Blurb
Doctor Harlow is methodical. Composed. A trusted mind in a kingdom full of unstable ones. On a remote island far from the crown, Harlow treats the bizarre, the enchanted, and the profoundly unwell—with tea, therapy, and an ironclad refusal to get emotionally involved.But when a quiet goblin arrives—haunted by invisible friends and stories that don’t quite add up—something begins to crack.
At first, the sessions seem harmless. Eccentric, even amusing. Then people begin to vanish. Details shift. Memories blur. And the threads that hold reality together begin to fray like cheap spell work.
As the island slips further out of sync, Harlow must confront a terrifying possibility: the patients aren’t the ones unravelling.
For readers drawn to fractured fairy tales, crumbling uncertainty and psychological spirals wrapped in fantasy, A Goblin’s Mind is an unhinged descent into magical therapy, delusion, and the fine art of losing one’s grip.
Original (First 500)
As a therapist I shouldn’t pathologize my patient – I shouldn't be so quick to brand her with a disorder, staining her permanent record and shrouding the real personality behind her disease. Once you are labelled, say, as a depressed person, or someone suffering from bipolar tendencies…or a psychopath, others find it hard to regard you as anything else. A therapist should see their patients’ minds as a sum of parts – parts that don’t always work well with one another, requiring realignment from time to time.
Nessy is a pathological hoarder, but I shouldn’t call her that. She is, after all, an individual with an array of other normal emotions, behaviours, and habits. She works like everyone else, she eats like everyone else. I’ve never come across a creature like Nessy before: half-woman, half-unicorn – and no, this isn’t some kind of joke. Necia Lita Floriana la Gwynth is a genuine human-beast hybrid. From horn to tail, she is a living, breathing…what do you even call such a creature? A womicorn?
We exchange blank stares. Her hair is in her mouth again, and I’m pretty sure she just piaffed on the spot the way fidgety horses do. You could understand how taken aback I was when she first entered my home in the forest nearly half a dozen sessions ago. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me when I saw a topless woman riding a white horse into my den. I distinctly recall saying, “Please dismount, Miss Gwynth,” before realizing she could not possibly dismount herself!
She forgave me quickly, for she is tolerant, slow to anger, and kind.
She is also a hoarder.
She procures things of little value to most others and she clutters her abode and her person with them. She won’t dispose of anything despite how much her acquisitions impede her movements, take up space, or cause dust, mold, and disease-borne bacteria to grow; it’s beginning to affect all parts of her life.
There must be a rotting banana in one of her satchels. I casually place my fingers under my nose, pretending to ponder her dilemma with the full force of my seventeen seasons of psychological tutelage. Really, I am just thinking about rotting bananas.
“Yesterday I lost a belt buckle in the river,” says Nessy, shamefully at first, “but I decided not to look for it.”
“That is very good.” She is looking for affirmation.
My chair is exceptionally comfortable. Despite it being made from wood and having no cushioning or padding, I like sitting in it, behind my wooden desk in this wooden dwelling of mine. The parchment in front of me is almost blank. The sketch of a crude little rowboat near a dock made its way onto the bottom left corner of the page sometime during the session, though I don’t exactly know when I drew it. Black ink spots from a dripping quill blend almost seamlessly into the water near the boat, threatening to absorb the little oar I drew…
My Edit
Nessy stands across from me, chewing a hank of her long, gossamer hair. She does this when she’s anxious — and she’s always anxious. That’s why she needs me. She stares at the floor, long, blonde lashes veiling her iridescent eyes, but her pert nose and full lips are on full display — as are certain portions of her bare torso not obscured by her hair. Not that I notice, of course. I’m far too professional.
The opalescent unicorn horn in the center of her forehead catches the sunlight streaming through my cabin window, scattering tiny prisms across the walls. Her ghost-white flanks shift restlessly, one hoof tapping the wooden floor in a nervous rhythm. I always invite her to sit; she's more comfortable standing.
As a therapist of considerable experience, I make it my solemn duty to resist the crude impulse to pathologize my patients. To affix a label — depressed, bipolar, psychopathic — is to commit a quiet act of vandalism upon the soul, reducing a complex being to a mere entry on a chart. No — the enlightened clinician must view the mind as a grand architecture of interdependent chambers, each with its own echoes and drafts, occasionally in need of repair.
