Workshop 2:

Questions of Identity & Belongingness / Death & Rebirth

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Retrograde

by Shawol360 / AffxtedShawol 

I was so sad to see Shawol360 deactivate her account on AFF, not because she was a faithful reader of mine but because her work for the previous workshop ("Roads," which won second place) was such an amazing short story and I really believe in her talent. Reading this second entry did not disappoint. All-in-all, I really enjoyed this short story and felt you did a lot in very little space, as with "Roads," and that the writing itself is very refined. There are little errors at all. However, because she has surrendered her story to AffxtedShawol, I have no choice but to direct my comments to her instead.

The quote in the foreword was a nice touch, as well as the music video and brief one-lined description, all of which really set the pace of the story to follow. The wallpaper and graphic were also a nice additive. There isn't really much for me to suggest in terms of editing, though I have noted the few things I found:

Dashes vs hyphens & Ellipses. Make sure you are using them all correctly. A dash is technically two hyphens and should connect both surrounding words without a gap. An ellipses is a series of periods which indicate a pause of disconnected thought or refrain.

• Also, when combining two words in a modification, aka a contraction, you would use a hypen. For example: “water logged” -> “water-logged,” “four armed men” -> “four-armed men,” “four armed world” -> “four-armed world.”
• "Looking not so different from the people in Onew's tribe from the waist up" -> "Looking not-so-different/similiar from/to the people in Onew's tribe from the waist up"
• "Taemin-ah, I-I can explain~" You would need to use a full dash here, not a hyphen: "Taemin-ah, I—I can explain"
• "Then[,] one day[,] an overheard conversation changed everything[...]"
• You must include a space after the final period in the ellipses which separates the immediate word thereafter, which woudl be underscored, not capitalized. For example: “Just...Just how long were you going to wait to tell me?" ->  “Just... just how long were you going to wait to tell me?" / "A way to keep us...US!" --> "A way to keep us... us!" Also, remember that an ellipses is only four periods when finalizing one sentence and going into the next (more common with quotes from other texts, not stories). For example: "In the morning,Onew.....I will be waiting for your answer." There are several issues here. There are five periods, no space separating the noun after the comma or the noun from the ellipses. Revise accordingly: "In the morning, Onew... I will be waiting for your answer."

Word Choice, Style and Syntax. Again, the mistakes are minimal and pretty simple to fix.  

• “the small bits of debris he roamed the bay to harvest” -> “the small bits of debris he combed the bay to harvest”
• “armfuls of the miscellany lay scattered about their small home in the cove” -> “armfuls of his miscellaneous finds lay scattered about their small home in the cove”  (subject-verb agreement)
• “But seeing the spark in Onew's eyes as his fiddled with pieces” -> “But seeing the spark in Onew's eyes as he fiddled with the pieces” 
• “Even if Taemin noticed that it seemed to be taking on a more obsessive bent lately” -> “Even if Taemin noticed that it seemed to be becoming a bit of an obsession lately”
• "a buffet of wonders waiting for his eager senses" -> "a buffet of wonders awaiting for his eager senses"
• "...the youngster had latched onto Onew in hero worship but it developed into something much deeper" -> "...the youngster had latched onto Onew with a sort of hero-worship type affection[,] but it developed into something much deeper"
• "...singing their first heart's song together." I think I know what you mean here, but the syntax is really confusing. Rephrase.
• "Theirs was a song that could only be completed by the joining of their voices. It was an eternal duet just for them." -> "Theirs was a song that could only be completed by the joining of their voices[;] It was an eternal duet only for them."
• "Onew, on the other hand[,] was hooked"  
• "...the bewitching gained firmer grasp" I think I know what you mean here, but the syntax is really confusing. Rephrase.
• "It was a slow steady crawl with unseen croppings of rock scratching him over and over..." This syntax is confusing. Try instead: "He crawled slowly through the jagged, unhospitable rocks, which seemed to warn him to turn back..."
• "Tap, click. tap click tap click tap click. ." Your punctuation and formatting got away with you. Just simply put it this way: Tap, click. Tap tap tap, click click...  Something like that to sound like a typewriter. 

Notable Things I Liked:

• "...their voices mingling to form a chorus that worshipped the surf."
• "He's too busy picking up sea trash."
• Okay, the obvious nod to The Little Mermaid is an interesting choice since you reversed the genders and orientations -- but more so that you made it a story that had little to do with romance at all, but the quest of immortality and the chance to have a human soul. Because of this, the parallels here are not really to Disney's version but to Han Christian Anderson's original tale which is more about the unnamed mermaid's desire to get into heaven than it is for human love. I found this the most interesting part of the story, in fact; that Onew, who so clearly has Taemin's love, is uninterested in that but more interested in the ability to use limbs and be "of a different race," so to speak. The scene where he is typing is striking because it so simply (and effectively) illustrates his new "gift" of hands and fingers, though we are quickly brought back to the scene of his remorse and the faint singing in the distance when he is walking the beach, which leaves the reader with a melancholy yearning, typical of Anderson's cautionary tale. 

Good Job!!

[...judging is still in progress...]

*Again, the purpose and goal of this workshop is to be helpful, one writer to another. I don't grade by points, simply give you the advice I have received myself along the years. You may take anything I have to say with a grain of salt; it is your story and your emerging talents, so be confident and continue to write the stories that are inside you—be the master of your own domain, regardless of what anyone else has to say. In the meantime, I hope I was of some help.