Without His Shadow

Hey there, Holy!

So, I see you have a really fantastic review from BlueAfrica (and I second basically all her points) but I'll see if I can be helpful with my two cents. We shall see, won't we?

I'm a really big sucker for works with a good amount of description, balanced in with some sarcastic and amusing dialogue, and you totally hit the second point, but I feel like there was some narration lacking. The descriptions are really minimal and are overpowered by the sheer amount of dialogue. And I understand you wanting this to he short, but there's still plenty of room to elaborate.

For instance:

A tear splashed onto one of her grey socks, and suddenly her friend had an arm around her.

Here, this could've very easily been expanded into pages upon pages of dull description on every little thing that Hetra did. It's good that you didn't do that, but it seems too condensed per say. Not everything really flows smoothly together, even if the connection between thoughts was still there. Take this quote, and recall the sentence right before it talks about her pretending to continue searching. Then it swaps to her instantly crying - no warning in between.

This would be a spot where some extra elaboration and descriptions would smooth out that transition and have ideas flow into one another. Like how Hetra's thoughts turned to the worst of how she may not find it or thinking about her passed father was too much. Maybe recall a memory from the couch itself?

And as BlueAfrica mentioned, you do want to be careful what you're specific about, as she explained. This extra narration to cushion the dialogue is a little necessary, so then the reader can get more of a grasp on the thoughts of Hetra and see some more reactions from her.

For the most part, I really liked your story line and it made sense, slowly revealing more and more as the story went on. And you did a nice job presenting it, even in such a short amount of words. With the humorous ending and the interaction all pulled into one, the presentation was excellent.

There was however one thing that came to me while reading this, and that's when they visited their mother. It seemed a little odd to me that she'd go follow her mother to the grocery store, and the fact that there wasn't a comparison of time it took to get there, it seemed like an unnecessary detour. And maybe a little creepy, just kind of watching their mom xD As my friends would say, that spot 'made me feel uncomfortable' meaning that it felt strange to me, even if it's not necessarily wrong. Just some things to think about.

Hope I helped! Keep on Writing,
~Wolfare

Hey Holysocks! Clickdun here. Let's talk about your story...

So, first off:

For there, following her mum around faithfully, was a shadow with no boobs.

That is the weirdest closing line ever. I didn't get much of a comedy vibe from this story, and perhaps it's just a fourteen year old being the mental equivalent of a four year old, but I think this line needs to be reformatted so it fits the more dramatic feel.

Other than that there's not much to nitpick from me, it's a solid story that's fun to read and has a right to be what it is. A quirky and fun story to read and (hopefully) for you to write.

~Lord Clickdun

Hi there!

Okay, so I have one big editorial thing and a couple revision-related yet somewhat nitpicky things for you.

1. Dialogue format.

Whenever you have a character making a statement (that is, a sentence ending with a period), change the period to a comma when including a dialogue tag. So, example. What you have is:

“Creepy.” Reeve said.

What it should look like is this:

"Creepy," Reeve said.

Now, if you delete the dialogue tag or replace it with a character action, you would keep the period in place. Like so:

"Creepy."

or:

"Creepy." Reeve didn't notice Hetro's glare at her comment.

(That last bit was kind of pathetic, but it gets the idea across, anyway.)

Normally, I don't mention things like this in reviews because it's the sort of thing you don't really need to worry about until editing the story for a final draft. However, you did it consistently throughout, so I wanted to bring this convention to your attention.

A final note on this: This does not happen if a character's quotation ends in a question mark or a exclamation mark. In that case, just keep the original punctuation. So this:

“Hetty?” Reeve said, the smirk still playing across her lips.

is just fine.

2. The school play.

This quote, right here:

They were going to see a play about a deadly mermaid and her psychopath lover... who go on a murdering spree together. It was for school. They were so excited.

It's a funny quote, in that this play sounds immensely interesting. Deadly mermaid in love with a psychopath? A romantic murdering spree? WRITE THIS PLAY.

However, although it's funny and interesting, it distracts from the main story and is an unimportant detail. We don't need to know what the girls are "going to be late" for. If you really want us to know that it's a play, you could change Reeve's current line about being late to something like this:

“Definitely not," Reeve said. "And we're not checking, either--I've been looking forward to this play forever. I don't want to be late.”

This would let us know that a) they're going to see a play and b) the play must be interesting, because Reeve has been looking forward to it. I know you probably love the idea of this murderous mermaid (I know I do), but it just takes the reader out of the story for a minute, which you really don't want to do.

On that note...

