Flash. Her skin was iridescent, she was surrounded by white. Before her was a glass wall that had no door, no window, no apparent end. He stood on the other side. His hand resting on the glass. That smile again.
She walked towards him, slowly. He wasn’t getting away from her this time. They stood at the glass wall, face to face. He was still smiling at her.
She reached to place her hand on the glass opposite of his, the closest she had gotten to touching him in what felt like eternity. As her palm made full contact, the glass wall shattered into a million pieces before them, suspended in the air for a moment, time standing still. A fierce wind began to blow all of the pieces away, followed by infinite black.
Flash.
Her skin was iridescent. She was surrounded by white. An infinite glass wall towered in front of her. He stood on the other side, his hand resting on the glass. And that smile again.
She placed her hand on the wall opposite his, the closest she had gotten to touching him in what felt like eternity. The glass shattered, the shards suspended in the air as time stood still. A fierce wind blew all the pieces away. And then black.
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This story featured numerous “flashes”, though they were always the start of a paragraph, as seen here. I isolated them throughout to give them greater emphasis.
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“Before her was a glass wall that had no door, no window, no apparent end” is a passive sentence that doesn’t do a good job of describing what should be a formidable barrier. I removed the mention of “no door, no window” since glass walls generally don’t feature these, then changed “infinite” for “no apparent end”, the former being a much stronger adjective. Finally, the wall is no longer “before her”, but towering over her instead, transforming the sentence into an active one and showing that this isn’t something one can simply get around.
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While fragments can work in this type of story for pacing and emphasis, “He stood on the other side. His hand resting on the glass” better serves the flow here as one sentence.
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The second paragraph was completely removed since none of it had any bearing on the story:
- It didn’t make sense for her to “walk towards him, slowly” since the reader was just told that she was directly in front of this wall and he was on the other side.
- It also didn’t make sense for the narrator to point out that he “wasn’t getting away from her this time”: there’s a glass wall between them with “no apparent end”, so how would she keep him from running away?
- The reader already knows they’re facing each other at the wall before the second paragraph, making “They stood at the glass wall, face to face” redundant.
- He was smiling at the end of the previous paragraph, and not enough time has passed for him to be “still smiling”.
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The third paragraph similarly needed a lot of restructuring:
- “She placed her hand” says the same thing as “She reached to place her hand”.
- “As her palm made full contact” can be removed since the reader can infer that’s what happened when she placed her hand on the glass.
- The detail that the wall shattered “before them” is unnecessary since there’s nowhere else it would have shattered.
- Not a fan of “infinite black” since “black” and “dark” aren’t known to have ends. Unless a writer specifies that something is only “partially” black or dark, most readers will understand “And then black” to mean that it was totally dark.