: Re: Does this sound like a good description of someone falling asleep due exhaustion? Anything I can do to make it sound better? I'm trying to describe somebody falling asleep from exhaustion, in

@Lee1909368

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A bit too wordy for my taste, but that's purely subjective. I'd have to see the rest of the piece to make a better judgement. The overall imagery could work. The long, run-on sentences work well in showing fatigue, but some of it might need a bit of a clean up. For example:

My eyes grow heavy from the overwhelming effects of excessive agitation of the brain for which, in all its power, I had not prepared for its weakness.

This sentence is just not right. If you leave out the inserted sentence "in all its power", you get:

My eyes grow heavy from the overwhelming effects of excessive agitation of the brain for which I had not prepared for its weakness.

which makes no sense, grammatically.

At once, I was struck with incoherence—an inconsistency to my thoughts, as I kneeled down and leaned a shoulder against the wall—for I had already decided to give myself away to my pursuer—to exhaustion—to be dead to the world before the rest of me ever hit the cold concrete floor…

There are so many — here that I don't know to what they refer to, what sections are they surrounding. For example, it looks as if "—an inconsistency to my thoughts, as I kneeled down and leaned a shoulder against the wall—" is an inserted sentence, which makes no sense. I believe you were going for "At once, I was struck with incoherence — an inconsistency to my thoughts — as I kneeled down and leaned a shoulder against the wall" but even so, the em dashes make it so awkward. I think it would look somewhat clearer like this:

At once, I was struck with incoherence, an inconsistency to my thoughts, as I kneeled down and leaned a shoulder against the wall—for I had already decided to give myself away to my pursuer, to exhaustion, to be dead to the world before the rest of me ever hit the cold concrete floor…

It's still a pretty awkward sentence though. As I said already, long, run-on sentences are perfect for this situation, but they still need to be clear and readable to the reader. I had to go back several times to get my head around it.

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