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Often, sentences that use "thought" verbs tend to provide distance between the reader and the action. This might be intentional or not. Consider your example, rewritten without the "I thought about...
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#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T03:59:11Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35727 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
Ken Mohnkern
·
2019-12-08T03:59:11Z (almost 5 years ago)
Often, sentences that use "thought" verbs tend to provide distance between the reader and the action. This might be intentional or not. Consider your example, rewritten without the "I thought about" and "I realized": > I lay back down. I wasn't unhappy anymore; I no longer had this pressure in my chest; I felt released, light, as if I could reach the ceiling above me. Especially in first person, it's not necessary to tell us who's experiencing these things. Same for "I saw": "I saw the car drift into the intersection" vs "The car drifted into the intersection." The latter is more direct, and doesn't put the narrator between the action and the reader.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2018-04-30T13:26:55Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 2