Great story! You did a great job of bringing the event to life. I really like your description of the child, idly gazing at the cedar trees. It’s very hard to see that the child is you. I think that was a good decision. The word “child” is such a powerful word to be coupled with such a traumatic crash. The effect would have been more difficult to achieve from a first person perspective. Your description of the elderly woman’s seatbelt failing made my stomach turn. You created a very moving and vivid image. There are some grammatical issues that deserve some attention. Some of these sentences are not complete sentences. For the most part, they require verbs. For example: Thanksgiving day. A surprisingly hot day for the time of year. Four lanes, and no turn lane. As you noticed while you were reading, you use the phrase “squeezes in on her” twice. Also, you state twice that the road has four lanes. If this were my paragraph, I would consider beginning with the “Highway 71” sentence and follow it directly with the description of where everyone was sitting. Then, set the scene for the crash. If I understand correctly, when you say balding driver “watches a car coming [from] the other direction,” you mean he was waiting for that car to pass so he could turn… is that correct? If so, I would consider changing the word “watching” to “waiting” to communicate the reason the car came to a stop on the highway. I would also give some attention to word choice during the impact, keeping in mind the emotion you are trying to convey. Some of words in this area could convey safety or comfort. More impact might be gained by swapping a few words out. For example: “To his right the child is caught by the seatbelt, which grips him tightly, crushing in on his chest as he gasps.” Might read more strongly as something like: “To his right, the child gasps for breath as the seatbelt crushes his chest.” Lastly, you did an excellent job of creating a visual and auditory description, but it would be nice to touch on some other senses. Perhaps a short line about the scent of the cedar trees, or the stench of burning rubber. That was a lot of suggestions. Feel free to take them or leave them as you like. All in all, this is a great paragraph!
Great story! You did a great job of bringing the event to life. I really like your description of the child, idly gazing at the cedar trees. It’s very hard to see that the child is you. I think that was a good decision. The word “child” is such a powerful word to be coupled with such a traumatic crash. The effect would have been more difficult to achieve from a first person perspective.
ReplyDeleteYour description of the elderly woman’s seatbelt failing made my stomach turn. You created a very moving and vivid image.
There are some grammatical issues that deserve some attention. Some of these sentences are not complete sentences. For the most part, they require verbs. For example: Thanksgiving day. A surprisingly hot day for the time of year. Four lanes, and no turn lane.
As you noticed while you were reading, you use the phrase “squeezes in on her” twice. Also, you state twice that the road has four lanes.
If this were my paragraph, I would consider beginning with the “Highway 71” sentence and follow it directly with the description of where everyone was sitting. Then, set the scene for the crash.
If I understand correctly, when you say balding driver “watches a car coming [from] the other direction,” you mean he was waiting for that car to pass so he could turn… is that correct? If so, I would consider changing the word “watching” to “waiting” to communicate the reason the car came to a stop on the highway.
I would also give some attention to word choice during the impact, keeping in mind the emotion you are trying to convey. Some of words in this area could convey safety or comfort. More impact might be gained by swapping a few words out. For example: “To his right the child is caught by the seatbelt, which grips him tightly, crushing in on his chest as he gasps.” Might read more strongly as something like: “To his right, the child gasps for breath as the seatbelt crushes his chest.”
Lastly, you did an excellent job of creating a visual and auditory description, but it would be nice to touch on some other senses. Perhaps a short line about the scent of the cedar trees, or the stench of burning rubber.
That was a lot of suggestions. Feel free to take them or leave them as you like. All in all, this is a great paragraph!