Nessy is a hoarder. The copse of trees she inhabits beside a waterfall would be prime real estate if not for the broken chairs, rusted prams, and bins of spoiled fruit and vegetables that were “still good, yesterday.” Stacks of almanacs with most of the pages torn out, heaps of bottles and bits of twine — you get the picture.
There’s a smell coming from one of her satchels. Familiar. Pungent. A challenge to my gag reflex. I rub my chin, surreptitiously pressing a finger beneath my nose under the guise of deep thought. I try to ponder her dilemma, but really, I am just thinking about rotting bananas.
The session is nearly over, and something is clearly bothering her that we haven’t covered yet. I’ll give her another minute. The parchment in front of me is nearly blank. A crude little rowboat near a dock has appeared in the bottom corner, though I don’t recall when I drew it. Black ink spots from a dripping quill have bled into the water, threatening to swallow the tiny oar. I pull the pen away and lean back in my chair.
My chair is made of wood, but it’s surprisingly comfortable. The curves fit my body perfectly. My desk, also wood, stands between me and my patients. In this case, it’s a nice — though not nearly wide enough — buffer between me and the smell wafting from Nessy. The uncarpeted floor and log walls complete the motif: wood.
“Nessy?” I prompt. While I wait for her to speak, I dip my pen into ink and jot down the goal of today’s visit: to persuade her to empty her saddlebags and dispose of anything actively decaying. I also note to do that at the beginning of each session from now on.
She removes the hair from her mouth with long, tanned, delicate fingers and clears her throat. “A belt buckle fell out of one of my bags and into the river yesterday,” she says. “But I decided not to look for it.”
I look up from my parchment and smile. “Excellent.”
She flushes with pleasure at my approval and her shimmering eyes shoot another of flash of prisms against the walls. Then her face falls. “But I went back for it this morning.” She holds up a rusted piece of junk about the size of a large coin.
(Original word count: ~500 → Edited: ~612)
Nessy stands across from me, chewing a hank of her long, gossamer hair. She does this when she’s anxious — and she’s always anxious. That’s why she needs me. She stares at the floor, long, blonde lashes veiling her iridescent eyes, but her pert nose and full lips are on full display — as are certain portions of her bare torso not obscured by her hair. Not that I notice, of course. I’m far too professional.
The opalescent unicorn horn in the center of her forehead catches the sunlight streaming through my cabin window, scattering tiny prisms across the walls. Her ghost-white flanks shift restlessly, one hoof tapping the wooden floor in a nervous rhythm. I always invite her to sit; she's more comfortable standing.
As a therapist of considerable experience, I make it my solemn duty to resist the crude impulse to pathologize my patients. To affix a label — depressed, bipolar, psychopathic — is to commit a quiet act of vandalism upon the soul, reducing a complex being to a mere entry on a chart. No — the enlightened clinician must view the mind as a grand architecture of interdependent chambers, each with its own echoes and drafts, occasionally in need of repair.
Nessy is a hoarder. The copse of trees she inhabits beside a waterfall would be prime real estate if not for the broken chairs, rusted prams, and bins of spoiled fruit and vegetables that were “still good, yesterday.” Stacks of almanacs with most of the pages torn out, heaps of bottles and bits of twine — you get the picture.
There’s a smell coming from one of her satchels. Familiar. Pungent. A challenge to my gag reflex. I rub my chin, surreptitiously pressing a finger beneath my nose under the guise of deep thought. I try to ponder her dilemma, but really, I am just thinking about rotting bananas.
The session is nearly over, and something is clearly bothering her that we haven’t covered yet. I’ll give her another minute. The parchment in front of me is nearly blank. A crude little rowboat near a dock has appeared in the bottom corner, though I don’t recall when I drew it. Black ink spots from a dripping quill have bled into the water, threatening to swallow the tiny oar. I pull the pen away and lean back in my chair.
My chair is made of wood, but it’s surprisingly comfortable. The curves fit my body perfectly. My desk, also wood, stands between me and my patients. In this case, it’s a nice — though not nearly wide enough — buffer between me and the smell wafting from Nessy. The uncarpeted floor and log walls complete the motif: wood.
“Nessy?” I prompt. While I wait for her to speak, I dip my pen into ink and jot down the goal of today’s visit: to persuade her to empty her saddlebags and dispose of anything actively decaying. I also note to do that at the beginning of each session from now on.
She removes the hair from her mouth with long, tanned, delicate fingers and clears her throat. “A belt buckle fell out of one of my bags and into the river yesterday,” she says. “But I decided not to look for it.”
I look up from my parchment and smile. “Excellent.”
