Could you tell me if this seems gripping? And what could help me to improve a sense of being in the writing. Also Grammar because I want to get better ^-^ .................alot better
I screamed. As loud as my voice would allow. At some point, I didn’t know when, my voice broke and became nothing more then a gurgle of terror. My hands gripped the seat belt with as much force as I could conjure up. I shut my eyes as tight as I could get them, a headache was pounding in behind my lids threatening to burst my head open, and the contents of my stomach were already all over the back of the driver’s seat.
What I had seen had not happened. I kept telling myself that and refused to open my eyes even a small amount. My luck in life wasn’t the best, but it couldn’t be this bad! The SUV groaned and shuddered from being on it’s roof and not all four wheels. I hung suspended from my seat, the belt was the only thing holding me in place. The acrid smell of gasoline was almost more then I could take, but the smell of gas and blood mixed together was something I couldn’t stomach. Even so I didn’t think I had it in me to hurl again.
The effort it took to keep my eyes shut was painful, but facing the truth was worse. I didn’t want to be here, I didn’t want this to be happening to me. The feeling of something liquid and cool slithered down my forehead and dripped from my hair onto the now crushed roof of the SUV. The sounds of voices were becoming noticeable.
I took a deep breath. I remembered my parents arguing, their voices sharp and heated as my father drove. I remembered my mother scream as we swerved. The glass broke as the car started to roll.
Without opening my eyes I spoke. “Mom, Dad someone is coming to help us just hold on a little longer, we’ll make it through this!” My courage was all that was in my weak muffled voice.
At some point I had forgotten why I had to keep my eyes closed. Mom and dad would be fine, we would be taken out of this wreck and to the hospital where dad would kiss my mother on the forehead and tell her she was his light in the darkness. Yet, why was I so terrified of opening my eyes? Moving my hand to where the seatbelt release was I unbuckled the thing and was ready for gravity to take me down. I wasn’t ready to find I had a broken leg and multiple wounds I hadn’t noticed before. I kept my eyes shut, refusing to open them through all of this, something inside me said it was the best thing to do at the moment and I was following my instinct.
I landed on the crushed interior of the cars roof, glass was all over it cutting up my hands and legs as I lay there. My parents hadn’t responded to me yet and it made me worry, had they been knocked unconscious? “Mom, Dad are you two awake?” No response came to me only the sounds of the hissing car and dull voices in the background. That calmness that had settled over me was falling away rapidly when my parents continued not to answer, and I still couldn’t find it in me to open my eyes. I had to help them! I couldn’t do that with my eyes held tightly together in fear of what I would see.
I took two shallow breaths. The surroundings were silent except for the hiss of the SUV I was sitting in. The voices of people had stopped becoming audible. What I had seen couldn’t have been real, that had only been an imagination. All of this was just an accident, and accidents could be made up for. I kept swallowing so not to loose my stomach contents again. If I didn’t open my eyes I wouldn’t know if what I saw was real or just an over imagination and I couldn‘t help my parents if they needed me. A sob emitted from my lips, as fear coiled in the pit of my empty stomach.
I opened my eyes.
And my mothers’ lifeless gaze stared at me from with in the back seat.
Her body in the front seat of the car.
I screamed.
Nic read! I like it; I hope this helps~
“...voice broke and became nothing more then a gurgle of terror.”
Instead of “then” this should be “than”. “Than” is used in comparatives (bigger than that), while “then” is for consecutive events (this happened, then that).
“I shut my eyes as tight as I could get them, a headache was pounding in behind my lids threatening to burst my head open, and the contents of my stomach were already all over the back of the driver’s seat.”
Stylistically, to create suspense, use shorter syntax. The brevity of sentences creates suddenness. This can be made into three sentences. Otherwise, the moment is drawn out in a slow way, not in a nightmarish way.
“The SUV groaned and shuddered from being on it’s roof and not all four wheels.”
This should be “its”. “Its” is possessive, and “it’s” is a contraction (it is).
“I hung suspended from my seat, the belt was the only thing holding me in place.”
These two clauses are independent, so this is a run-on sentence. You could place an “and” after the comma or you could separate them by replacing the comma with a period. A dash could work, but I don’t think it’s a good idea in this place....
“I didn’t want to be here, I didn’t want this to be happening to me.”
This is a run-on again. I think that the best thing to do here is to separate the two ideas with a period. It will place a caesura, but a brief one. And the anaphora of “I didn’t want” will become more effective.
“‘Mom, Dad someone is coming to help us just hold on a little longer, we’ll make it through this!’”
If you wrote it as, “Mom! Dad! Someone is coming to help us—just hold on a little longer! We’ll make it through this!” I feel that the force of the person’s courage would become apparent. The exclamation points help with this, and the dash as well.
“Mom and dad would be fine, we would be taken out of this wreck and to the hospital where dad would kiss my mother on the forehead and tell her she was his light in the darkness.”
The first comma after “fine” could be a period. Then with “dad would kiss my mother”, to have parallel structure, it should be either, “my dad would kiss my mom,” or, “dad would kiss my mom,” or, “father would kiss mother,” or, “my father would kiss my mother.”
