[untitled]

You are walking down the street. The sky is blue. You breathe in the air and let out a sigh. Hearing the sound of a few coins in a steel cup, you look behind. A wave of gloom washes over you. A sixty-ish-year-old homeless person in ragged clothes begs for your help. You hear the clinking of coins in the steel cup again. Putting your hand inside your pockets, you pull out your sleek brown wallet. Both the homeless person and you look at your wallet. You grab a crisp 5-dollar note and hand it to the homeless person. You both smile. You look up and see that the sky is streaked with orange. You are happy. You keep walking, humming your favorite tune. There is grace in your steps; each step is powerful and confident.

After a while, you hear the familiar clinking sound. You stop. Confused, you look behind. You see another sixty-ish-year-old homeless person in ragged clothes begging for your help. You think to yourself that you can't help everyone. You are not a bad person for refusing; you are just like any other person. You turn your back and look up. The sky is reddish-yellow. You look down and start walking faster.

Reviews

[Frolicking]

It's bad. I wouldn't let a second person see me read this!

[JayG]

• You are walking down the street.

No, I'm not. I'm sitting at my desk.

2nd person is difficult sell, at best. But here, you open in an unknown place in an unknown year, with an unknown person going somewhere unknown for unknown reasons. So, opening this general doesn't track for the reader, Perhaps if a destination or purpose was included...

• The sky is blue.

Irrelevant to the story. Would it change were here scatted clouds? No. So mentioning something irrelevant to the plot is a visual detail the-reader-can't-see. presenting visual details that don't move the plot, MEANINGFULLY set the scene, or help develop character, does nothing but slow the narrative.

• You breathe in the air and let out a sigh.

More irrelevant information. EVERYONE breathes. Wasting words to tell the reader what they're already doing is meaningless to the story. And unless the reader knows WHY this unknown person sighs, it's data for data's sake. We can neither see nor hear the person being talked about,

• Hearing the sound of a few coins in a steel cup, you look behind.

Why does the cup's material matter? Why does the number of coins matter? How can this person know it's coins rattling when they can't see behind themself. And...given that they just walked past this person, and both saw them and analyzed their appearance as they walked past, they would hear "the sound of coins rattling in a begger's cup," not a generic statement about the cup and its construction.

• A wave of gloom washes over you.

You just put effect, the person's reaction to what was seen, before the act of seeing. How can that seem remotely real? How could someone walking down the street not have seen the man and his cup—and have reacted—as they walked past? And, what kind of idiot begger waits till AFTER the person walks past, and THEN asks for money?

Storytelling on the page is NOT a matter of saying "This happens..then that happens...and after that..." Universities offer degree programs in Commercial Fiction writing. Would they do that if what they teach isn't necessary?

You can acquire those same skills via self-study, but acquiring them is NOT optional. Readers have been choosing fiction that was created with those professional skills since they began to read. They can't know the decision-points or see the tools in use as they read. But they do expect to see the result of using those tools in everything they read.

Given that, you need to dig into the skills that the pros use and make them your own. It makes a HUGE difference in both readability and how much fun it is to write.

A good place to begin is with Debra Dixon's, GMC: Goel Motivation and Conflict. It's an easy read and hits all the important points, You can download if from the archive site I link to just below.
https://archive.org/details/goal.motivation.conflictdebradixon/page/n5/mode/2up

Jay Greenstein
Articles: https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@jaygreenstein3334