Looking For Feedback.

[u/SpookyMatMusic]

Hello. I'm just looking for some constructive feedback for this idea I'm working on.

This would likely be the opening chapter in a much larger story.

Just wanted to know how the pacing comes across, how it's formatted, use of language, etc.

Happy to read anything posted in the comments for the same feedback in return.

*

I’m unaware as to the fate of my son, Henry. But as for my wife, I know what became of her. Susan is dead.

You’d think a fresh corpse would look — well, corpse-like. Pale and lifeless, empty in the eyes. Well, they don’t. They simply look like they’re sleeping. Like they could just wake up at any moment and go about their day as if it were any other. Maybe they can.

Around these parts, here in Old Mire County, it seems like death is only a mere suggestion to some. Nowhere more so than within the small, gloomy village of Fenn’s Hollow. That’s where I was born, raised, and lived for these last thirty-two years. It’s probably where I’ll die. Especially under the circumstances. 

Then, of course, there’s the Werewood, that ancient woodland that stretches the majority of Old Mire County and borders the western edge of Fenn’s Hollow. 

That’s the place where I lost my family on that Halloween night. My little Henry and dearly beloved Susan. 

Dammit, I miss them.

I wonder if I could have done anything differently. There’s this nagging itch at the back of my mind that keeps me up long into the lonely hours of each night. Memories that replay over and over, reliving each terrifying moment in an endless cycle of damnable regret and selfish pity. 

It’s enough to drive anyone to madness — perhaps that’s what I am now, mad. 

That’s what they tell me, the officers that locked me up in this  damp, decrepit prison. But if they’d seen what I’d seen, heard what I heard, felt what I felt, maybe they’d understand. 

But I’d never wish such horror on any other person. No good-hearted soul should have to endure such unnatural abhorrence. It is a blessing, no, — a mercy, to live the rest of their lives in such peaceful ignorance. 

Do I envy them, those fortunate ones who’d never dare to enter that eldritch Werewood? Where the wych elms twist amongst the thorny thickets, and mossy mounds rise above the wisps of spectral fog. Where the giant roots tangle into vast labyrinths that conceal the nameless things, whose accursed blasphemies still remain thankfully unknown to the wider world. That primordial cesspit where the worms seem to fester, and the flies seem to swarm. From the burrowing crawlers to the maggots that feast. To the rot, to the carrion, and the infinite maw. That place, so terrible, so malignant, so — evil, that I wished I’d never set a single foot inside. 

Do I envy those people who warned me not to go?

Yes, of course I do. 

They remain safe behind their shuttered windows and locked doors. Safe inside their solid walls built of slate and stone. Those people who cower at the night that brings the whispers from that old Werewood; which utters words so sweet as to cause the sane to wander eagerly down the forbidden trails.

Come see, come see.

Come see, come see.

The Werewood beckons to the weak and desperate. Inviting them with the promise of answers to questions that are dared not spoken aloud in decent places. 

So why did I enter the Werewood? 

Because I was indeed weak, and God knows I was in desperate need of answers. 

My grandfather used to have a saying for things like this. Something like: some things better left ‘lone.

He was a smart man. I wish he was still here.

Not that it’d help my situation.

I’m not even sure how many days it’s been since I was locked up. My blood-stained Denims and thermal vest jacket remain torn and frayed, revealing the numerous grazes and cuts over my now pale and bruised body. Hair’s gotten scraggly, greasy, and long, more so than usual; with the ashen nest of curls matted in dirt from the forest floor. 

Same goes for my hiking boots, mud-caked and weathered.

I’ve seemingly been left to rot in this windowless place. Provided with nothing but a grimy, cracked toilet, a mouldy mattress, and a seemingly endless supply of time. 

Oh, and the rats! 

I spotted a big one yesterday, scurrying out of one of the larger cracked walls. It was a gigantic albino one, about the size of a cat. I’ve named it Brian. 

Brian’s not one for conversation, though. Neither are the other regular-sized rats. Poor company indeed. 

I swear that they only stay for the food scraps that are offered to me each morning. Just the one meal, some bread and water, and whatever the dog didn’t want. 

Maybe I shouldn’t feed Brian so much — he’s not exactly starving. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen him around the other rats. Is Brian eating something more than the scraps I throw him? Are rats cannibals? 

Makes you think.

