Work from ja

There were so many winding curves as I drove in the blazingly bright orange sunlit glare of the everlasting road that I was utterly exhausted by the endless ordeal and thought I might faint if given half the chance.

Instructor Response

In this sentence, you might look to succinctness. Not only in the adjectives and adverbs, but also in finding what is important and the subject, verb, object structure.

There were so many winding curves as I drove in the blazingly bright orange sunlit glare of the everlasting road that I was utterly exhausted by the endless ordeal and thought I might faint if given half the chance.

The important elements of the sentence are: exhausted by long drive, curvy road, about to faint. Here is a possible revision:

The winding road and the relentless glare from the sun on the never-ending road exhausted me and I thought I would faint.

“Everlasting” doesn’t work well with a road. Maybe “never-ending”? I think to mention the road helps orient the scene. Note the adjectives and adverbs: many didn’t seem necessary to the imagery or understanding the situation and were deleted. As you work on revision, your sense of style may want you to insert more, but there are too many as it is now.

Good work. Keep practicing. And keep analyzing sentences by writers you admire.

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WHC

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