Jake's Blog- The Ruins

The screaming filled Eric with a sense of panic.  Pablo was down in the hole, in the darkness, in terrible pain, and Eric couldn't think what to do, where to turn, how to make it better.  They needed to help him, and it was taking too long.  It ought to be happening now, instantly, but it wasn't; it couldn't.  -Scott Smith, The Ruins

This section of reading from Scott Smith's novel, The Ruins, matches what we talked about in class on Friday.  The first sentence is short and very catchy.  It is the first part of a "break" in the book and it receives the reader's attention immediately.  After the person reads this, I believe, they will begin to read rapidly and Scott Smith helps them do this throughout the rest of the paragraph.  The next sentence is filled with short prepositional phrases in which Smith helped the reader continue to read at a fast pace.  After the phrase "in terrible pain" instead of putting a period there and making a new sentence, Smith, combined the two sentences together with a "comma conjunction."  In doing so, it extended the sentence, but also didn't let the reader take the necessary pause after the period.  Instead, he/she took the shorter pause needed for a comma and continued reading.  The last sentence "It ought to be happening now, instantly, but it wasn't; it couldn't" is perfect for what we discussed in class about apostrophes.  If Smith made "wasn't" and "couldn't" in two words it would have slowed the pace down.  Instead he needed to keep the fast pace and used the contractions so shorten the sentence.