Bleak and dark — exactly the way I like my fantasy. I’m curious about the villagers’ complacency. It implies a familiarity with this mist that snatches people from their beds at night.

Wonderful imagery here really sets the tone.

Edit: 4th paragraph, “were” doesn’t need an apostrophe.

Good job!

Thank you :) this is actually the prologue from a full story but I thought it sounded good on it’s own (it’s a story I’m writing – http://www.wattpad.com/story/970214-becoming-the-bride-of-dracula-the-first-bride yeah I think the title makes it obvious in context) Completely missed the ’we’re’ while I was editing on here and on wattpad…oh dear haha I’ll go ahead and change that now! thank you for the comments :)

Spooky! I really like how you used older language (nought, seek) to help show the setting, and I especially loved the line “the decrepit house in the withering village.” Great job!

Thank you :) as you can see in my previous comment it’s a part of a bigger story that I’m, writing on a site called Wattpad so you can get the context and time through the 3? parts I have up :) the title in the link is a dead give away though haha thank you so much for your comment ^-

Brilliant! Creepy story bro. I want to know more!

Well done. c:

If you would actually like to read more you can find the other parts I’ve written here:

http://www.wattpad.com/story/970214-becoming-the-bride-of-dracula-the-first-bride

I wanted to make a full story of it so that’s where it is…I just liked the prologue on it’s own :) thank you very much for your comment!!

I like the imagery here. Dark and moody, with great atmosphere.

Just a few technical notes:

2nd para: delete second comma: “a pretty young woman”.

At the moment, it’s the pillow that is next to her face, not the hand.

“The mist crept… where they stopped”… it’s not quite right: the mist is singular.

Colon, not semicolon in “in the bleak room: an empty straw pallet”.

But these are minor technical quibbles- the piece is fine underneath.

Very creepy! And we feel so sad for the mom. I agree with ethel’s notes, those changes will improve the writing.

Old school vampire awesomeness! I really miss the days when vampires were actually scary.
I really like the image of the mom left behind and the village without hope. Looks like this town could use a hero, huh?

I like how the story starts with the fog its not a accessory to the story used for mood like fog usually would be. It makes me think of the start of a movie when the credits are rolling following the fog into the city into the house.

Some sentences strike me as awkward but I don’t know why or how. But the last one in particular bugs me. I see the – there as a pause but in my head it isn’t doing the job. The dash coupled with starting the sentence with “for.” I feel like one of the two needs to go. I have tendencies to be grammatically inept so it’s just an idea.

I think I see the problem- The story starts with tendrils of mist which is plural and then later just uses mist which is singular. Changing the last sentence of the second paragraph to “Fingers of mist” (or something) rather than the mist keeps the mist plural.

I liked it. The early descriptions are well done. I like the almost poetry quality of the two sentences that end with ‘no one cared’ and ‘too scared’.

I know the writing isn’t exactly the best…I’m 18 and I did 2 years of English Language A-level and still can’t quite get the rules (let alone remember them after 4 months haha) so thank you for the tips, I’ll look it over and try edit as appropriate :) I’m doing Graphic Design now at uni so, as you can imagine, my English skills have kind of fallen and are a bit disused and forgotten but I do try! Thank you very much for your comments :)

Okay! I’ve edited it a bit :) please let me know if this flows and works better now or if there is anything else I can do to improve it :)

I am still a little lost…maybe I will come back after reading the actual story TY for the link

I adore that opening line. I think the imagery of “tendrils” of mist “clawing” their way along is really evocative.

Also, I really love your hair.

@Face – if you think about traditional vampire stories then you should be able to link it up approprately, otherwise looking at the fuller story on wattpad might give you a better idea overall :)

@Timbertoesa – thank you for your comment :3 haha and thanks :P it’s started to fade now though so I’m more dark brown than bright red haha

This was a very good piece. Anyone who knows my idea of a good story will know I’d enjoy this, though they’d also know that I’d pick up on the repetition of “mist crept” as jarring. Not overly jarring, but there are pleny of synonyms that would have done adequately in place of one iteration, and it would improve the flow a bit.

@ Robert, you’re assuming that plurals can’t belong to singular collectives. The tendrils are to the mist as fingers are to a hand, so there’s nothing wrong with changing descriptives between plural and singular.

Taking this piece as a whole, I’ll confess myself slightly disappointed, but only by the last line. Up until that line, I’m with you all the way, giddy at the intriguing prospect of youth-stealing mist, until it turns out to just be boring old kidnapping. But then, this is the prologue to a larger piece, and every story needs a plot, so I cannot fault you there. Very well done.

Can we anticipate the timely arrival of some world-weary ex-warrior friar? :D

@H.S. Wift thanks for the comment :) I changed the second ‘crept’ hope it flows a bit better there now :) and yeah it is a prologue to a vampire story so I was going for a couple of aspects related to the traditional beliefs about them :)

@RoseTone _LoA I’m not quite sure if that will happen :P the tales will be based on the three wives of Dracula who I am renaming from the Van Helsing film names (they never had names to begin with). So you basically get to understand who they were before and who they became and perhaps why they eventually came to love the Count :)

Coming back to it, your edits have improved the flow and the story is easier to engage with. Well told.

I enjoyed the antiquated tone and atmosphere, but you really have to be careful not to go too far with it—that Victorian style can very easily get weighed down with too many adjectives and awkward phrasing. Examples:

“Tendrils of mist crept along the ground, clawing their way slowly _toward the decrepit house in the withering village”_ You’ve got all these adjectives and prepositional phrases that each one tends to wash out the others.

“Nought as to what had transpired was found” I get the antiquated tone, but it’s just strange syntax, and passive at that. You could say “nought was found” in much less time, with more punch.

Anyway, I liked it, and those are some things you could do that I think would improve it.

Thanks for your comments :)

I’m 18 too. Well, a month off but still, on my second year of A-level english and my grammar is atrocious. Don’t sweat. I get Robert’s point about the plurals but that’s only relevant in the first paragraph because that’s the only place you describe the mist as tendrils, after that it’s singular. I think it would help if you changed ‘it’ in the second line of the first para to ‘they’.

The little rhyme between the third and fourth paragraphs, intentional or not, is quite brilliant, in my opinion.

It did read very Bram Stoker(ly) to me, creating a real Victorian atmosphere. And I love me a bit of good ole gothic writing.

Thanks for entering the challenge!