She flushes with pleasure at my approval and her shimmering eyes shoot another of flash of prisms against the walls. Then her face falls. “But I went back for it this morning.” She holds up a rusted piece of junk about the size of a large coin.
(Original word count: ~500 → Edited: ~612)
Critique
I don’t think I’d ever write a blog post about a premise I don’t like—but a therapist for magical creatures? That’s right up my alley, especially when you open with a unicorn-woman (unitaur). The blurb doesn’t even mention a unicorn, and I’m not particularly into goblins, but the title was intriguing and the blurb sealed the deal: a therapist to mythical beings who thinks he might be losing his mind? Yes, thank you!
I’ll admit that I completely missed, on my first read, that the narrator was supposed to be pompous and unlikable. I just didn’t like him. I wrote a whole critique pointing out all the ways he was disrespectful to his patient.
Even knowing that now, I still think the satire reads a little too subtly—so in my edit, I played up the doctor’s arrogance quite a bit.
(I’ll leave my initial “earnest” revision at the bottom of this post if you want to read it.)
SettingThe original description of the setting is these few lines:
"My chair is exceptionally comfortable. Despite it being made from wood and having no cushioning or padding, I like sitting in it, behind my wooden desk in this wooden dwelling of mine."
The phrasing is fun and lyrical. It reveals character as well as setting, which is a mark of good writing. If these were the first words of the chapter, it would work as adequate, albeit bare-bones, scene setting. Unfortunately, this passage doesn’t come until the end of the excerpt, and it’s the only real setting detail we get, aside from a quick “my home in the forest” a bit earlier.
There’s a daunting list of things to introduce in this story: a magical world, a specific setting within that world, and two distinct characters within that setting. This is how I handled it in my earnest review:
“I’m pretty lucky. Most therapists don’t get to hold their sessions in a log cabin, surrounded by waterfalls, in the middle of a forest. However, as a therapist to mythical creatures, that is exactly where I live and work.”
Tossing in the intro to the world, some visuals, and the narrator’s place in it leaves the rest of the scene open to focus on the action.
However, I don’t think this works as well with the unhurried, unimpressed vibe the author is going for. So, in my edit, kept the elements already present in the excerpt, but wove in clues—the light through the window, prisms from Nessy’s horn, the wood floor and walls.
If we start by introducing Nessy, her magical being-ness works as both characterization and setting—because unitaurs are generally only found in magical places. Add to that the POV character observing her, and we get to combine scene-setting with characterization for both characters at once.
I think the author initially used so much exposition to a) show that the narrator is kind of an ass and b) let Nessy’s silence stand awkwardly for as long as possible. However, this only works if we introduce Nessy early, and then pontificate, pathologize, describe the setting, and finally reveal that his parchment is blank except for a doodle—really underlining his disinterest—before prompting her to speak.
That way, the expectation of what a unitaur might say to her therapist becomes the culmination of the excerpt—and it’s surprisingly banal. We’d be starting on observation and ending on action, while also highlighting the subtle humor of such an absurdly ordinary line.
Another, more systemic way to introduce a lot of unusual elements in a story, is one at a time. So, start with the doctor on the porch, sipping tea, waiting for his patient to arrive. This naturally introduces the scenery and the sense that we’re in the middle of nowhere. It would also give him a moment to pontificate about not pathologizing patients.
Then when Nessy canters up, he can think something like, ah, my 9 a.m. pathological hoarder is here. And then we could include the "dismount" flashback. I left that out of my edit because it didn't flow well in that context, but it's a funny moment and this would be a good place to let it shine.
Nessy could greet the doc with the memory of letting go of the belt buckle the day before, he could mentally note that the clock has started, and they can go inside. We can get a description of the inside of the house, and continue the scene from there.
A word about world building. It's a fine line between sharing too much and not enough. A rule of thumb to remember is that you only share what the reader would need to know in order to understand the current scene. Also, find quiet moments to describe settings. Before riding into battle, describe the battleground, because once you ride in you don't want to be juggling scene setting and action.
In this case, the doctor points out wood as the overwhelming aesthetic of his abode. So, it could be fun to explore what kind of wood it is? Cedar? Redwood? A mix? Do we have any purple heart in there? Is the office a rainbow of polished grain? Is it unfinished—or a combination of rough and smooth? Wood smells amazing, so this is a great chance to involve scent in a positive way and would introduce a smell into the scene other than dead banana.
CharacterizationFrom horn to tail, she is a living, breathing…what do you even call such a creature? A womicorn?
