[287] Freedom Road Draft 2

Hey mate. Sorry but I prefer the earlier version. If you ask me this one reads like you got advice from people who read too many books on how to write (am I an anti-intellectual know-it-all??). I think it's too sanitized and has lost its raw energy.

Commas? Who needs 'em?

V1 The engine finally fired and announced its rebirth across the valley.

V2 The engine finally fired, announcing its rebirth across the valley.

For me that comma just sucks the oomph out of this opener. There's also a school of thought that following a comma with a present participle like you do with announcing is weak.

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V1 staring out at the elevated hood of the old truck.

V2 staring out at the rusty, elevated hood

Again, I think the comma makes it drag a little, but a bigger problem (in both) would be that Nick staring is kind of a filler action.

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V1 He burst out of the cab and ran around to the front

V2 Nick was at his side,

One: Active, youthful exuberance, fast. Two: Passive, boring.

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V1 grinning through his Marlborough

V2 grinning ... through the haze of his Marlboro.

Number 1 is concise, better in my opinion. I would only change through to around: grinning around his Marlborough/Marlboro/Marlburgh/Marlburrow

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V1 The boy rested his hand on the hood of the truck, waiting to slam it shut.

V2 N/A

I could see an argument that this particular detail is redundant but I do think you're better off with something here to flesh the scene out a little more.

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V1 The sun’s final rays painted the evening sky over the cornfield across the road.

V2 Across the road, the blood-red sunset sank behind the cornfield.

You've moved across to the beginning of the sentence, presumably to vary your sentence structure. I don't disagree with that premise but I don't think you need it. Your subject matter, pacing and style of prose go hand in hand with lots of sentences that start with "the" and "he" a la Hemingway. Also: blood-red? Is this Foreshadowmentation? I'm not a fan in this instance.

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V1 Nick’s father closed his eyes briefly and stepped away and the boy slammed the hood and his father nodded. Nick thanked him like he never had before as he nearly ripped off the driver’s side door and slid behind the wheel. Then it was brake off, clutch in, first gear, engine rev, truck jump, blushed face, laugh.

V2 After a nod from his father, Nick slammed the hood. He was behind the wheel before the sound died. Then it was brake off, clutch in, engine rev, truck jump, face blush. The old man watched his younger self pull out of the garage.

I agree on cutting closed his eyes briefly and stepped away. I don't mind behind the wheel before the sound died but also like the boyish enthusiasm of thanked him like he never had before and nearly ripped off the driver's side door. I much prefer V1's "brake off" sentence to V2's, particularly blushed face to face blush. I can't give you a technical reason for that it's just my stupid opinion. Finally, watched his younger self is really on-the-nose and I think best left out.

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V1 The old man finished his beer and walked to the front porch.

V2 As he finished his beer, the old man walked to the front porch.

Again, I recommend you keep the the and the and. Prose as pragmatic as an old farmer fixing up a rusty truck.

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Just my two cents. I almost critiqued the first one but ran out of time. Enjoyed it a lot.

Overall: Okay, so I read both versions and while this one is quite polished, it loses me in the fact that the piece is supposed to be rough in my opinion. I think the emotional engagement is supposed to come from nostalgia and fear, but I don't really connect with the character because of the lack of dialgoue and emotions.

Introduction: "Nick slapped the dashboard and hollered from the driver’s seat, staring out at the rusty, elevated hood." This sentence took me a while to fully understand what the setting was. I understand that you need to condense setting in such a short piece but this description felt way too packed.

"At the front of the truck, Nick’s father stood grinning at the exposed engine through the haze of his Marlboro." This sentence feels very formulaic and cliche. Perhaps he peered through a whole a crack in the hood to see an intensely focused father.

2nd paragraph: I like the setting description: My 2 favorite lines are "The engine ran in time with the summer rain pattering on the tin roof. Across the road, the blood-red sunset sank behind the cornfield."

3rd paragraph: Jarring transition of point of view "The old man watched his younger self pull out of the garage."

4th paragraph: Loved these lines: "Nick waited until he was out of sight of the house and pounded his feet left-right-left-right and ripped the truck through second gear and into third. Freedom poured through the open windows." This is the only sentence that I think created nostalgia

5th paragraph: Have a better comparison that to a knife: "he tires squealed a horrible squeal that cut through the rain like a knife." Think of something that represents your relationship as well. "The old man stood" I understand this by it took me a while to get it. Perhaps conclude better as I felt annoyed that I couldn't understand what the ending meant for a few minutes.

Pace: I would think about either making the pace significantly faster by removing slowing sentences or create a contrast where the old man's perspective creates a slow pace while Nick is at a very fast pace.