“Moving my hand to where the seatbelt release was I unbuckled the thing and was ready for gravity to take me down.”
This sentence doesn’t flow very well.... Maybe: “Moving my hand to the seatbelt release, I unbuckled it, ready for gravity to take me down.”
“I wasn’t ready to find I had a broken leg and multiple wounds I hadn’t noticed before.”
You should always say “I wasn’t ready to find that I had...” when you mean “that”—don’t leave it out. There can be another “that”: “...multiple wounds that I...”.
“...something inside me said it was the best thing to do at the moment and I was following my instinct.”
“...something inside me said that it was the best thing to do at the moment...” And then I almost want the sentence to continue as, “at the moment—that I was following my instincts.” But this is a stylistic thing and up to you (practically all of this is, of couse, ^=^)
“I landed on the crushed interior of the cars roof, glass was all over it cutting up my hands and legs as I lay there.”
Should be “car’s” (typo? heh). And the comma should be a period. Otherwise it’s a run-on.
“My parents hadn’t responded to me yet and it made me worry, had they been knocked unconscious?”
There should be a comma before the first “and” because the two clauses are independent; if the second were subordinate (not a complete sentence) then a comma would not be needed. And then the comma that I bolded should be a period (run-on again).
“No response came to me only the sounds of the hissing car and dull voices in the background.”
This is also a run-on. Maybe: “No response came to me. [I heard] only the sounds of the hissing car and of the dull voices in the background.”
“That calmness that had settled over me was falling away rapidly when my parents continued not to answer, and I still couldn’t find it in me to open my eyes.”
This and should be a “but” because it’s introducing a contrary thought (“I want to do this, but I can’t,” not “I want to do this, and I can’t.”)
“The surroundings were silent except for the hiss of the SUV I was sitting in.”
Never end an independent clause or a sentence with a preposition (“in” is a preposition). Instead, a grammatically correct way in which to write this is: “The surroundings were silent except for the hiss of the SUV in which I was sitting.”
“The voices of people had stopped becoming audible.”
This sentence is a little awkward because the “becoming” implies that they were not. Instead you could say: “The voices of the people ceased to exist,” or “The voices of the people ceased to be audible.”
What I had seen couldn’t have been real, that had only been an imagination.
This is a run-on again. But instead of a period, I think that a dash would be effective.
“All of this was just an accident, and accidents could be made up for.”
“For” is a preposition again. But I’m not sure why the “for” is there; I feel that it could be omitted.
“I kept swallowing so not to loose my stomach contents again.”
Another awkward one. I think that it could be, “so as to not.”
“If I didn’t open my eyes I wouldn’t know if what I saw was real or just an over imagination and I couldn‘t help my parents if they needed me.”
I think that tense might be a problem, but I’m not sure. It might be: “If I didn’t open my eyes, I wouldn’t know whether what I saw were real or whether this were just an over imagination. And I wouldn’t be able to help my parents if they needed me.” The “were” is subjunctive case.
“A sob emitted from my lips, as fear coiled in the pit of my empty stomach.”
Between “sob” and “emitted” there could be a “was” to make it more present. The comma after “lips” isn’t needed because otherwise it’s an incomplete sentence.
Nice read! Requiem covered about every grammatical thing I could say, hehe. I'll say a few things on narrative variation in a text!
(Your first sentence begs for a comma before "as" though, making it one sentence instead of two. If you want to keep your first sentence short for dramatic reasons, you shouldn't start the second sentence with "as".)
How-to: add drama (yay)
You can allow yourself to play more with tenses. For example, adding sequences in present tense might give the effect of urgency. This could be a nice effect with your ending, and perhaps also your beginning. However if you apply present tense to the beginning there would be more phrases in the whole text that should be changed as well - still, it makes the reader experience the text as happening "now!". Example:
I screamed. As loud as my voice would allow. At some point, I didn’t know when, my voice broke and became nothing more then a gurgle of terror. My hands gripped the seat belt with as much force as I could conjure up. I shut my eyes as tight as I could get them, a headache was pounding in behind my lids threatening to burst my head open, and the contents of my stomach were already all over the back of the driver’s seat.
I scream. As loud as my voice will allow. At some point - I don't know when, my voice breaks and becomes nothing more than a gurgle of terror. My hands grip the seat belt with as much force as I can conjure up. I shut my eyes as tight as I can get them, a headache is pounding in behind my lids threatening to burst my head open, and the contents of my stomach are already all over the back of the driver's seat.
The most noticeable effect of adding present tense somewhere, and easy use of it, would be to change the ending - when "she" is finished thinking about everything, and finally opens her eyes:
I opened my eyes.
And my mothers’ lifeless gaze stared at me from with in the back seat.
Her body in the front seat of the car.
I screamed.
I open my eyes.
And my mother's lifeless gaze stares at me from with in the back seat.
Her body in the front seat of the car.
I scream.
This ending is also weak for several reasons - first off the first sentence is short - for effect I assume - but continuing after it like you do doesn't work very well. You start the second sentence with "and" - which isn't good - "and" or "but" needs to follow a comma, not a period. You have also written the word "within" as "with in", and the sentence "her body in the front seat of the car" should perhaps have a "was/is". There's a number of things you could do with this ending, though!
