Page critique 6/3/21

Offer up your page (or query) for Nathan's critique on the blog.
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Nathan Bransford
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Joined: December 4th, 2009, 11:17 pm
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Page critique 6/3/21

Post by Nathan Bransford » May 31st, 2021, 12:25 pm

Below is the page up for critique on the blog on Thursday. Feel free to chime in with comments, create your own redline (please note the "font colour" button above the posting box, which looks like a drop of ink), and otherwise offer feedback. When offering your feedback, please please remember to be polite and constructive. In order to leave a comment you will need to register an account in the Forums, which should be self-explanatory.

I'll be back later with my own post on the blog and we'll literally be able to compare notes.

If you'd like to enter a page for a future Page Critique, please do so here.

Title: Power Failure
Genre: Memoir
First 250 words

Gathering at the base of the power pole on Fillmore Street, the evening rush-hour crowd looked up. The lineman dangled by a leather belt, head thrown back, arms splayed. Above him a canister-shaped electric transformer hung askew. His double-parked truck blocked the street. With power knocked out, electric trolleys stalled from the corner of Fillmore and Haight all the way back to San Francisco’s Marina District.

Vehicles took turns inching by the truck, honking, shooting around to avoid crashing into oncoming cars. A man brandishing a silver lunchbox toward the body, shouted, “He’s electrocuted!” A powdery faced woman shrieked, “He’s dead!” Sounds of sirens grew louder; the milling crowd went silent, listened.

The fire department’s hook-and-ladder truck got there first, followed by an ambulance and police squad car. The cops got out, directed traffic, cleared the way for a brown and tan boom truck. Linemen jingling pole-climbing gear jumped out of the back, pushed through the crowd, climbed pell-mell to the cross arm. A thumbs up told supervisors on the ground the lineman was alive. Using ropes and a sling, they lowered him to the sidewalk.

The Pacific Gas & Electric Company supervisors rushed forward; a stretcher lay on the ground, ambulance doors yawned wide open waiting to receive the victim. The lineman stood up, swayed, looked around at the crowd, batted away helping hands, refused to lie down. The men supporting him smelled liquor, rushed him to the backseat of a waiting company car. They took my father back to the PG&E yard and fired him.

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