March 28, 2011
Forgot to do this Friday, wooops.
John was sound asleep. The constant ringing of his alarm clock gradually got louder as it began to play for almost an hour. John, in a daze, looked at his alarm clock with droopy eyes. Realizing what hour it was, he was suddenly wide awake and started to get ready for work. He hoped in the shower and took the quickest shower of his life. He quickly shampooed his hair and only lightly swiped his skin with soap. He got out of the shower and dried his hair so fast with a towel; it felt like he had burned his scalp. He got dressed in record time. He decided it wasn’t necessary to shave so he continued downstairs and grabbed a granola bar and a 5 hour energy power shot and went out the door. While driving to his work, about 20 minutes away, he hadn’t hit any traffic surprisingly. As frantic as the situation was, John thought he would be able to make it to work on time. John had never been late for anything, and he was scared he would lose his job if he was late. John was paranoid now and started to have an anxiety attack. Due to the anxiety, John decided to drive faster. He had finally pulled up to the stoplight in front of his work. With only a minute left, he decided to run the red light, thinking it would be ok if he were in the building it would not be that bad. As he ran the red light, John was t-boned by a big rig 18 wheeler. John’s car was totaled and was pronounced dead at the scene. Before John passed on, he heard a paramedic say that it was daylight savings time, and that he forgot to set his clock back an hour. John cried a little bit and passed on. Was it easily visualized? It was only a writing exercise and I don't plan on extending it.
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The visualization is mediocre. I'd say that the front half was going smoothly, but the second half became more "tell" than "show". There are many ways to write about an accident, and "John was t-boned by a big rig 18 wheeler" in my opinion, isn't the most efficient one.
ReplyDeleteI suggest saying something like, "he saw an enormous 18 wheeler speeding his way." However, taking into account the fact that this was done in Mr. Greene's 10 minutes (which is more like 5 minutes,) the form is good.
I also suggest (this is only a suggestion to take at face value) that you cut down on the use of adverbs. A very strange creative writing teacher once told me; "The road to hell is paved with adverbs". Meaning, no matter how desperate the situation is, there will always be a verb that can substitute the original verb and adverb.