Experiments in Style: two versions of a story

Something for the weekend

Greetings!

Experiments in Style is a project of mine in which I attempt to take the same basic story and rework it in different ways. My reasons for doing so, and some background, may be found here:

Experimenting with styles

In today’s newsletter I’ve written two versions of a story. One is a paratext rendering, while the other is wholly in the passive voice.

To save you having to try to remember the basic story (the ‘template’), here it is again:

A bang on the head

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.

A bang on the head: paratext [1] version

Introduction

The purpose [2] of this article[3] is to illustrate the importance of paratext. It is a reasonable example of the truth of Joni Mitchell’s comment that “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”. Once you’ve read this article, can you identify the missing element?

Notes

1. Paratext may be defined as the that which forms the supporting structure of a textual work such as a book. These endnotes are examples of paratext.

2. A subsidiary purpose is, clearly, to demonstrate my wit, articulacy, erudition and modesty.

3. This article is an example of Oulipo.

Further reading

Interested readers may wish to consult the Penguin Book of Oulipo:

Review of the Penguin Book of Oulipo, plus a course I'm running on the subject

One entry of which is Paul Fournel’s Suburbia. This is described as follows by Atlas Press:

Paul Fournel’s Suburbia is a novel that includes the entire supporting apparatus of a book, from title- and copyright-page through dedication, table of contents, introduction (attributed to Marguerite Duras), footnotes, an index and even a list of errata — everything, that is, except for the actual text of the novel proper, which remains invisible.

Fournier, however, was not the first to play this joke. That honour goes to the author of an 18th century publication called The First of April: A Blank Poem, which contains a title page, a dedication, page numbers and footnotes – but no poem.

To summarise: as you may have already summised, paratext is the term given to all the paraphernalia surrounding and supporting the text itself in a book book or other written work.

You should, therefore, now be able to identify what’s missing from this version of my story, A bang on the head.

A bang on the head: passive version

Advice on writing often includes an injunction to avoid the passive tense. I think the passive tense is fine in some circumstances: it really depends, I think, on the effect you’re trying to achieve. This version of my story takes the passive text to the extreme, just to see the effect. I have to say that I found this exercise difficult, because of the contortions I had to go through to change the text to a passive one while keeping as close to the original story as possible.

In the middle of the night, I was woken up (if you can call being semi-conscious being awake. The door was walked purposely towards, and I was almost knocked out by myself.

The reason was that in the twin states of entire darkness and semi-somnambulance a different direction was faced by me than the one that was thought by me to be facing. As a result, instead of the door being walked through, the wall was attempted to be walked through by me.

Nausea and headaches were brought by the next few days. Accident and Emergency was gone to after much prevarication, where a place in a queue was taken by me petrified, because of my being among people who for whom “social distancing” means not quite touching you, and whose masks were worn as a chin-warmer.

An hour and a half later the twilight was emerged into by me, secure in the knowledge that I had nothing more serious than mild concussion. Much writing was failed to be done, but a further 17% of my book was read, causing me pleasure.

Comments on these two versions are most welcome, as always.