*You could simply correct the mistakes listed above - "I opened my eyes. My mother's lifeless gaze stared at me from within the back seat. Her body was in the front seat of the car. I screamed."
* You could replace the period with a comma - "(...) I opened my eyes, and my mother's lifeless gaze stared at me from within the back seat. (...)"
* You could ignore my comment on needing a "was/is" in the next last sentence, and add a comma between the second and the third instead (which was what I think you were trying to do). Of course, then there would have to be a period between the first and second sentence, and the "and" would need to disappear. - "I opened my eyes. My mother's lifeless gaze stares at me from within the back stead, her body in the front seat of the car. (...)"
* You could rephrase the whole message, move the parts of the paragraph around to make new sentences - "I opened my eyes. My mother, from the back seat, stared at me with a lifeless gaze, her body in the front seat of the car. I screamed." etc.
I also notice that your sentence patterns are very similar - your beginnings in particular. Very many sentences start with the words "I" or "The" - if you have a lot of them in a row the piece can become very tedious to read. Example:
Moving my hand to where the seat belt release was I unbuckled the thing and was ready for gravity to take me down. I wasn’t ready to find I had a broken leg and multiple wounds I hadn’t noticed before. I kept my eyes shut, refusing to open them through all of this, something inside me said it was the best thing to do at the moment and I was following my instinct.
Here you list a lot of actions the main character does, although each description starts with "I", from "I unbuckled...". Try to think of variations - scanning through your text after writing it, searching for the letter "I" or the word "The" can be very helpful! If you write a piece in third person you can in the same way search for "he/she/it" etc. There is no need to avoid starting a sentence or an action description with "I" altogether, as it cannot be completely left out if you want a text that is easy to read. Instead, try to notice every time you write one, and find an alternative - and then decide which is better. Have I just used some "I am"-beginnings? Does one fit in right here, with the other sentences? Reducing the amount of such beginnings to four instead of six, the paragraph still tells the reader what you want to say, bit it isn't quite as "jagged":
Ready for gravity to take me down, I moved my hand to where the seat belt release was and unbuckled the thing. I kept my eyes shut, refusing to open them through all of this, and found a broken leg and multiple wounds which had gone unnoticed. I wasn't ready for that. (Still,) Something inside (of) me said it was the best thing to do at the moment, and I followed my instinct.
One trick is also to let another noun be the subject of the phrase, instead of the main character "I":
(...), and I (subject) followed my instinct.
(...), and my instinct (subject) forced me ahead/pushed me further. (you get the idea)
You can also try playing around with moving the components of your sentence around. Examples:
I hung suspended from my seat, the belt was the only thing holding me in place.
- Hanging suspended from my seat, the belt was the only thing holding me in place.
- The belt was the only thing holding me in place as I hung suspended from my seat.
- The belt holding me, it was the only thing keeping me in place as I hung suspended from my seat.
- The belt which was holding me was the only thing keeping me in place, as I hung suspended from my seat.
- Holding me, the belt was the only thing keeping me in place as I hung suspended from my seat.
- As I was hanging suspended from my seat, the belt was the only thing holding me in place.
You could make many more variations of this - and playing around in a similar manner with your sentences can be fruitful. Starting a sentence with a verb in -ing form can help apply some effect of "this is happening now" (in lack of a proper word in my vocabulary) without having to change the tense of your whole piece.
Also adjectives are your friend (I can't see that many of them here!), and try out something similar to free indirect discourse (but in first person, obviously) if you want - a dramatic piece such as this is great for playing around with it!
Hope any parts of my ramble is helpful :]
okay so I'm gonna use the advice given to me and post up my revised work if that is okay?
I'm really bad with first second and third person writing. I confuse them up alot and don't seem to know the differance between past present and future writting XDD
Well, more often than not you see people write in third person, so I really appreciate a piece of good work in first and/or second person. It's more unique that way (in my opinion). The general content and the way you wrote it (not talking about grammar, but the actual content in your text) was very good. As Marit/Dawali said, playing with tenses is good. Using present tense makes it seem more intense as it 'happens in the moment'. Good read, I liked it 
| QUOTE (Haku Soul @ Apr 19 2009, 05:08 PM) | so I really appreciate a piece of good work in first and/or second person. [/quote]
Generally speaking, narrative in second person is very rare and near impossible to do successfully. If you can pull that off, well, kudos to you. >_<
Everyone got to cover everything before I did--so I plan to read over your next draft and give my thoughts then, if that is all right. Looking forward to it.
Looking forward to the revised version!
If you confuse tenses (you said you did!  ) - here's a rule:
I jump up and down. I eat my dinner. - Present
I jumped up and down. I ate my dinner. - Past
I am jumping up and down. I am eating my dinner. - Present Participle
I have jumped up and down. I have eaten my dinner. - Past Participle
I will/shall be jumping up and down. I will/shall be eating my dinner. - Future
Compare the verbs in your sentences to that formula and you should find out in which tense you're writing! (also look for the presence of "have" and "will/shall", of course)
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