[2290] Wails in the Night Chapter 6: Murderess

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First of let me start out by saying this is my first review. Also, to give perspective I am a 21-year-old white male. I say this because feedback will obviously differ with age and gender. I am also not a very experienced writer but I love reading, so I will be giving you more of a reader’s perspective.

General Thoughts

I brushed through your previous chapters for context. From what I interpret, the story is about a girl who survives a plague in her village by getting turned into a banshee. She now lives with her cousin working as a servant. I really like the premise of the main character getting turned into a banshee. I don’t think I have seen anything like that done before. If I picked this book up at the book store, the main questions I would want to know are things like “what are the consequences of being turned into a banshee”, “who turned her into a banshee and why?”, “What happens to someone psychologically when they are turned into a banshee?” and “what badass shit can the main character do now that she is a banshee?”. Given your first chapter and your title, I think that is what a lot of readers will care about the most and expect to see.

Mechanics

Let me just say that I really like your title. I don’t know how original it is because I haven’t read much in this genre but it’s short, relevant to the story (you would be surprised how many titles I see that aren’t), and paints a vivid picture in my head once I know the context of the main characters situation. Reading through the chapter I did catch a bit of telling and filtering (using words like felt and saw) I’ll give you a couple of examples. [“Don’t worry, Elizabeth. The work isn’t hard, and ‘tis right for me to earn my keep,” Agatha said this mainly for the sake of the other servants, who were pretending not to listen. She wanted them to accept her, not resent her for being treated better than they were.] you could for example say instead [“Don’t worry, Elizabeth. The work isn’t hard, and ‘tis right for me to earn my keep,” Agatha said, making sure she was within earshot of the other servants snickering at her in the corner.] Trust the reader, they can figure out that Agatha is actually speaking to the other servants and that the other servants don’t like Agatha because they are snickering. You don’t have to make the servants “snickering” per se, you could use a different action, but you get my point.

A filtering example I saw was [Elizabeth went to the dining room, and Agatha turned toward the kitchen. She could see the butler, William, standing in the doorway to the dining room. As William took Elizabeth’s arm and ushered her to her seat, he threw a sneer of disdain over his shoulder at Agatha.] I would replace this with something like [Agatha turned towards the kitchen while Elizabeth went to the dining room. William, the butler stood in the doorway. He took Elizabeth’s arm and ushered her to her seat, throwing a sneer over his shoulder at Agatha.] Two changes, first [she could see the butler] is unnecessary as its implied. Anything you specifically mention, the reader will automatically assume it’s Agatha noticing it. It takes the reader out of the story if you are redundant. The reader wants to “see” and “feel” through Agatha’s point of view, they don’t want you to tell them about Agatha experiencing it. The second change was replacing [sneer of disdain] with [sneer]. Sneer is a very powerful word in my opinion, its fine left on its own. The disdain part is implied. As you can tell redundancy is my pet peeve. I am very anal about word economy.

I would recommend going through your story and removing as much telling and filtering as you can. There is way more filtering than telling though so I give you points there.

Dialogue

This is my weakest area and what I have struggled the most with my writing. I would not recommend looking to me for advice on rewrites lol. I will point out a couple of the problems I noticed. [“What are you reading about?” She asked as she sat on the stone bench beside Elizabeth. “It’s a book of Irish folklore. Father brought it home on his last business trip. You have gotten me interested in the old lore,”] This dialogue sounds robotic and spelled out to me. Maybe something like [“What are you reading?” She asked as she sat on the stone bench beside Elizabeth. “Irish folklore. Father brought it back from a business trip last week. Talking with you has got me curious about some of the old lore,”] My “fix” definitely isn’t perfect but If someone asked me what I was reading I wouldn’t say “It’s a book of Irish folklore”. In dialogue its totally fine to break grammar rules and use one-word responses and fragments

[There, we look like royalty. Each of our dresses brings out our eyes.] this sounds awkward. I would change it to something like [There, we look like royalty! That shade of green really brings out your eyes Agatha!] I think it sounds weird to give a very specific complement to yourself and someone else at the same time.

I think overall your dialogue was pretty solid. One thing I would do is when you get done with a lot of the structural editing, going back and making sure the characters are consistent with their way of speaking. I noticed that sometimes Elizabeth would speak in something that sounded to me like old English, and then go on and say something a 21st century teenage girl would say. Old English is not my cup of tea (no pun intended) but I would definitely thoroughly check after the fact because some people are really into that shit and will pick you to pieces if you make a mistake.

Story

Up until the last part of this chapter I honestly found it kind of boring. This may be because I am jumping in mid book so it may not be the stories’ fault. It could also be setup. But considering you said that there should be a lot of tension this chapter I didn’t really feel it. The main character does some household chores, learns the entire alphabet in a day (I don’t know how realistic this is. Maybe for a teenager its easier, but it took me a couple months to do that as a child), gets harassed by random people and then meets some new characters. Its not until the very end where things actually happen. I saw no tension between Elizabeth and Agatha except for one scene. They were just casually hanging out before then. Remember in my general thoughts the main questions that interested me in the story? Only the last one got any progress towards being answered and that was only at the end of the chapter. I think this chapter would be more interesting if you sprinkled in a bit more banshee related content in to keep the reader engaged while you set up characters. Maybe show little consequences of becoming a banshee in her psychology and daily life.

Your Questions

Q: Does this tension make the story more interesting?

A: It could if you introduced it more subtly and hinted at it in conversations rather then having Elizabeth persistently ask her a couple questions in a single scene. I wouldn’t force tension though; I think it should happen naturally as the plot progresses if you are writing the characters well.

Q: Were the emotions adequately described

A: I think you did a pretty good job. It would improve by removing a lot of the aforementioned filtering and redundancy.

Q: Was the pacing ok

A: Hard to answer as I haven’t read the whole story and don’t know what is needed and what can be cut out. I did find the majority of the chapter slow and boring though. I would recommend cutting some details unnecessary to the plot.

Q: Did the characters behave realistically?

A: hmm… hard to say for sure. There were a lot of one dimensional “bad guy” characters that didn’t seem to exist for any other reason than to harass the mc and her friend. Also, there were two sexual harassment / rape incidents in one day. Some of it felt a bit on the nose to me but I have seen much worse in published books / TV shows. I am sure we have all read stories about the poor girl who moves in and is bullied by the other girls. I would potentially try and be more subtle as the readers will probably catch on pretty fast. You don’t have to show the MC being harassed by the maids every other scene to paint the picture that she isn’t well liked.

Final thoughts

Overall, I am a big fan of the book’s idea and concept, but this wasn’t the most exciting or engaging of your chapters. Liberally cut scenes and redundancy. Make sure there is conflict and a sense of progress. I think with editing and polish your book shows a lot promise. I would definitely read a book about a girl who turned into a banshee.

If you have any questions about my critique shoot me a message. I will stay on the lookout for more of your chapters to review in the future.