With the snow melting on the Alps above, the river was an enraged pit of moshing rocks and water. Squinting through the icy spray, I fought furiously for control. My paddle slashed madly through the air as the roaring river whipped me from side to side. Suddenly, a wave of terror broke with the realization that the kayak was flipping. There was barely time for a last breath before my head followed my body under the frothy surface. I was suspended in a sinister still—no sound but my pulse crashing in my ears, urgently tick-tick-ticking down the time without air. The cold sliced through my skin, swiftly penetrating to a dull ache in my bones. With a fleeting thought of the jagged rocks, my eyes flew open. My lungs screamed as I stared helplessly at the sprayskirt that secured my torso to the kayak. I had no idea how to unhook it.
What I really like about your paragraph is the words you use to vividly describe your experience of flipping your kayak and being stuck underwater. Using "slash", "sliced", and "screamed" really gives the reader the feeling of terror you experienced. One line that I really like is when you write "I was suspended in a sinister still-no sound but my pulse crashing urgently in my ears." I have been flipped from a banana boat before, and this specific line is exactly how I felt when I went under the water. Overall, I think this is a very strong paragraph.
ReplyDeleteThis is really intense. The description that you put into this is very vivid and does a good job of bringing out the imagery of the moment. It feels very frantic as the Kayak flips and you are tossed into danger. I particularly enjoyed the phrase "a sinister still", which brings out the experience of what was happening and what you were experiencing at the same time.
ReplyDeleteI think that this particularly works as a story of the moment- it's not so much about why you were kayaking, where you were kayaking or anything like that, but that intense adrenaline filled moment of when it flipped. I think you could maybe expand on that a bit as the paragraph is a bit short (not that that is by any means a bad thing). The "The cold sliced..." sentence could also probably be expanded to become more vivid and really bring out that feeling of fear and how hostile the condition was at that instant. One of the strengths and weaknesses of this situation is that probably most readers won't have ridden a Kayak down a swollen river, so the burden of description in linking something foreign to them (the kayaking) to something familiar (danger, fast moving water, rocks, cold etc)falls on you. Luckily you do a good job at this but (as with anything) it could be improved through a combination of more metaphors and vivid description. On the same note, the word "Sprayskirt" is a bit vague even with its attached descriptor and could possibly use either a less technical term or more description.