3. Reeve didn't want to be late?

So Reeve isn't willing to check at her house for Hetro's dad's shadow, but the girls take a detour to the grocery store to see if maybe it's with Hetro's mom. I know Reeve says they can just check quickly, but maybe it would help if I had a frame of reference for how far away her own home is. If they have time to check the grocery store, but not her house, then just letting me know that the store is closer would be enough to take care of this minor plot hole. Example: In the above line of dialogue that I gave you, you could do something like this:

“Definitely not," Reeve said. "And we're not checking, either. My house is halfway across town, and I've been looking forward to this play forever. I don't want to be late.”

Then, if Hetro, not Reeve, suggests they check the grocery store, Reeve could be like, "But, dude, the play!" and then Hetro could be like, "Bro, no. The store's like two minutes away. We won't be late."

I mean, i assume your characters don't actually talk quite like that, but I think you get the idea. It's a minor point, but it bothered me a little as a reader that Reeve was complaining about being late one moment but deciding to check for the shadow at the grocery store the next.

4. Boobs.

Like everyone else, I chuckled to myself upon reaching the end of the story. That being said... I have two issues here.

The first is the simple fact that 10 meters (or metres) is--it's not a HUGE distance, but it still seems like it would be too far away to get a good look at a shadow. Especially in a grocery store. Now, I don't have a clear picture in my head of this specific grocery store, but I work in a grocery store, and the lighting is such that your shadow at a grocery store is generally not very clear. So these two girls are 10 meters away (which, to translate for myself, is about 30 feet)...which, depending on the placement of the aisles, might even be almost too far away to pick Hetro's mom out of a crowd in the first place...manage to see a shadow that should be almost too faint to see even close up, let alone at such a distance, and also manage to notice that a particular physical feature is missing from this shadow.

I think it's fine that they check at the grocery store--I think it's fine that they notice this about the shadow. However, I think the distance needs to be drastically reduced to make this more believable. Additionally--this is probably just me overthinking things because I actually work at a grocery store, but bear with me--it would help if it was a bit more difficult for them to see the shadow. i.e., instead of noticing it right away, they could comment about how difficult the grocery store lighting makes it to even spot the shadow, but then they could catch a glimpse of a wavery shadow figure on the floor/the wall/the tomato table/wherever the shadow happens to be cast at this particular moment.

Plus, closing the distance means there will be more tension in the story as the girls try to see the shadow while avoiding detection.

The second thing is much simpler. Boobs. Okay. So. Sorry, I'm still kind of giggling to myself. Um. I think it's fine that they notice this particular physical feature missing from mom's shadow (although, to be honest, unless your shadow is reflecting a profile rather than a front or back view, your breasts aren't really going to show up anyway), but the word "boobs" just does not at all fit the tone of the story. Really. I mean. I laughed so hard, but I think half the reason I laughed was because this particular word--not this way of noticing it was dad's shadow rather than mom's--but the actual word was just so unexpected. Nothing in the tone of the story would make me think that the word "boobs" would ever show up anywhere in the narration, so when it did--it was REALLY unexpected, and not in a plot-twist kind of way. Just a jolting kind of way.

Now, since the two characters appear to be teenage girls, I think it would be okay to use this word in their dialogue if you desperately want to keep it for some reason. For example, rather than ending the story with narration as you do, you could end it with a short exchange between the girls, like so:

“See,” Reeve said, switching her gaze from Hetro to her mom, and then back again. “Notice something about her shadow?”

Hetro squinted, but in the overbright lighting of the produce section she could barely make out the wavering shadowy figure in the first place. "No. Why?"

Reeve pointed as Hetro's mom turned away from the tomatoes. That's when Hetro saw it. Her eyes widened.

"No boobs," she said.

Again, that's not perfect, but it's just an example of what you could do to make the word "boobs" feel less out of place if you insist on using it.

Otherwise, I thought the story was really interesting. I like the idea of someone's shadow, rather than their ghost, following their family around, watching out for them. Honestly, I feel like you could take this a lot further, if you ever wanted to--maybe even a novel or something. But that's up to you, of course.

~BlueAfrica

Hello CapitalMonday here for a review. i like to begin that at the end, i laughed and my sister gave me the why-are-you-laughing look. Anyway, I can't really do reviews for short stories but since this is based off of a poem, i might as well try. (this is my second short story review *throws confetti*).

Nitpick(s):

were a good ten metres away from the tomatoes

one little thing that is needed to be corrected. metres should be meters but i think that was a common mistake since i misspell words all the time.

It was for school. They were so excited.

maybe put this within the sentence before as they were going to see an exciting school play about a mermaid (whatever happens next) or something like that.

Overall, i can't stop laughing at the end

a shadow with no boobs

. i have no idea why i may be laughing maybe since it might be that shadows don't have boobs or maybe the fact i could imagine a shadow without boobs? Either way, this short story is well-written.

(Hopefully, this makes sense and my 2nd short story review)

Farewell,
CapitalMonday