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I agree with ThirdEmperor on a lot of points, but I think there's a lot more you could be injecting into the story to give your reader to chew on while keeping it grounded. I think particularly by the end, you have this suspense build up and you're finally capping it off, but all the actions sort of happen one after the other. It's a very logical progression and the horror of the situation, not only in what the character is feeling but seeing, knowing this other person is going off to die and he can't stop him, isn't expanded upon. If you run past these details, which are the crux of your conclusion, then the reader isn't going to be hit emotionally or get that chill in their spine. So I think your ending needs something more visceral. And this is where you need to engage your creativity muscles as opposed to your structural storytelling muscles. I need to know in graphic detail not just that your character's throat is burning and he can't catch his breath. I need to know that he's choking, that the spittle is building in his mouth, that he feels the vomit coming up his throat, that his face is breaking out in sweat, his eyes maybe bulging or his tongue thickening. This also applies to the "air". The only description is good air and bad air, which doesn't give your reader's imagination much to work with. Is this an odor, a cloud? Is it a pocket of air or all the air in the building? We just need a better sense, and again a more visceral feeling, of what he's choking on. Maybe it smells like rotten eggs or stings his eyes or something. Remember to constantly be engaging your reader's own sense in the prose. And then yeah, the ending needs to be topped off with more than one line. This is a horrifying situation that he can't communicate, and the desperation needs to come across. He's trying to scream but can't. Maybe he's slamming the ground, scratching the dirt, trying to get the other character's attention. Your character has to be more than observer, he has to engage in action, even if it's fruitless in the end.
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Sep 8, 2017 18:04
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| # ¿ May 13, 2024 23:11 |
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