Experiments in style: three versions

Word cloud, speech patterns, summary

Greetings!

Welcome to my ongoing (and potentially never-ending!) project, experiments in style. The Introduction below explains what it’s all about, but if you already know then just go straight to the reworked versions, below. I’ve included three versions because I might have a short break, and I wanted to round the number up to 25.

Enjoy!

Introduction

One of the things I’ve been trying out is reworking a piece of text into a completely different style. A full exposition and explanation are given here:

Experimenting with styles

Here is the original text on which these experiments or transformations are based:

The original (template) text

In the middle of the night, I woke up (if you can call being semi-conscious being awake), walked purposefully towards the door to go to the bathroom — and almost knocked myself out.

The reason was that in the twin states of entire darkness and semi-somnambulance I was facing in a different direction from the one I thought I was facing. As a result, instead of walking through the door, I tried to walk through the wall.

The next few days brought nausea and headaches. After much prevarication I went to Accident and Emergency, where I waited petrified among people for whom “social distancing” means not quite touching you, and who wore their masks as a chin-warmer.

An hour and a half later I emerged into the twilight, secure in the knowledge that I had nothing more serious than mild concussion. I failed to do much writing, but I was pleased to have read a further 17% of my book.

Word cloud version

Last week I produced a version that excluded everything except the punctuation. The corollary of that, it seems to me, is a word cloud version that highlights the most-occurring words.

Interestingly, Calvino suggested in If On A winter’s Night A Traveller that it is possible to know what a book is about without having to go to the trouble of reading it, simply by knowing which words occur most often. This is now easy: all you have to do is copy and paste the text into a word cloud generator. The one I used for this post is called Free Word Cloud Generator. Here is what it produced:

word cloud, by Terry Freedman

All that tells you is that the door, and where I was facing, are key elements in the story, which of course they are. It’s not exactly illuminating though, is it? What do you think?

Speech patterns version

I tend to pick up on turns of phrase that some people use, without their realising it I presume. In this version of the story I’ve incorporated many of the ones I’ve heard. Here goes:

No two days are the same, that’s what I always say. Take last night, for instance. I woke up in the middle of the night, (well, if I’m honest I was half-asleep), walked, no messing about, towards the door to go to the bathroom to answer the call of nature — and almost knocked myself out.

Well, you’ve got to laugh. The reason was that what with it being pitch black and me being not quite with it, I was facing in a different direction from the one I thought I was facing. As a result, instead of walking through the door, I tried to walk through the wall, didn’t I? I tell you.

The next few days I tell you I had nausea and headaches. So the Mrs said, “Tell you what. I’ll make you a nice cup of tea. And what I like to do after I’ve let it brew for a while is add a dash of milk. It’s my personal touch.” It was a nice cup of tea, but it didn’t help that much if I’m honest, so after a load of humming and hawing I went to Accident and Emergency. You could have knocked me over with a feather, cos nobody was obeying the rules. I mean, I’m not a stickler for rules myself if I’m honest, but be fair, this was a matter of life and death, well, potentially. So I said to the security bloke, “Look. Nobody’s keeping their distance, and they’re all wearing their masks round their chins.” “Ain’t my problem, mate” was his less than helpful reply. That’s the trouble these days: everyone wants paying but they don’t want to do the work. Not like it was in my day.

Then they told me I’d have to wait for a while, so I told them straight: “I’m a tax payer and I know my rights.”

The bloke next to me said “Look, mate. Just keep your head down. Life’s too short.”

An hour and a half later a nurse told me that I had nothing more serious than mild concussion, and said “You’ll live!” It was getting dark by the time I got out. I didn’t do much writing — well you can’t with all that mayhem going on, if I’m honest. It was like Piccadilly Circus. Still, at least I managed to read another 17% of my book, so you’ve got to look on the bright side, that’s what I always say.

Summary version

When I was head of e-education in a local authority, I told people in my team that I didn’t have time to read reams of stuff on the issues that came up, and that they should summarise whatever it was in no more than a side of A4. My line manager’s line manager, the head of education, went even further. He refused to read anything that was longer than half a dozen bullet points. In that spirit, here’s the summary version:

1. I walked into the wall in the middle of the night, and banged my head.

2. I started getting headaches and feeling sick so I went to A & E.

3. They looked me over and said I had mild concussion and to take it easy for a week or so.

4. I was stuck there for a couple of hours, which meant I didn’t manage to write anything but at least I read more of my book.

(You might wish to compare the rather sparse summary version with the overblown version I wrote a few weeks ago.)

I hope you’re enjoying this series. As I said, I may take a short break, but you can read the other versions by going to this index: