Free Critique & Advice

The Brightlings by RicBlow

Felix Swift, a streetwise teenager with a troubled past, is forcibly relocated by his family to his grandmother's old cottage in rural Sussex. The historic village of Brightling is experiencing a series of unexplained occurrences, including the disappearance of a local farmer. Felix soon discovers that he is in possession of the key to unlocking the mystery, and (with an oddball group of assembled acquaintances) he sets out to unearth a secret that has been hidden for centuries, and ultimately save the village and all of its natural beauty from environmental disaster.

This review contains spoilers for the clippings, prologue, and chapters 1-5.

Dear RicBlow,

As soon as I read your description, I was intrigued! Most stories out there tend to focus on conflicts between people, but seeing that your story will have an additional focus on the environment piqued my interest. The topic is certainly relevant! 

Grammar
There were practically no spelling errors apart from spaces between words that can be written as a single word such as "cat call" (it's typically written as "catcall"), or a few mistakes with homonyms, such as writing "heard of cows" (when it should be "herd of cows").

Your writing took me a little off-guard because I immediately noticed that your story is written in the present tense. While it's technically correct and books such as The Hunger Games were published in present tense, fiction is often written in the past tense since it flows more naturally for the reader and it's how humans typically tell stories to one another. Perhaps this is just your writing style so feel free to reject this, but I would recommend writing the story in the past tense. Now that I've read the chapters multiple times I've gotten used to it, but it was very noticeable on the first read. 

You also see the present tense being used in nonfiction, such as scientific reviews and newspaper articles, so keeping the present tense in the articles/clippings you included between chapters would actually work quite well. I know that it's also used in plays and you mentioned playwriting in your author's note—maybe that's where it comes from?

Here's an example from the prologue so you see what I mean in terms of it flowing "better" for most readers:

Present tense: He scrunches his toes and shuffles from one foot to the other, leaving damp prints on the slate doorstep. His threadbare socks are steaming, and the reek of sweat and leather sticks in his nostrils. A five-hour headache is still humming behind his eyes, and his left heel feels like he is standing on half a golf ball and a drawing pin every time that he puts pressure on it.

Past tense: He scrunched his toes and shuffled from one foot to the other, leaving damp prints on the slate doorstep. His threadbare socks were steaming, and the reek of sweat and leather stuck in his nostrils. A five-hour headache was still humming behind his eyes, and his left heel felt like he was standing on half a golf ball and a drawing pin every time that he put pressure on it.

(Side note: this sounds legitimately painful, so bravo for making me physically feel the need to roll my ankles after reading that paragraph.)

Here's a link to an editor that compares the pros and cons of past vs present tense, you might find this helpful: https://theeditorsblog.net/2012/01/31/narrative-tense-right-now-or-way-back-then/ 

[JUNE 2022 EDIT: I want to revise my stance on present/past tense. While I wasn't used to it at the time, I've read some more works in present tense and now think that it can work really well for some stories, this one included. I'll keep my original points up, but I am retracting this recommendation.]