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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rodrigo Istalindir" data-source="post: 1641663" data-attributes="member: 2810">Response to feedback A (clumsy) attempt at foreshadowing.  I was hoping that when Simon's nature was revealed the reader would get some sense that there was a physical price the father was paying to remain on land as a human.  You're right, it doesn't belong in the opening, as it asks questions that don't really get answered.  It also indicates that something isn't as it seems when what  I'm trying to establish -- the father-daughter relationship -- *is* as it appears. Thanks. I like little details like that in the stuff I read.  It's a little harder to include in a short story, where space is tight and you want to avoid unneccesary exposition.  It's a made up word (so far as I know), but since I'd borrowed 'adaro' from a Polynesian man-shark legend, I thought 'cantalo' sounded sufficiently Oceanic. Agreed.  That was by far the hardest part to write.  Everything up to then sort of flowed, and the conclusion went very quickly.  I didn't want to assume the reader would make the were-shark connection.  Everyone on ENWorld would (heck, I was worried that the 'tired' line in the first paragraph would give it away), but someone whose only exposure to lycanthropy was Lon Chaney might not get it.   I tried to split the difference between assuming an audience would need the connection between Simon, Sarenne and Calliya explicitly spelled out, and one that would immediately understand and be bored by lengthy explanations.  This is absolutely the first part I would re-write.  Suggestions welcome. Thanks.  I'm a sucker for a dark ending myself, sometimes.   That was intended to work several ways.  One was to add additional justification to the turtle picture, which I felt wasn't used as well as it could have been.  Another was to accentuate the nature of the were-sharks -- loving, nurturing on the one hand (Calliya providing the eggs, Simon conserving them) and yet still savage, apex predators on the others.  It also served to provide a little taste of the conclusion.  With their potential for violence understood, I could end with their revenge on the fishermen imminent.  I felt ending with a sense of impending violence was more satisfying than a bunch of prose detailing the actual attack. Me, too.  I had intended for a more drawn out section with them inflicting a lot more damage, torturing Simon and then almost killing him, with Calliya finding him nearly dead and returning him to the sea.  I was starting to worry about length, and I also wanted to focus on the threat to Sarenne and thought that an extended action sequence would detract from that. As I mentioned above, I got a little paralyzed by trying *not* to write to the audience too much.  And Simon's insistence on saving half of the eggs wasn't done to illustrate any particular environmentalist sentiment on my part, but to demonstrate that Simon considered himself a part of the community and had adopted their ways and concerns.Thanks for all the feedback (Berandor, too).  It's been a long time since I wrote any fiction (or finished any, actually), and I've always had a hard time with it.  I tend to write the story in my head and get bored putting it down on paper since I already know how it's going to end  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> The Ceramic DM contest is a nice antidote to my lassitude.  I'm just sorry to have waited so long to try and participate.  When this is over I'm looking forward to going back and reading all the past contests' entries.The bones of the story came together pretty quickly, with the combination of the shark picture and the face with it's silvery scars.  The surfer-shark picture was so ominous, I really wanted to turn the expectations it set around.  The eggs came next, as I tried to set up that Calliya was still looking out for her family.  The cave picture came last, and to me felt the most tacked on, since the essence of the scene was the death of Sarenne; the location was picked to serve the picture. Finally, I've got to learn to read the directions more carefully -- I got it stuck in my head that round one had a 4000 word limit, and had to do some last minute hatchet work.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":eek:" title="Eek!    :eek:"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":eek:" /> Oh, and thanks for not holding it against me that I ignored the fact that it's a dolphin in the picture, not a shark.  I wasn't too sure how much liberty we could take with the photos.  I figured it was safe to ignore anything terribly anachronistic (ie the wetsuit).</blockquote>

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