“I don’t know what to tell you, man. I think you just have to decide whether you’re OK with it. Don’t worry whether you should be OK with it. You either are or you aren’t. You shouldn’t try and change who you are. Now, that’s the last time I ever want to talk about it.”
Simon just stared down into his coffee.
“Ok?” Nelson prodded.
Simon nodded and said “I’m going to go get some more coffee,” as he stood and walked towards the counter.
“Wait, can you get me one?” Nelson called after him, causing Simon to spin around and slam his shoulder against a waitress. She stumbled forward, throwing her hands out to catch herself which sent the tray of coffee she carried across the room, splattering against the old man who sat reading The Economist. The old man shrieked at having hot coffee run all over his body, then suddenly clutched his heart. He gasped for breath and then fell forward, slamming his head against the table, dead. this has a TON of passive voice that took me out of the story completely. Restructure it and make the sentences shorter, and remove any action, <>ly type structures.
“Well, shit,” Said both Simon and Nelson.
they also didn't really kill this dude and this ends fairly abruptly.
Person #3: why are we jumping again? D:
The empty road and desert stretched on ahead with no signs of change. The repetition of the dusty rocks, rippled sand, pocked asphalt, and bright night sky was apparent not only in the context of this particular trip, but in all of the similar trips they had taken in years past. this bores me. To Arizona on their biennial visit to their old town where nothing and nobody had changed. this isn't a complete sentence. Back to the city, where everything and everyone constantly changed, but the change in itself was a kind of stagnation. same as above It seemed to Simon that everything in this trip was familiar, even the conversation.
First they would talk about their lives. Who were they dating, where were they living, where were they working, what parties had they been to? Then they would talk about books, movies, and TV shows. What did they like, what did they hate, who deserves the Oscar? Then the conversation would end with subjects they didn’t really care about but were always attempted. Politics usually people care about politics a lot though?, gossip, the weather, anything else they could think of. Then there would be a silence when they realized that they were in the car with a person who was once their best friend and they had nothing to talk about. Then Simon would try and discuss the homeless man or the old man, but Nelson would change the subject or turn the radio up. why aren't they friends anymore?
This trip was much the same until around the time when Simon was about to bring up the mayoral candidates. At that point, a man leapt out from behind a boulder at the side of the road, his ragged shirt and pale white skin were all that Simon could see flash in the headlights before the collision. same problem with passive voice and this could be expanded a lot.
Airbags, swearing, bruises.
Simon and Nelson stepped out of the car with deliberate movement, not savoring what they knew they were about to see. The man lay on his back, blood painted on his face, his neck bent at an unnatural angle, his left arm twisted behind him. He was undoubtedly dead. They stood there in silence for a while, staring at the body. passive voice.
“Well…” Nelson said “He jumped out in front of us, we were probably going ninety. He wanted this. He wanted to be dead.”
Simon looked the body over in all its grotesque glory. He then nodded.
“You’re right. He wanted to die. Nothing we could do about it. Let’s go before another car comes.”
The two friends then climbed into the car, backed up, drove around the body, and sped off into the vast, lonely sameness.
impressions: This story confuses me. I'm not understanding why these people are friends, why they are helping a homeless dude, what their motives are, etc. At the end I can't understand why they aren't friends anymore, or why they are in a car together if that's the case.
If this story was a girl, she'd be pregnant. You need to keep a closer eye on your grammar and sentence fragments. Also you use too much passive voice. But all in all this was a fun read, just needs some more explanation thrown in.