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Old 04-20-2010, 02:20 PM   #2 (permalink)
Freebase Dali
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Originally Posted by Conan View Post
So for my writing class I have to do a couple of these things. I need to do like three of them today, and usually when I write I like to let things sit for a while (a couple of days) and then come back to them with a clear head and make the necessary changes.

Since I don't really have that kind of time right now I was wondering if you guys could give me some tips/adjustments/whatever on the ones I'm writing as we speak.

Grammar is an important thing, but I think I've done pretty well on that. Mostly i'm just looking for tips on structure, choice of words, reading comprehensibility.. etc.

The first one:

Write a Narrative Essay of no more than three paragraphs about an experience that helped you or someone else change or grow


He was driving and then he wasn't. He simply wasn't. He was in the woods. What if this happened to you? What would you think? What would your thoughts be? “How did I get here?” he is what he thought. But he let the question slip his mind; he wasn’t at all too concerned. His brain wasn’t working right. His thoughts seemed to churn and churn. In every direction his mind would wonder.

Now he was in a field. It was night, but the daylight didn't yield to the night’s sky. The daylight sunk into the ground and shone upwards. He silently stared, not making a sound, astounded at the light that shone up through the ground. The light became bright, in time it blinded him. His sight was lost, but his visions remained. He saw trouble after trouble float through his head. Finally, he saw himself dead. His body was near the bottle and the vehicle. He saw his friends attending his funeral, none of them happy but none too sad. “He brought this on himself!” was what one of them shouted. Now he was upset, angry even. His cursed his own name; he knew he was dead. He screamed to get out and he woke up in bed.

This was the recovery room. In the night he thought he died, but he really survived an accident on the road. He looked around the room and saw no family visiting him. There was only a police officer, ready to arrest him when he recovered. What if this happened to you? What if the light shone through the floor? As for Mr. Walker, he drinks no more.
Seems like you could include more details about the way it changed Mr. Walker and the effect it had on him after he decided to stop drinking, and rely a little less on the sensory details. They're nice but because you're limited to three paragraphs, you could make the piece a little clearer by exchanging some of the abstract with some concreteness.

Just a thought.
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