Take me to the place where you go...

Feb 13, 2007 00:06

Okay, so this came out a what was supposed to be a paragraph or so prompt in English class today. Please read it if you care to, though I do request that you leave some sort of comment on it regardless. Don't be afraid to tell me it sucks, or use constructive criticism, or what have you.

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wicked_aylah February 13 2007, 21:51:57 UTC
I see you do indeed have tense issues. A few comments...I may include them all here, or I may comment twice (I'm not sure about how much time I have).

"11:13 the clock read, radio blaring, wheels spinning." -> I feel this is technically grammatically incorrect because "read" is actually a verb while "blaring" and "spinning" are participles. But I can't think of what the appropriate grammatical construction would be, so leaving it is probably fine.

"After just hitting a personal cut I had Radiohead playing, and rather loudly I might add." -> You need a comma after "cut" and I think you need one after "loudly" as well.

"Now I had become uninhibited by the chains of conventional thought." -> Nice intro into your story. To place the reader in the story, you may want to change the verb from "had become" to "was."

"My mind wandered as aimlessly as the rolling hills on Sumantown Road." -> Good sentence. If you wanted to cut the repetition of "as" you could also say "...wandered aimless as the rolling..."

"Thump." -> Onomatopoeia, right on.

"“What was that noise,” I had thought to myself." -> For this formatting, and since you do speak aloud later, I would suggest putting thoughts in italics. Also, you want a question mark, not a comma, after noise. And, once again, avoid the "had" tense. It is more historical. I would suggest going with the straight past: "I thought."

"“Did I hit something? Maybe it was just a bump in the road. Maybe I’m just paranoid. After all, the car is still filled with smoke; it must just be getting to me is all.”" ->Once again, should probably be in italics. On the one hand, I feel like this dialogue could be improved, on the other hand, I feel like the way it is gives a sense of urgency.

"Thump." -> Onomatopoeia, aight.

"Again! There is the noise!" -> This should be in italics (or at least quotes if you stick with that). Also, I feel like it is more likely that you aren't thinking in complete sentences, so, perhaps, "Again! The noise!" or "That noise!" or some similar exclamation that is perhaps closer to what you really would exclaim. (It seems to me even more likely that it would not be a complete sentence if it is a thought, not even articulated.)

"My heart races with fear as I roll down the windows to clear the air and I silence the radio, for good measure, to be sure my mind isn’t playing tricks on me." -> See, technically, you shouldn't be able to switch tense like this, but it doesn't bother the flow of the story, to my mind. So, I will have to re-evaluate your whole tense situation after I reread.

Now, I know el jay has comment character limits, so I will continue in another comment.

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