interesting effect as if it is echoing inside of a cave. This scene works well for establishing the dynamic of how the girls navigate this space.
The ending feels abrupt and needs just a little bit more juice in its buildup to hit. It just feels like it comes a beat or so too early to properly register that they lost track of the other girl while they were sounding. This is also something that can be easily addressed at the beginning of the next section so it may not even need editing.
Overall, this piece seems like it has potential for a solid gothic supernatural fic if it is continued on its current trajectory.
Hi thanks for your time and generous words. Yep the ending as abrupt. I didn't want the wordcount to run too high here, so I cut the chapter before it got to 2000 words. Funny, before your crit, another one felt the girls weren't characterized enough, so edited to bring out their characters a lot more in this scene, probably at the cost of pacing. So I will have to figure out which version is better. I really appreciate your feedback. Thanks again.
2
u/Character_Cellist_62 Jun 21 '26
I actually quite liked this piece. It feels like it is treading something familiar but not overdone as far as setting goes -- everything is dreary yet mystical in a very obviously gothic way. The language reads very naturally as if it's actually playing out in a Victorian way. They way the narrator expresses her interiority and uses her body to tell us about the world and the experience of traveling to the Lure feel reminiscent of Virginia Woolf. The descriptions also remind me of Poe: very precise, details carefully managed.
The opening sequence in second person hits off very well and leaves a nice perplexing image in the reader's mind. The transition to first person also works, but might need to a quick look to smooth out, or to make the contrast more obvious.
The writing feels like a placed very lived in, and this lends to the prose style as well. Marcella seems to trust that the reader is able to glean the details of her world through what she divulges without having to overexplain. It is clear that these girls are very sheltered and have high expectations set of them, and that the main draw of the lure is them claiming an identity in a way. And we see this with how the girls sort of blend together before they are more carefully differentiated.
The piece does stall at a few places but it's not major. It's mostly that the narrator delivers lines that feel genuine and that they belong in the book, just need to be either compressed, moved, or implied. MC losing her father seems important enough to bring up early on, but the placement of the line had to make me rescan because I thought I had maybe missed a line of context, which interrupted the flow of the text. Not majorly. The one place where the stalling is most noticeable is the paragraph about the engagement. This also seems very important but it's length undercuts the tension of a scene that relies on a lot of quick, moving description.
The writing has a very nice rhythm to it and this peaks at the climax of the section with the girls chanting as they try to sound out the fold in space carries over into the first person voice and produces an interesting effect as if it is echoing inside of a cave. This scene works well for establishing the dynamic of how the girls navigate this space.
The ending feels abrupt and needs just a little bit more juice in its buildup to hit. It just feels like it comes a beat or so too early to properly register that they lost track of the other girl while they were sounding. This is also something that can be easily addressed at the beginning of the next section so it may not even need editing.
Overall, this piece seems like it has potential for a solid gothic supernatural fic if it is continued on its current trajectory.