We exchange blank stares. Her hair is in her mouth again, and I’m pretty sure she just piaffed on the spot the way fidgety horses do.
It was the “piaffed” comment in the original that personally offended me. I took it out of my edit partly because it’s rude and partly because I wanted to play up the contrast between Nessy’s ethereal appearance and the smell from her saddlebags and living conditions. If she just poops on the floor like an animal, then what does it matter if her home is infested with mold?
Playing up her beauty also makes the doctor’s indifference even more impressive, I think. If I were the doctor, I’d be sitting across from Nessy with stars in my eyes, telling her she deserves to keep everything she wants. The point being that his reaction to her is characterization in itself.
The idea of a unitaur with a hoarding problem is absurd and rich with possibilities—honestly, it’s a premise that could carry its own book. However, I am a bit bothered by the inaccuracy of the doctor’s depiction of hoarding. Hoarders don’t keep things until they rot because they like rotten things. They have a deficit mentality—the fear that these items might not be easily replaced, and it would be a shame to waste them. The fact that many of the items go to waste due to rot is a tragic irony of trying to save too many things that don't have an immediate use.
Using a more realistic version of hoarding pathology as a window into Nessy's psyche could add a depth of humor to her character that isn't present in the current quick stereotyping. I also think the doctor being indifferent isn’t the same as being ignorant. If we’re supposed to trust this man to solve a mystery—including his own sanity—we need him to sound like he knows what he’s talking about when he discusses the first pathology we see. That said, if he's supposed to be bad at his job, this works as-is.
Conflict / TensionHe’s in the power position—the calm, rational observer—but truly confident people don’t need to work so hard to feel superior. And it takes courage to be vulnerable, to admit you need help. So, the outer power dynamic conflicts with the inner one, even though neither character realizes it. That’s the kind of subtlety that makes a scene compelling, even if readers can’t quite name why.
Between the setting, the concept, and the doctor’s indifference to Nessy’s beauty and uniqueness, there’s plenty of tension to sustain a full book, not just a chapter. In my edit, I just enhanced that contrast—adding details to the magical setting and the beautiful creature while highlighting the doctor’s love for wood and…boats.
Final Thoughts
I was initially disappointed to start a story with such an interesting premise, when I disliked the narration so much. Starting a new story as a reader is always fraught—am I going to like this? Is it worth my time? Will I get halfway through and realize the author has nothing to say? So, I put a lot of stock in the first few paragraphs to gauge whether the author has a strong enough grasp on their story to sustain a book.
That said, as a reader, I'm not necessarily giving the first few paragraphs a close reading -- I open the book, look for clever dialogue, rich descriptions, and some sort of tension or conflict. Should I be a better reader? Yes? Am I? No. We as writers can't rely on the patience of the reader. In order to win the benefit of the doubt regarding the whole book, we have to front load the first few paragraphs of a story with structure, and imagery.
In this case, the elements of a story that I look for were present in the excerpt, but the disorganized structure of it tripped me up. If I hadn't chosen this excerpt to critique, I wouldn't have looked at this story twice. Which, now that I recognize the start to a really compelling story, would have been a shame.
"Earnest Edit"
I’m pretty lucky. Most therapists don’t get to hold their sessions in a log cabin, surrounded by waterfalls, in the middle of a forest. However, as a therapist to mythical creatures, that is exactly where I live and work.Nessy is a pathological hoarder. Her hair is long and white, almost clear, with opalescent shimmers that send rainbow reflections pinging around the dark wood of my office walls. With her large violet eyes, and long, lush eyelashes, she looks like a half-woman/half-horse without a worry in the world.The scent of rot coming from her saddlebags belies that impression. I always make sure to open all of the windows in my cabin before she visits. In summer, we hold our sessions in the clearing outside.She arrived a few minutes ago, and hasn’t said much. She's chewing on a hank of gossamer hair, lost in thought."Nessy?" I prompt. While I wait for her to speak, I write down the goal of today's visit, which is to get her to empty her saddle bags, and toss anything that is actively decaying.Nessy removes the hair from her mouth, with long, tanned, delicate fingers, and clears her throat. “A belt buckle fell out of one of my bags and in the river yesterday,” she says. “But I decided not to look for it.”I look up from my notepad and smile. “Excellent.”
She blushes with pleasure at my approval, but then her face falls. "But I went back for it this morning." She holds up a rusted old piece of junk, about the size of a large coin.
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