Runaway Rewrite 1

I stood at the bathroom sink watching the running water swirl down the drain, mustering the courage to look up into the mirror. From the way the right side of my face throbbed and stung, I knew it wouldn't be pretty. Well, it's now or never, I said to myself. Taking a deep breath and looking up, I realized it was worse than I thought.

Dark purple and blue blended with puffy green and yellow, from a swollen eyelid to my chin, brushing the matching blotches that ran from my shoulder to the skin under my turtleneck. Matching gashes of flesh flanked the top and bottom of my cheekbone and a knot, oddly in the shape of Greenland above my right temple.

Seeing the bruises and cuts covering my reflection made me flinch. They were bad this time. Not that they hadn't been bad other times. I was used to bad, but this was on a whole different level. I was used to seeing bruises, usually in places I could cover easily; shoulders, stomach, arms, legs. Places easily hidden by a sweater and a pair of jeans. Not on my face, never on my face. Even after wiping off the blood that had been caught trickling down my face underneath my eye and feeling the sharp pain of the fresh bruises as I brushed them, I still couldn't believe the poor girl's face on the other end of the mirror was really mine.

I sighed. How was I going to cover this up?



This is the rewrite of the first runaway entry . . . .hopefully it is more understandable. Thanks!

Runaway Try #2

These are paragraph somewhere a little later in the story. They both on different things

It's happened before. The last time I took the bus after an episode. A lady with her child. Nothing visual like now, a little bump on the cheek . . nothing more. But she looked at me, eyes seering into my heart; exposing my shame and showing the world I was a thing to be pitied. Everything I had accomplished and loved was cleared away, my heart emptied in an instant. I was just a poor girl, that now carried a bruise on my heart, all caused by a two eyes delving into my soul.


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Mo could hear the snoring over the metered laugh of the studio audience. She let out a silent sigh of relief; thinking they would never fall asleep. They only had fifteen minutes more to do so or all of her plans would be for naught. The sweat beaded on her face, and as she felt it slide down her brow she swiped it away. Not Now! She knew that if she started sweating, her hair would be a greasy-looking mess for the move, and it could be just the sign for a wary cop or nosey busy-body; any number of which they would encounter on the road, and only one was needed to blow the whole thing and put not only her, but everyone involved in serious jeopardy.

[background you might need to know: she's waiting for two people to fall asleep in front of a tv, so that she can sneak out of the house in order to escape her abuse. She is being helped and she is wearing a wig.]



Sorry that they are kind of random . . . but right now I'm still developing the story, and it has a lot of holes. For the first paragraph: too dramatic? (I think I've been reading too many sappy novels lately) The second: to wordy?

Runaway Try #1

The bruises were bad this time. They had been bad other times, usually in places I could cover easily; shoulders, back stomach, arms, legs. Hidden by a sweater, a pair of jeans, a thrown away tripped down the stairs, a noncommittal shrug “clumsy”. These were different, these were bad. Purple and blue blended with puffy green and yellow, from swollen eyelid to chin and brushing the matching blotches that ran from shoulder to the skin under my turtleneck, gashes of pinky flesh flanking my cheekbones (he wore his ring), a knot oddly the shape of Greenland above my right temple. Even after wiping off the blood that had been caught trickling down my eye, and after pouring concealer across my face, it was clear there was no way to diminish it's garishness, much less cover it up, despite what it might say, on the advertisements. Thanks A Lot, CoverGirl.
So I did my best to sweep my hair over the right side of my face, gave myself a half-hearted smile and headed out of the door.



This is from another idea. I know there are a bunch of run-on sentences. I tried to write it like someone would have spoken it looking at themselves and discribing what they saw in the mirror. Did it work? What felling do you think the character is going through? Is it too messy? Any other comments on anything?

Thanks,