Girl, Magical in Emergency

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Your passage has two primary faults. First, you've included far too much un-necessary detail that ends up obscuring the point of the story. Second, your sentences are too long and complex resulting in run-on sentences. I've trimmed away the fat reducing the word count from 193 to 134 by cutting stuff that doesn't have any relevance to the story. That shortened the sentences resolving most of the grammatical problems. What remains is a tighter story with more impact.

Magical Girl

Many years ago I was walking in my hometown. Suddenly, a harum-scarum lad ran his bicycle head-on into a little girl right in front of me. The girl was about 7 years old, and gave a bloodcurdling scream as the front wheel bumped into her chest. My blood ran cold. I was astonished to see the girl make a perfect back somersault. She did not fall, but landed steadily on her feet. The reckless boy's eyes popped out. The little girl flicked the dust from her dress, and continued on her way to school.

Even if the little girl had gymnastic, or Kun-fu training, she didn't have time to react. It is said that everyone has hidden potentials that might be activated in emergencies. Was it the little girl's hidden potential that saved her from injury, or was it magic?

Asherman's changes are all good but there's still a significant amount of improvement that could be done to these two paragraphs.

I disagree with Asherman that your problem was in too much description or words. You need more description to describe the scene well, you just don't want to misplace your descriptions, and must take care not to make your sentences awkward. It's not poetry, but it is important to flow in any style of writing.

One of the most obvious improvements would be to eliminate some of the odd, repetitious, or cliche word choices. For instance, the use of "suddenly" on line 1 is often overused and is in general a very amateur way to introduce an event. Try taking more care to introduce the event.

"bloodcurdling scream" and "blood ran cold" are also very overused idioms that should be avoided at all costs, unless you are writing book 33 of the Lone Wolf series. The same goes for "eyes popped out." In this case I find the choice of "activated" to be odd.

Here is my version:

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I remember one particular day, many years ago, in the town of Hindenburg, my hometown. I was walking home from the local market, as I often did, when a harum-scarum young lad on a bicycle stormed past me, almost knocking the fresh fruits out of my arms. I turned to yell at him in indignation, but was immediately gripped with panic at the sight of a young girl, apparently no older than 7, standing directly in his path.

The girl let out a terrifying scream, and before I could react the front wheel slammed into her and her small body was launched into the air. To my astonishment, she executed a perfect back somersault, and landed squarely on both feet!

The young boy, who had by now managed to come to a stop, stared in awe as the girl proceeded to flick the dust from her dress and continue on her way to school as if nothing had happened. He turned to stare back at me, exchanging the awe that we both felt, and then his eyes lowered in shame and I could see him mumble a soft apology for his reckless behavior.

I doubt that even a person trained in gymnastics or Kung-Fu could have reacted as quickly as the girl had done, but it is said by some that everyone has hidden potential, only realized in emergency situations. Could it be that it was the girl's hidden potential that saved her, or was it magic?

Thank you both.

I am so much inspired by your perfect skills of grammar and description. I especially like the describings like Asherman's "The girl was about 7 years old, and gave a bloodcurdling scream as the front wheel bumped into her chest. My blood ran cold. I was astonished to see the girl make a perfect back somersault. She did not fall, but landed steadily on her fee" and stuh505's "The girl let out a terrifying scream, and before I could react the front wheel slammed into her and her small body was launched into the air. To my astonishment, she executed a perfect back somersault, and landed squarely on both feet!"

I agree with stuh505's opinion about enriching the description of the scene. What I want to point out here is that that is a TRUE story, not a made-up one. That is why the scene should be noticed.

Another question remained is that I am in fear of the title "Magical Girl" might mislead readers to think the girl was just a player of magic, which of course is of illusion, not of truth. Your ideas about the further modification of the title is important to me, however.

How about, "Magic Potential"

The amount of details offered has nothing to do with whether the story actually happened or not. For example, many years ago a colleague was bragging about a fish he had caught while on vacation. He spread his hands wide and told us that the fish was at least 32 inches long. We all doubted that a Brook Trout could grow that large. Our friend just smiled and provided absolute proof of his veracity. From his wallet he took out a large fish hook and held it up proudly, "you see here the exact hook I caught the fish on". With the proof of his story before us, we all were converted and went back to work determined to fish the same river during our own vacations.

I don't disagree with Stuh505, and the scene setting description he offers is fine. Stuh's naming of the town, and telling the reader why the narrator was on the scene do help us feel we are there. The added description of the effect of the girl's avoidance of injury on the boy suggest the emotion that both the reader and narrator can be expected to share. That really does help the reader to understand that something remarkable really happened. In the original description, the distance to a shipyard, that the girl was on your left, and the exact distance to a school, have nothing to do with the point and purpose of the story.

The important thing, and Stuh and I are in complete agreement on this, is that you need to be much more careful in how you construct your sentences. Avoid long, complex constructions where grammatical errors are more likely to occur. Shorter, more focused sentences, are also easier to read and understand. Word choice is important, and should be carefully considered. Decide what message you intend to communicate, and then sketch out a basic outline for the story. Write your first draft in a fever, then stop and let it rest for a little while. Then go back and begin to edit it down into a story that grabs the reader early, is EASY to read and holds attention to the final sentence. Most writing will set the stage, and then gradually ramp up the interest to a climax that resolves the plot near the end. During the process of editing sentences constantly question whether there might be a better, clearer, more interesting way to say the same thing. Watch out for excessive adverbs, and adjectives. Vary the tempo and rhythm of your writing to match the mood conveyed, and to avoid stilted and boring structures.

The best way to become a good writer is to write ... a lot. Even though I'm not a "professional" writer, I write at least a 1000 words every day just to maintain my skills. I've been writing now for about 60 years, and for the first 40 of those years my writing appeared hopeless. It was good enough to get me through school, but that was all. My real breakthrough was during Law School when we had to write seemingly endless pages of closely reasoned briefs every single day throughout the academic year. Being pressed for time, I stopped trying for literary excellence and concentrated on just getting a clear, concise one page brief written for each of the cases we had to study. By the end of the academic year I had several large three ring notebooks of briefs, and what seemed a writing hand crippled permanently in the shape of a claw. Oh well ....

This part here is particularly good advice, espeically for fiction.

And if you're not writing fiction, spend 90% of your time understanding your topic first so that, then, you can write it all in a fever!

Writers block has no power on editing.