Sally stifles the grimace of pain that
crosses her face. She looks down allowing her long blond hair to fall
forward and hide her face. She turned and waves good-bye to Mr. Merit
and her friends on the bus.
Pretending to adjust the heavy blue
backpack, she waits until the bus moves out of sight. The
overpowering foul smell of the diesel fumes robing her of what is
left of her breath. Turning toward home she gives into the pain of
her injured ankle and allows her legs to buckle. At least no one was
around to see her crying, she thought as the tears ran down her face
refusing to be held back any longer.
“Are you alright, Honey?” said a
concerned voice from the garage she was passing.
Sally jerked up as if pulled upright by
the strings of a puppeteer. She gave a quick swipe at her face,
before looking up. Not trusting her voice she nods, waves and slowly
hobbles down the road toward home and Mom
After reading excerpts from George Orwell and Zoe Heller we were asked to revisit our assignment and add more detail to make it better. I chose to change viewpoints to add more depth to the paragraph. What do you think?
I noticed Sally when she stepped off
the big yellow school bus. Normally she bounces down the steps with
that big blue backpack and hurries down the road. Today she hesitated
as if fearful of getting off. I saw her grimace as she stepped down,
took a few slow steps forward turned and called good-bye and waved
toward the bus, without really looking. She fussed with her backpack,
while casting a sidelong look at the retreating bus. When the bus was
out of site, she turned toward home. Then I saw why she was acting
different. She was favoring her right ankle. The poor thing was only
able to hobble a few feet before crumbling toward the ground.
“Are
you okay, Honey? Do you need some help.”
At the sound of my voice
she jerked straight up and made a quick swipe at the tears running
down her face. She tried to plaster a smile on her face, but it came
out as a pained grimace instead. She shook her head no and struggled
to walk without a limp on down the road. I recognized that pride and
determination to not show any weakness. So I offered her a stick 'to
keep the dogs away' and watched her walk away. What she didn't know
was I shadowed her, just in case.
Which one do you think is better? Did the second one improve the character development or not?
