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I am writing an essay for tenth grade, and I have to write a small story in one paragraph. With a lot of imagery (to get my teacher excited). I added some, but I don't think it's enough. This isn't only limited to imagery. I don't know on whether I should expand it or make it succinct, so general improvements are appreciated too. (Hopefully I followed the critique guidelines.)

The text is generally about my caring grandmother. And I am explaining the story where I fell off of a swing and hit my head on the metal bar and had to get stitches.

... There have been way too many situations that show that my grandma really cares about me. One of them was when I fell on a metal bar and they had to get stitches. I was about 6 years old, residing in a summer camp. The camp was about 30 miles from where my original place of residence. It was really old, built in 1950s. Our camp group was outside on the playground. It had several swings and slides. As I was swinging on a swing, my hand suddenly slipped, and my head collided with the metal bar. I cried for help, and a supervisor ran to me, and carried to a bench. I was in shock. My head was vibrating and I couldn’t speak, it was a very dreadful moment. Later on, an ambulance was called and I was driven to a hospital. My grandmother found out about the incident only after the next day. When she got a call from the camp, she rushed to the hospital and came into my room. I was doing fine and had several stitches. She hugged me and kissed me and said ...

So basically, to get this out of the hold, I want to clarify. My teacher said Include more imagery. It was mostly marked on that paragraph. So I need to find out where I have to add more imagery and where I have to remove it.

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    I'm not quite clear on what you're asking. Do you want a critique of this text, asking if it has sufficient imagery as per your assignment? Do you want us to help you come up with additional imagery? If the former, it's difficult to tell without knowing what the assignment is. If the latter, this is a request to generate text and therefore, I'm afraid, off-topic. Commented Sep 9, 2013 at 19:10
  • This is starting to attract answers before we even know what the question is. I'm going to put this on hold, preventing any further answers until you can clarify the question. Commented Sep 9, 2013 at 22:21
  • I added a paragraph at the end that expands on what I need. Can this be reopened please?
    – Vlad
    Commented Sep 10, 2013 at 16:24

2 Answers 2

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I see some opportunities to add sensory details:

  • What do you see or hear that tells you the camp is really old?
  • How did the slides differ from each other? The swings?
  • How many people in the camp group playing on the playground? What were the others doing? What sounds did they make? What did you see?
  • How were you swinging? Gently? Risky high swings? Twisting? How did it feel? What did you see?
  • What were you holding onto just before you slipped? What did you feel through your hand?
  • What did slipping feel like to your hand?
  • What did you feel when grandma hugged you? How did she hug you? Tightly? Gently? In a death grip? How did she smell? How did she sound?
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  • This is a really good advice. I s there a place in my paragraph where I need to remove imagery, where it's not needed?
    – Vlad
    Commented Sep 10, 2013 at 16:25
  • I don't see any imagery at all. Commented Sep 11, 2013 at 7:13
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As Dale rightly says, include adjectives (descriptive words), which will better allow the reader to picture the scene in their mind.

In the same way you've done this with the camp (really old, built in the 1950s), try and do this with the other elements.

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