Tone/word choice: I have no qualms, but some felt a bit out of place like "blushed", "calloused" "haze". Try to use more rugged terms to reflect well with the rugged nature of the piece. No blue collar gritty person is going to be like "my hand is calloused" maybe they would be like my hands looked like the termite destroyed the roof or something.

FYI and so that you know where I'm coming from: I read this draft, then I read the comments from u/boagler , then I went back and read the first draft and skimmed the comments associated with that.

My comments below are based on the second draft.

OK, so although I'd quibble about some of the details/examples, I broadly agree with boagler that the first draft was more vigorous. You seem to be aiming at a plain, unadorned, muscular Hemingway-esque style, which I think is a good, effective choice for rendering the powerful sentiments and emotions that drive this piece, but things do somehow feel relatively muted in this second version.

However, I don't really have a big problem with the grammar or stylistic choices -- both of which are pretty much OK imo. Instead I found myself mostly tripping up on issues of structural coherence and precision of language.

First, coherence:

While the overall story and the events that make it up are clear enough (and well paced too, btw) the way the paragraphs are organized makes for a tough read. Take the second line for instance: 'staring out at the rusty, elevated hood.' I understand the intention, but he's obviously not staring out because he's slapping the dash and hollering. It feels like you're trying to jam too many distinct moments into a single sentence. (I'm not necessarily suggesting that you do this, but a better, more coherent way to organize this information might be to move the phrase to the opening sentence: 'Nick was staring out at the rusty elevated hood when the engine fired. He slapped the dash and hollered.' etc)

And then we have 'At the front of the truck, Nick’s father stood grinning ' The problem here is that POV has abruptly changed. We're no longer with Nick. Of course, Nick may know where his father is, but he can't see him because the hood is in the way. So if you want to use this as the next sentence, you'll need to start a new paragraph to mark the jump to Nick's father. If you do that, then boom, problem solved!

The second paragraph is a sort of impressionistic juxtaposition of four different things -- but in this case I think it works because the absence of a single tight focus feels intentional. The skittery effect also provides a nice echo of Nick's over-excitement.

Paragraph #3: 'The old man watched his younger self pull out of the garage.' Same issue as the opening paragraph: we've jumped from Nick's POV to his father's without starting a new paragraph.

In the next paragraph the POV just jumps around all over the place. And in the last paragraph it does the same, even managing to switch POVs within the same sentence. (Instead of 'While the truck echoed through the hills, the old man sat down and listened.' try 'The old man sat down and listened to the truck echoing through the hills.')

To sum up: the events are clear enough, but the way that they've been organized and packaged into sentences and paragraphs needs work.

Word choice and precision:

'The engine finally fired, announcing its rebirth across the valley.' It's not a 'rebirth' though, is it? It's not come back as a younger engine, it's still the same old engine it always was. So a better word choice would be 'resurrected'. Also, 'fired' to me suggests it fired once then stalled again, but I don't know if that's what you meant to say. If it fired and kept running, then I'd want to make that clear. Or you could just say 'fired up'.

'through the haze of his Marlboro' -- A cigarette produces smoke, not haze. 'Haze' suggests that he's been smoking all morning with the doors closed.

'With a flip of his calloused hand, Nick was at his side, passing him a wrench.' I don't know what this means. What kind of hand 'flip'(?) could possibly elicit this complex response from Nick?

'the corners of his mouth peaking as he tried to swallow his smile. ' I love the second half of this, but imo 'peaking' is the wrong word. If the corners of your mouth 'peaked', what would that even look like? 'Twitching' or 'twitched' may not be very original, but at least it would be correct :-)

'Nick‘s eyes darted' -- to avoid the unintentional comedy reading, I'd suggest 'Nick's focus' or 'attention'.

I love the engine synching with the rain! But rain and a visible sunset at the same time feels weird. Why isn't the sunset hidden by the rain clouds?

Freedom poured through the open windows. -- It's tricky enough to jump the POV smoothly back and forth from Nick to his father and the truck, but to jump to an abstraction is too much. I'd suggest staying with Nick, so eg 'Nick sucked up/ basked in/... the (blast of) freedom that poured/blew (in?) through the open windows.'

'The tires squealed a horrible squeal that cut through the rain like a knife. The old man stood.' -- Apart from needing to somehow fix the POV jump from the tires to the old man, for me, while I understand the intention, this doesn't land like it's the end of a short story; it feels more like it's the cliffhanging end of a prologue or opening chapter of a novel about a family coming to terms with the fateful crippling or death of their only son.

Anyway HTH. FWIW I think you're close to having a very nice short piece here.

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