November 14, 2010

How could I improve this paragraph?

By Planet Wealth

Mr Tan Park felt the tension like a band of steel squeezing around the circumference of his brain. He was determined that it wouldn’t develop into a migraine so he pushed aside his usual timidity and pushed through the crowd standing on the train platform so he could have a chance of obtaining a seat for the journey home. The train arrived a moment later and he rode through the doors on a wave of churning humanity, each with the same objective as him. He was lucky this time and secured himself a window seat near the door. A small victory in an otherwise pointless day. His job as IT chief at Seoul International Trading Bank was never relaxing, but today amongst the usual minefield of internet glitches, software failures, hack attempts and virus attacks, his wife had called and confirmed the diagnosis after meeting with their son’s psychiatrist – Liam had Severe Acute Gamers Syndrome, or SAGS as the media called it. He’d known the diagnosis would be SAGS yet it’s confirmation left him on the verge of tears. His mind played a cruel game by bringing up nostalgic images of a rosy-cheeked toddler feeding the ducks Seonyodo Park, then as a primary school student at basketball training each evening with his team, winning the regional youth Baduk competition when he was twelve, and only last year the standing ovation he received for his solo flute performance at his high school graduation. Liam seemed to have so much going for him

Topics: Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

4 Responses to “How could I improve this paragraph?”

  1. Laura L Says:
    November 14th, 2010 at 3:08 am

    there are some trite phrases that I don’t like: "tension like a band of steel around the circumference of his brain;" "on a wave of churning humanity;" "on the verge of tears;" "mind played a cruel game."

    there are some grammatical errors: "same objective as him" should be "same objective as his" or "same objective as he had;" "it’s confirmation" should be "its confirmation" (no apostrophe!).

    I would break this into two paragraphs, ending the first paragraph after the line "A small victory in an otherwise pointless day."

    The writing is a bit wordy and formal, when you get into the description of Liam’s SAGS diagnosis. You might say something like "Liam had SAGS. The media called it Severe Acute Gamer’s Syndrome, but Mr. Park called it a curse on his son’s future" (or something like that, to make it sound less formal. In general my sense is that you need to vary your sentence length a small more to inject some "punch" into the writing (note the impact of "A small victory in an otherwise pointless day" when it appears at the end of a long sequence). I would even possibly make a third paragraph starting with "Liam seemed to have so much going for him" and then list all of the nostalgic images that were making this father so upset.

  2. Jace Daley Says:
    November 14th, 2010 at 3:08 am

    you’re excellent, i like it like it is

  3. Dahlia Super Says:
    November 14th, 2010 at 3:08 am

    I don’t reckon you can. It’s very excellent already and I reckon that if you try and improve it, it might just end up being extremely wordy and even dull, I’d say been it the way it is.

  4. I'm just me Says:
    November 14th, 2010 at 3:08 am

    A few things I caught:

    “He was determined that it wouldn’t develop into a migraine” – this tells me you’ve never really HAD a migraine. You don’t choose you’re not going to have a migraine today. They come whether you want them to or not. What you do is HOPE it doesn’t turn into one.

    each with the same objective as him. – this is an incomplete thought. It should have something to go with it. It begs the question, “which is?”

    Severe Acute Gamers Syndrome, — I’m assuming you made this up, because ‘severe’ and ‘acute’ mean nearly exactly the same thing. It’s a bit too obvious that this is completely fake and ruins credibility. If you want it to sound realistic, pick another name. Also, what, exactly IS this supposed to be? And why does it make him so depressed? It honestly sounds like he plays games too much, which has me going, “So what?” If you want us to sympathize with this man and his son, tell the reader what this is. But I have to admit… I’m not exactly buying it. If you’re attempting to make a real medical condition, I personally wouldn’t buy this. Jumps out as being rather joke-ish.

    hope this helps.

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