Marisa rushed to her room. Her head was spinning and suddenly an overwhelming fear and confusion came over her. She collapsed on her bed and tears sprung to her eyes. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
Jessica slumped down in the seat and rolled her eyes. She clenched her fists and felt hot tears threaten to spill down her face. Blinking away her tears, she set her jaw, pushed open the car door and trudged after her brother.
Comments
Feb. 27, 2008 - Lesson 5
Posted by skmarlow
I like the way you just wrote the paragraphs and are leaving it to me to guess which feeling your character is experiencing.
I would have guessed Marisa was feeling frustration to the max, but you added that "fear and confusion" hint, so I had to reevaluate. I think she's just learned some terrible and/or unwelcome news and she's jumbled up inside in a mixture of fear, confusion, anger, and just plain frustration. Am I close?
If not, you need to show me a few more "word picture" clues so I can get a better idea of what you want the reader to learn from the scene.
With Jessica, I sense a girl trying hard to control her temper. Her rolling eyes and clenched fists show that she is feeling angry/frustrated. Yet she controls herself and gets out of the car. "Trudge" was an excellent word choice to show that Jessica is still not completely resolved to whatever it is caused her to get angry.
Am I close?
These are good paragraphs, showing complex characters. Nicely done.
On another note:
Yes, I suppose you could say I speak Spanish--but I read and write it better than I speak it. I have a hard time "hearing" it--I'm very visual. I taught ESL (English as a second language" to the Hispanic folks here in our area. Most of them work on dairy farms, milking cows. That was years ago. I learned Spanish at the time (I took German in high school--dumb choice). My 2 younger boys were taught Spanish from a young age. I love Amigos, the PBS show with Perro Pepe for K-3 grade. We did the Learnables (highly recommend), Powerglide (another good program), and then the college Video series, Destinos (excellent, but tough). I don't know anything about the new Roseatta Stone program.
My youngest DS went with me for 2 weeks to Costa Rica a few years back. He was 12 and he is audio, so he picked up Spanish much quicker than I. But I speak better, because he is too lazy to work at it. LOL (Like a young child who can understand everything you say but doesn't talk yet...that's my Ryan). LOL
I could converse one-on-one with Blanca (actually Blanca is the mother of my "Rosa" and Pastor Erick sent me their DD Isa's picture to use on my website.). Blanca and the kids speak no English, so it was a wonderful opportunity to get immersed. Pastor Erick speaks very good English. However, I never knew what was going on in crowds or large gatherings. They spoke too quickly.
I, too, am very interested in our neighbors to the south. I learned about my dear friend's childhood plight in a poor village in Mexico, and I understand why they are so desperate to come up here (she and her family were illegals).
So...although I'm not great at Spanish, if you have a question I can either answer it or I can ask Erick. I e-mail him often.
And when I get a spare moment, I am going to read your rough draft story. Thanks for sending the link!