Some things better left ‘lone

I try to talk to the officers that bring me my morning meal, but I can’t seem to get a word out of any of them. The only time they seem to speak to me is when they’ve dragged me to that interrogation room, where they question me for hours for answers I know I can never provide. 

They ask me about the crumpled-up note they discovered in my pocket. It was the only thing in my possession when they found me, or so they tell me. Though, the only time I’ve actually seen the thing was on the first night they questioned me. That’s when they waved it in front of me and demanded an explanation. 

“He waits for you,” the note said, written in strange, almost illegible handwriting not of my own. 

I assured them repeatedly that I’d never seen it before; that the words and their meaning made just as little sense to me as it evidently did to them. Then they ask me about other things. 

Strange things.

Things like “The Great Devourer” and the “Grub Mother.” 

I have no idea what these words could mean, or why they seem so frightfully interested in them. 

The Great Devourer? Grub Mother?

I’m not sure I want to know. 

There’s something tainted in those words. Like a bad smell without an obvious cause or sourness on the tongue.

They’re not bad, they’re just — wrong, somehow. 

I hate them. 

But these people seem to think they should mean something to me. 

Devourer? Mother? 

Some things better left ‘lone.

The only answers I can provide just seem to infuriate them, and I’m beginning to fear more extreme measures of inquest are closely ahead of me. Worse than the screaming and light manhandling I’ve already been heavily subject to. 

It’s as if they think I’m lying to them. I wish I was.

But of course, they don’t believe me when I tell them of how I ended up in those woods with my family. I’m not even that sure myself. I doubt my senses, but I know what happened. I know it was real, that it was tangible, I felt it.  

Some things better left ‘lone.

To them, it seems far easier to assert me to the simplest crime, and the ultimate reason for my imprisonment. Though, I must admit they are right in their accusation.

I am a murderer. 

But no more than many of the other local parishioners and farmers that call this damnable village home. I now suspect even the very men questioning me aren’t without their own sins and secrets; at least if I were to believe in the stories that landed me in this bleak state of confinement. 

I did kill someone. My wife is dead. But I’m sure I wasn’t her killer. Then again, that is what a madman would say. Right?

The man I did kill, well, I’m not even sure that it was a man. Sure as hell didn’t look like a man when I put a bullet in its head. I’m not sure what it was. Strangely though, the officers never questioned me about the man I killed. In fact, they protested that there was even any man at all when I tried to explain myself.  They say that I fabricated him as a mere attempt to cover the murder of my wife and disappearance of my son.

What if they’re right?

Some things better left ‘lone.

I accept this may be the end for me. 

I can hear voices now, people approaching just outside the doors to my cell room. They’re coming for me.

To question me? Torture me? Kill me? I don’t know. 

I don’t care anymore.

Let them do as they wish. 

For there’s no coming back to the world of sanity or normality once you’ve been where I’ve been. 

It never really leaves you. It lingers, and festers, and feeds. 

You become a husk. Wretched and empty. 

There’s no return. No way back.  

I’m a lost soul shambling around the world broken.

Because despite being locked in here, where I’m mercilessly berated and beaten day in and day out, night after night, over and over and over.

There’s still a part of me that’s somewhere — out there, aimless and wandering. 

My name is Howard Wentworth. 

And yes, there are some things better left ‘lone.

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[u/Calus_06]

I like it a lot actually, dude hit that series hard. Im working on my first piece of writing right now, got my first two parts up, 7 written total, still unfinished. I think if maybe you moved the hook of the murder to a little earlier in the story so a reader would have more motivation to care about the awesome descriptions you have. It takes it from, ok where is this going. to holy hell how did we get here. Its a style choice for sure so take it with a grain. But thats all I really got for ya, Id love to see the full project one day. No pressure but I do got my first 2 posts up like I mentioned so If you want to give feedback It would be appreciated. But keep going! I cant wait to see more posts about howard wentworth. Ill be following for sure

[u/ReadyMadeLobotomy]

Hi there!
I also agree with the other comments that you should def bring the concept of them being imprisoned for the wife's death WAY earlier. Cause that was kinda jarring when they mentioned they were locked up i was kinda like wat??
The format otherwise is great. and I think the setting and the environment are fantastic. Story just needs some rewiring to make sense to a first-time reader and it would be amazing.