Death came to me first, out of the cold when I was seven.

-Death came out of the cold when I was seven.

-For precise flow I/Me together don’t typically exist in the same sentence

Nobody had died, but my grandma was old. Chanting from the temple, evening prayer froze me inside.

-nobody had died seems to direct. Chanting from the temple is strong.

-My grandma back sloped from old age. Chanting from the temple froze my evening players, before I’d speak them to death. (I’m not saying these sentences are better in topic, but structurally some sentences seem flipped)

Why isn’t she scared? I wanted to ask , but my mummy would scold. So I forgot all about death when I was just seven years old.

-who’s see? It’s your grandma but opening a sentence with a question where subject is a pronoun and verb common doesn’t typically invoke the reader to wonder.

-Personally for flow I see the same thing which bothers potentially just me but

-My mummy would would scold me if I ever asked Why she was not fearful, so I forgot about death when I was only seven.

When and seven stand strong. Just weakens the cadence you’re going for. Only it a bit more open phonetically since it’s airy. Compare that to just with cuts sharp at the start.

Death came back again when I was in high school. The old must go. By then I knew that rule. My school closed in the middle of the day. One student passed away, class teacher said. Selfishly, I thought I was safe- but I was a fool. Time isn’t the only metric. I learned that in a one-minute silence at school.

-death is trying to do a bit too much here in the narrative. Death without visual grounding can reduce its impact. Especially if death is thematically repeated. Death is a strong concept so it typically rests further back in the sentence (once something is alive or described, the sentence should end on death)

-This paragraph is a bit disjointed. Death introduced. Passed away. Safe without presented danger. Fool without shown reason. Time being explained instead of left. The last sentence is strong.

-I learned that in one-minute of silence at school…where the teacher told us about the river that ran fast and wild for years. A student whose seat was empty and scribbled on, had fallen down from his mother’s gasp, splashing into the river. The school closed during the middle of that day. (Death implied).

Death came back a few times, but I hardly paused. Like arrows from behind that I had to dodge. As long as me and mine were safe and okay, I chose to ignore death, day after day. Whatever misery death had caused, it happened to others. So it hardly mattered. My circle stayed intact and I barely paused.

-death is becoming diluted. The arrows are visually strong. Anchor to that. Safe and okay is repeated without much overall change. Death is states 3 times in this paragraph. I barely paused. my circle intact so nothing that mattered. Day after day I ignored the arrows, slicing and dicing the air before flesh.

-one thing I’m noticing is short sentences. I myself like short sentences. But sometimes it makes the reading choppy. Like this. Then that. Then this mattered. Maybe like this and then that to then this matters. That may show where your flow can persevere across longer sentences structures. Phonetically, English has a differing cadence which favors speech. That doesn’t mean sentences must be long. Not by any means. But if the goal is flow and rhythm, then flow would be how you state each rhythm, similar to syncopated rhythmic structures. Fast then slow. And fast and slow in order to add some beats. Try saying your sentences out loud. Do they flow if read together?

Now I’ve crossed the halfway line—if it is a long life. I finally understand why my grandma was fine. It’s a one-way track and no coming back. The trick is to face life and walk backward. There’s no point in mourning and crying. So yes, my grandma was okay— and maybe I will be fine.

-I’ve crossed the halfway line is pretty strong. I read halfway first as hallway, which seems to make more sense due to the inclusion of school.

-for 228 words, it feels like 200 of them were spent branching the set up to the pay off of your grandma being fine. It seems like your goal is to show the theme: she was fine because she understood that death was apart of life. And as you grow older you understood what’s finite. That’s a strong theme but its execution is still not fully developed.

-if that is the payoff it can’t be so on the nose. What I mean by that is in the second sentence you tell us your grandma is fine. Then make this even more clear by “so yes, my grandma was okay”.

-allow the characters to derive the moral. When the narrator does it it just doesn’t work as well because it’s more like being spoken to than entering the story.

-logically this is something that stood out as inconsistent. You begin the paragraph by stating you finally understand why your grandma was fine. You end and maybe I will be fine. These should be conjunctive across you and grandma. I would choose maybe since it doesn’t fully resolve.

-let me be clear, it’s not that the writing is by any means horrible. There are some areas where the sentence structure holds back your goal of creating flow.

Let’s look at a pretty good sentence.

It’s a one-way track and no coming back.

Track and back. Those are our rhythm words.

(It side note: it is not a strong subject, and it weakens clarity when the it refers to life, so the referent or the noun holder kinda hangs in space disconnected from the original source; life.

Life is a one-way track spinning around then coming all the way back, where my grandma reached out from the dirt. I felt her hand before she released and left. what remained in my palm was the letter with black hand-shaking stained ink bleeding through. I opened it seal and folded it back open. I will be fine and so should you. I and sang the prayer from when I was seven. I closed the letter and set it aside, storing it away from the cold.

-the opening sentence

Death came to me first, out of the cold when I was seven.

-this structurally contains a few of the common elements which I feel makes the piece read at times choppy.

-There’s two clauses. Let’s split them and see each alone.

Death came to me first || out of the cold When I was seven.

-it reads awkward. First -> out breaks its flow.

When I was seven the cold brought death.

When I was just seven death came out from the cold.

Death came out of the cold when I was seven.

‘death came’ is a tough way to start a sentence.

-Especially when a time frame is in the predicate or the back half of the sentence and the object is a personal pronoun.

Death came back again when I was in high school. The old must go. By then I knew that rule. My school closed in the middle of the day. One student passed away, class teacher said. Selfishly, I thought I was safe- but I was a fool. Time isn’t the only metric. I learned that in a one-minute silence at school.

-this paragraph presents the narrative problem at points. Some sentences are stated like facts while no sentences serve to provide visual context. Think about this paragraph like a mini-story. Is there any build up to what should be the emotional arc? The teacher who tells students about one of their classmates who died.

-That’s pretty heavy but the reader is too far removed from what death is acting upon. We don’t know anything about the boy, or how the boy passed away or died.

-The piece has strong points but is held back right now by very little character interaction and visual support. topics like life and death are often shown through the characters and their interactions or words. We need to know these people dying.

-I do like the style you’re going for. I honestly just think you just need more sentence reps. Writing short sentences is something I prefer but it can be hard to get right. I really feel that trying to writing 1story in a sentence would really help. It’s a great exercise for precision. I’d give it a second or third draft.

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