Greetings!
If youโre new here then you can find out all about this project of mine here:
But in a nutshell itโs this: Iโve been taking a short and very bland story and rewriting it in different styles. This time Iโve chosen to write it from the standpoint of a different person. Letโs see how it goes.
A bang on the head (template)
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 โ 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 โsocial distancingโ 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.
Another viewpoint
When I went down to the hospital the other day, I bumped into some man who didnโt seem that unwell to me. He did seem a bit annoyed though. Well, you know me. I always try and be friendly to people if I can. So I said to him, โYou alright, mate? Donโt worry, it might never happen.โ
He told me heโd banged his head, and his mrs had told him to get himself checked out because he was getting headaches and stuff. โIs that why you look a bit cheesed off?โ I said. โNoโ, he said. โItโs all these people. Donโt they know thereโs a pandemic on? Theyโre all sitting virtually on top of each other. And theyโre not even wearing their masks properly. Theyโre meant to cover your nose and mouth, not your chin.โ
I asked him how it happened, and he said he got out of bed on the wrong side in the dark, and hit his head on the way to the bathroom. Sounded a bit weird to me. Youโd think heโd know what direction he was facing in, but his excuse was that he was half asleep.
Turns out heโs a writer, but he hadnโt been able to do any writing because of the headaches, and he couldnโt work in the hospital.
Anyway, the conversation petered out, and he just buried his head in his book. Antisocial is what I call that behaviour, but weโre all different I suppose.
After about an hour he was called in by a nurse, and came out around 20 minutes later looking as happy as Larry.
โYouโll live then?, I said.
โOh yeah, thanks. Apparently itโs a bit of mild concussion. What a waste of a day. Still, at least I managed to read a bit of my book.โ
And then he was off. Didnโt even bother to say bye bye. I donโt know why I bother sometimes.
Well, what do you think?
See the index of these posts here: Experiments in Style Index. Iโve started a new section called Experiments in Style Extra. This is for paid subscribers, and will feature posts explaining how I went about doing some of these styles.
Ooooh Terry, Iโve hugely enjoyed this third-person take for this most recent post in your fabulous series of โExperiments in styleโ, but I have to say that itโs your first-person paragraph with its portrait of you right at the top thatโs really made me smile!
Thank you for another great read. Iโm way behind on my Substack inbox, but when I saw this post come in I couldnโt resist it, so it jumped the queue! ๐ Keep โem coming. ๐
Interesting take, Terry. Writing in third person and critiquing your own demeanor seems like an uncomfortable excercise but it was very enjoyable for this reader.