Show, don't tell...practice

[allgirls]

Anyone want to try this. It's an exercise I found from a free online writing tutorial I subscribed to. You're supposed to work on showing.

Here is the "telling"

U.S. Army Captain Riley Burke spent most nights in Iraq tossing and turning - struggling to sleep through an hour never mind an entire night. Days of desert heat and nights filled with sounds of distant gunfire wore him down. There was plenty of blood and guts, but little glory. The Army recruiters failed to tell you that part. He’d lost soldiers to car bombs, lost friends to roadside bombs, and almost lost his own life to an improvised explosive device while supervising a clean-up operation in Baghdad.

So many nights in the desert he'd dreamed of returning to Tennessee to be with his family. Back home for six months, Riley wasn't resting well in his sister's home. The reality of it all - the nightmares - still plagued him. In the years he'd been away from Beech Grove, the town had changed and he'd changed too

[allgirls]

and here is my "showing" and please note, this was timed in the practice I did so it's not great. But I thought I'd share it as it was written, flaws and all.

"As they always had in Iraq, the grey woolen blankets were twisted and tied around his legs when he awoke in the unfamiliar surroundings. He was disorientated for a moment and then he remembered. His sister's house. It was strange yet somehow comforting to awaken here in this sunlit room, the only remnants of his experiences in Baghdad were the vague memories that haunted his dreams. The cruel bloodstained roads that bore the splattered remains of comrades he'd lost to carbombs, roadside bombs, all manner of explosives designed to kill a man, had haunted his dreams last night as they always did.
The guilt of survival from his own close calls flickered across his face for a moment, quickly replaced by a softening. It was ok. And the memories drifted back inside his head again to wait until the next night to reappear. He was safely back in Beech Grove, after years of absence,comforted by the knowledge that, while the town had changed, just as he had certainly changed, he was home"

Now your turn

[midnightwriter]

Great exercise! I'll try it later! Thanks.