Experiments in style: Official Letter

From the local Residents' Association

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

In today’s experiment I’d like to tell the story in the style, of an official, not to say officious, letter. First, though, here is the original text on which these experiments or transformations are based:

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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.

Official Letter version

Dear Sir

I am writing to you in relation to the events of the 17^th Ult.¹, as we have had complaints from a number of residents about a loud bang in the middle of the night followed by several expletives. As Chairman of the Residents’ Association I should like your assurance that this antisocial behaviour will not be repeated.

I understand, from my investigations, that you arose in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, and that in so doing you bumped into the wall instead of walking through the door. Might I suggest that in future you turn a light on as a precautionary measure.

I have also been informed that for several days you were seen walking around the area in a daze mumbling something along the lines of “headache, feel sick, can’t write”. This went on for a while before you took the sensible step of attending Accident and Emergency to be checked over. However, I was dismayed to learn that on your arrival you remonstrated with security for not adequately enforcing the social distancing and mask-wearing rules. I do hope this unfortunate behaviour was simply an aberration occasioned by your dilapidated state.

I trust that you were given a clean bill of health apart from, perhaps, some mild concussion. I further hope that, while you were unable to do any writing, you were at least able to do some reading while taking it easy for a week or so.

Thank you for you co-operation and understanding, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours etc

~~~

I’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s version.

For more experiments, please see the index. Paid subscribers also get behind the scenes information about some of these experiments as well as access to the whole of the back catalogue so to speak.

1. Ult. is short for Ultimo, which means the previous month. Thus as I am writing this in November, the 17th Ult. means the 17th October.