I can't decide which way to write this book. I need your opinion. Which of these two samples sounds better?
People are standing all around me. Mr. and Mrs. Cole, Mr. Stark, Jackson, Dad, a few friends, but not Dan.
“Where’s Dan?” I ask. “Where’d he go?”
They all look at me but don’t say a word.
“Where is he? He was just here!” I don’t have the patience for silence. I want Dan. I want to know where he went.
“No, Al. He wasn’t. Dan’s...” Jackson looks at me strangely.
“Dan’s what?”
“Dan died. Remember? We went to his funeral earlier today,” he says.
“No, he didn’t really die! He was here! I saw him!”
Mrs. Cole breaks down into tears and then I remember. The funeral. The pew. The bike. The accident.
It feels like my lungs have collapsed and I can’t breathe. It’s like losing him all over again.
Or this one...
People were standing all around me. Mr. and Mrs. Cole, Mr. Stark, Jackson, Dad, a few friends, but not Dan.
“Where’s Dan?” I asked. “Where’d he go?”
They all looked at me but didn’t say a word.
“Where is he? He was just here!” I didn’t have the patience for silence. I wanted Dan. I wanted to know where he went.
“No, Al. He wasn’t. Dan’s...” Jackson looked at me strangely.
“Dan’s what?”
“Dan died. Remember? We went to his funeral earlier today,” he said.
“No, he didn’t really die! He was here! I saw him!”
Mrs. Cole broke out into tears and then I remembered. The funeral. The pew. The bike. The accident.
It felt like my lungs collapsed and I couldn’t breathe. It was like losing him all over again.
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