In this short story, nothing is as it first seems. Is the Count of the Dark Castle really a vampire who has killed poor Mariana? Is Florica really the nice waitress, or does she have a dark secret? Is Miray really unfazed by everything, or does she have a weakness?

In this story, I’m playing with expectations and clichés. But it also serves another purpose: it develops the overarching story arc. We get to know a new side of Miray and experience the two characters growing closer together.

The Plot

Miray and Dian find themselves in a small village, somewhere in deepest Romania. A Count’s letter brought them to this desolate place. A young woman from the village has disappeared, and the Count now fears the worst for himself and his castle.

While searching for the woman, our adventurers get to know the people in the village better, as well as each other.

The Setting

It probably goes without saying that the film The Fearless Vampire Killers by Roman Polanski was the inspiration for this episode. The story told is, of course, completely different, but the atmosphere of the village tavern, the deeply snow-covered landscape and the Count’s castle all found their inspiration in this film.

However, one scene has been haunting my mind since I started the project: it is the scene in which Dian steps out of the stuffy and overheated taproom into the cold hallway to check on Miray. Where I would include this scene, and what reason Dian might have, only became clear to me when I wrote this episode.

I think the intense, threatening atmosphere, which begins when Miray asks about the Dark Castle and culminates in the visit to this castle, turned out particularly well. I am proud of the result, even if a professional author would certainly have got more out of it.

The Characters

Dian and Miray are described in this dream journey as “capable investigators”, without this being elaborated on.

Facing them are three irreconcilable parties: the landlord Alexandru with his family and Florica as an employee, the blacksmith Constantin, and finally the Count with his loyal servant.

With the Count, the name allusion to a contemporary person is quite obvious. The name of his servant found a similar inspiration, but I won’t reveal any more than that. 😉

The Dream World

There are no new insights into the mechanics of the dream worlds in this episode.

What have I learnt?

At first it looked like the usual routine that had set in in the meantime. I had written the episode through, proofread it multiple times, refined it. It was about to be published; I had even announced it.

Then I read the book “Deutsch für junge Profis” [German for Young Professionals] by Wolf Schneider. His tips on good writing style and sentence structure were a real eye-opener. Where previously I only sensed that “something wasn’t right” with a sentence, I now recognised where the problem lay and how I could improve it. ¹

As a result, I completely overhauled the entire story once again. I improved the sentence structure, expanded the scene transitions and made sure to describe the characters’ actions better. This extensive change cost me two months. But it brought the story from 8,000 to over 10,000 words, which also read much more fluently. I think the result was worth the effort – and the wait.

While I was writing the following episodes, I noticed that my writing style was undergoing a major change. On the one hand, this unsettled me, because I suddenly had to rethink a lot of things that I had previously jotted down and considered good. It felt like a step backwards on the way to finding and sharpening my personal writing style.

On the other hand, there is nothing bad about steps backwards if you take a better path forward afterwards.