Journalism / A Moment In Time
I am kneeling… in front of me is a little boy, can’t be older than two. He’s looking off to the side, his chin-length blonde hair is plastered to his head by a navy-blue hat he is wearing backwards. He is wearing overalls, with a checkered shirt and a navy-blue zipper jacket that is open at the moment. His tennis shoes are untied. With his piercing blue eyes, he is looking over at a man… standing behind me. He is grinning, as though this man just shared some glorious secret with him… he only has four teeth. Two on top, two on the bottom. one hand is holding a red toy car, the other is half in his mouth as though he hasn’t decided yet whether he wants to chew his knuckles or not. his nose is runny so it must be cold outside, and that must be why I’m kneeling in front of him… to zip up his jacket… we are standing on what looks like a boardwalk. there is a large body of water next to me on the side of the bridge, and it must be fall because the trees are turning gold and red and there are leaves all over the walk. The sky is a beautiful blue with a few gold-tinged clouds… it is sunset. There are a few people walking on the boardwalk near us, but I am not paying enough attention to them to notice anything other than the fact that they are pushing a stroller. My eyes are for the little boy standing in front of me only.
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The imagery here is very crisp and real.
I think you overuse the ”...”. Either commas or semicolons are more appropriate.
You take the tone that you have been dropped into this scenario and must deduce everything around you (e.g, “what looks like a boardwalk”, “it must be fall because…” etc). You could just as easily write this knowing all of these things, stating them declaratively as your observations other than as things you have to deduce from other clues. For instance, do you only know it’s cold because his nose is running? Aren’t you cold too?
“It must be fall because the leaves are turning gold and red” makes it sound like you are an amnesiac. Why not “It’s fall, and the gold and red leaves are all over the walk.” You can’t really be an amnesiac because you know for instance that it’s sunset, not sunrise.
Pronoun ambiguity: does the kid have only four teeth, or is it the man’s glorious secret that he (the man) has only four teeth, which is making the kid grin?
I think this is great. I’m not sure journalism is the right category for it.
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As you said, not really Journalism but very descriptive.
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