radiant remnant
Interesting! A few thoughts:
Now that I know what a vampire farm is, it all starts to fall in place. I wonder if I'd have put everything together if I was still unclear -- no way to know -- but this bit came together for me better than the prologue.
Confirming Anne as a child helped me picture her, as well.
Having context really helped! It meant I was more confident that I was understanding what I was reading and able to spend more energy getting into the story.
Usually (in reality and fiction) when a child is scared and comforted by their parents, it's more of a heartwarming scene. Obviously, in the beginning of horror stories, the assurances that "monsters aren't real" are likely to turn out to be wrong.
In this case, it seems like the mother KNOWS there are monsters and is either blind to the threat or indifferent to it... or something.
That was creepy!
I think you did a good job of showing things from Anne's perspective, but if we stay resolutely inside her PoV, I'm worried that it might get constraining.
On the other hand, introducing Kai who can drive action and (presumably) get eaten by vampires is good!
Between the mother assuring Anne things are okay and Tom not feasting immediately on Kai, it occurs to me that maybe the vampires aren't, in fact, the bad guys. The way they're presented supports this reading -- you didn't do a whole lot to explicitly build menace and if that were the case, Anne's mother reassuring her would make somewhat better sense.
I don't have a perspective on whether that would be a good or bad plot development -- I just wanted to note that I'd considered it, and (to my read), the text currently supports that.
tidal fiber
Yeah, did want Tom to not be a pure evil antagonist
he's definitely getting some creepy moments in the second act, but my main goal is to kind of betray the creepy tone of the prologue and focus on building a connection between the readers and Tom through Anne
all so the eventual end will be all the more horrifying
the goal of this horror story is to show the kind of unnerving gut feeling that someone in your life is bad, but everyone around you doesn't seem aware(Or might even willingly ignore it, given the humans have a fairly good life despite being nothing but cattle)
sour canyon
So there are two things I like that you do quickly
You establish Kai’s reluctant, contrasting attitude and you have blood drawn relatively quickly to establish a big plot point and grab attention
tidal fiber
Honestly, the blood draining isn't that big of a plot point
just part of the overall presentation of what life on this farm is like
similar to other things such as the kitchen staff schedule briefly made note of
sour canyon
Honestly, the blood draining isn't that big of a plot point
It definitely grabbed my attention though
tidal fiber
fair, that's what it is meant to do
part of the fun is seeing how this kind of farm operates and why
that was definitely the why
sour canyon
that was definitely the why
That’s important to show early on and it’s a twist on the norm
Bc it is the norm, but it’s odd
tidal fiber
exactly
there sure wont be many other blood drainings in the story, as the plot focuses in on Anne trying to overcome her instinctual fear of Tom, but sure wanted to show it at least once so we get some idea of how that stuff works
not to mention later events will show some other aspects sort of connected that also serve as a chekovs gun
sour canyon
not to mention later events will show some other aspects sort of connected that ...
Ok so at least it’s relevant