>>24657826
>>24645072
[1/2]
>0.1%. Doesn’t sound like a lot…
Put quotes around the sound-producing idea:
“0.1%.” Doesn’t sound like a lot…
>but crunch the numbers, move the decimal places in your head
“crunch” connotes tension—which is what you’re attempting to achieve in this opening—but the following, simple verb “move” dispells it.
Use verbs and phrases associated with building tension, like drawing an arrow on a bow:
“pull back the decimal places i̶n̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶h̶e̶a̶d̶”
>and you realize wait, holy shit, eight million people
It’s important that you use punctuation after “realize” in order to seperate the revelation from the lead-up.
It would also behoove you to use Arabic numerals for “eight million,” as you began with a percentage in digits.
Plus, replace “realize” with something more impactful, after all that wind-up:
“and it hits you: Wait, holy shit, 8,000,000 people”
>around the world
Don’t include/emphasize this unless you’re going to delve into unique regional consequences.
>saw an ordinary picture of an anime girl and just went fucking postal.
>ordinary
As if this would all make more sense with an “inordinate” picture?
Nix that qualifier, but be more specific with the medium, swapping “picture” with “.png” or “.jpg”—you’re speaking logistically here, after all.
>and just went fucking postal
The informal, often cavalier voice you channel through your narrator is serviceable, but would someone who lost their mother really be characterizing the fatal anomaly like this? Should they?
I have a loved one who passed, and I would never insult her mental faculties near her end, because doing so would take away her dignity, or at least my memory of her dignity, which she deserves.
Maybe I’m damaged goods when it comes to this subject, but I’d advise either detaching the narrator from any personal stake in all this, in order for their boorishness/bluntness to trully rollick, or to double down on the mother-offspring dynamic, in order to hit the pathos nitrous-oxide further along—like, she seems interesting if she’s got anime girls on her feed.
>I can’t convey to you how bizzare it all felt.
>Nope. I can’t repost it here for obvious reasons
Here, add: “But I did actually see it—”
^ Do more to privilege the experience of the narrator, while at the same time making the image seem all the more verboten.
By the way, “how bizarre it all felt” is a good ambiguity—the image, or the era?
>it wsa just a picture of a girl shielding her eyes from the sun in front of a building, holding some kind of long, wired device
Before you were talking logistics, but now you’re talking about art.
The word “picture” is woefully inadequate in each mode— say “digital watercolor” or “almost concept-art.”
Also, rearrange to “…girl in front of a building, shielding her eyes from…”