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Another HS game recap--please give me feedback if you can

Discussion in 'Writers' Workshop' started by SteveRomano13, Sep 14, 2014.

  1. SteveRomano13

    SteveRomano13 Member

  2. Batman

    Batman Well-Known Member

    Sorry for the delayed response. The site slowdown kept me from poking around too much.

    Reading this and your other gamer ... man, does Massachusetts high school football suck :)

    Better than your last effort. I like that you tried to sum things up more than go chronologically, although you have to be careful with that approach too. It has its own pitfalls. In this case, it's a bit of a disjointed, unfocused story. On some of the play-by-play, you really needed to tell us the score. We go from an eight-point (that's hyphenated, BTW) margin, to an 8-8 tie, and then to a 38-16 final and I'm not really sure how we got there. When did Lee blow the game open?

    In a game like this, where there wasn't really one standout player (other than Lee's quarterback, who I'll get to in a minute), that can be an angle of its own. That Lee rushed for 173 yards, with four players pretty evenly splitting up the yardage, can be a bigger point in the story. You correctly put Lee's QB in the nut graf, but the total yardage probably should've been up there too.

    Now, this paragraph I have some issues with ...

    ... has some serious flaws.
    How could Abderhalden "break down the defense on every play" when he only threw 11 passes and carried it four times? Similarly, how could he "continuously hit the open receiver" when he completed five passes and didn't even complete 50 percent of his attempts?
    Two touchdown passes makes it a solid effort, but I don't know that I'd call it "outstanding," unless he threw for about 200 yards on those five completions. And if that was the case, it should've been mentioned. Given the even split in the running game and the defense's contributions, he might not have even been his team's MVP in this one.
    The "was outstanding in this matchup" line is also a bit too much editorializing. You want to be careful with that, especially when the guy you're referring to seems like he was closer to above average.

    There's a bunch of style and punctuation things in there as well, but I'm mainly looking at story structure and tone.
    It's not the worst thing I've ever read, but it could be a lot better.
     
  3. Riptide

    Riptide Well-Known Member

    No. He threw two touchdown passes.

    Players don't "throw a touchdown," and they don't "catch a touchdown."
     
  4. SteveRomano13

    SteveRomano13 Member

    Thanks guys. Everything helps.
     
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