Al’s Wynona Sketches

When Wynona shaves for her husband, I had to jump up and go to a mirror to try this out because it intrigued me enough. I found, of course, that it isn’t true. You (at least I can, maybe if you had some oddly-shaped face you would be different) can still see well enough in a mirror with one eye closed to shave your face. However, the point is not that it’s not true, it’s that it made me get up and check. There is something incredibly interesting here, and I wonder if it can be used to aid the story. You give a physical detail that can be easily checked by the reader that is wrong. Because the reader thinks it is wrong, there is a strong reaction to proved him/herself right. Therefore you have created a strong reaction. However, this strong reaction could very quickly turn into distrust for anything the narrator says, which would be great if you have a lying narrator or something, but that would be really bad if you are counting on that trust.
“It was in the way the woman walked: swinging down the drive, all hips, in a bright lime sundress that Wynona wanted but would never wear …” — brilliant. This (part of a) line does so much so quickly. It paints a picture of the woman through the eyes of Wynona, but it also shows that woman move, or at least the way Wynona sees her move. It also shows that Wynona judges people and pays close attention to what they are wearing and then thinks about what would happen if she were wearing that. That is a lot of work for so few words, and I feel that this is Al’s strongest ability (and what a great ability to have).