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How best can I re-write this paragraph to make it more family friendly?

There had been a time, barely a month or two ago, when he had sat his face to the storm and grinned with glee as the wind and sea-spray hurled themselves against his weather-beaten countenance. Yet now the warm, jasmine-scented breeze that barely wafted into the room through the open windows felt to him like a swarm of bees repeatedly stinging him. Though the doctor lifting the bandages from his face was doing his best to work with the most consummate delicacy, each additional inch of exposure only worsened his discomfiture. And with every infliction came a new, unwanted memory of his previous battles.

paul robison
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    Hi, and welcome to Writers. Stack Exchange is not like other sites. We are a Q&A site, not an online workshop or a discussion board. We require clear, answerable questions which have the potential to help others. While we do handle critique questions which focus on "How do I achieve X effect?" this one is more of an open-ended "Fix this," which is "What to write" and off-topic for us. Please take our tour and see our help center https://writers.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic to see what kinds of questions we answer. – Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum May 03 '17 at 16:19
  • Additionally, your title says "more appealing" but your question is "more family-friendly," which are not the same thing, and I don't know why you've used the tag fan-fiction when there's nothing particularly fanfic about this passage. – Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum May 03 '17 at 16:19

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What is the issue in terms of family friendliness? The main issue I can see here is word choice.

Misuse of "big" words hinders communication and gives of an air of pomposity. discomfiture refers to embarrassment, perplexity or defeat, not physical pain. Countenance is not the "face" in the physical sense so much as the facial expression, attitude of the character, his bearing.

The description is too labored, with undue repetition (face/countenance, barely/barely, barely wafted...), and doesn't give enough credit to the reader: the reader knows that a swarm of bees is likely to sting him.

Barely a month ago, he had sat in the storm and grinned with glee as the wind and sea-spray hurled themselves against his weather-beaten face. Now the warm, jasmine-scented breeze that wafted into the room through the open windows felt like a swarm of bees. Though the doctor lifting the bandages from his face worked with the most consummate delicacy, every inch increased his discomfort. Painful memories of his previous battles...

And if the idea of lifting bandages from someone's face is what you are concerned with, you can easily skip that detail:

Though the doctor worked with the most consummate delicacy, the procedure wasn't in the least comfortable.

Sylverdrag
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