This thesis examines an African American woman’s narrative about the day that her daughter was shot. Like many personal narratives of “frightening experiences,” the speaker in this narrative highlights the peak of her story, making sure her point is salient. In earlier analyses, it has been shown that evaluation tends to cluster around the peak of the narrative. In “The day my daughter got shot” we see that this event-filled narrative is not evaluated as predicted as there is no increased usage of evaluative devices at one single point in the narrative. Instead, it is a change in patterning of a number of linguistic and paralinguistic devices that conspire to bring special attention to the peak of the narrative. By examining multiple devices at once, it is seen that they create a cumulative effect that makes the story interesting and exciting, resulting in a successful narrative.