Experiments in Style: Reading primer

For beginning readers

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 a reading primer. First, though, 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.

Reading primer

Terry lives in a house.

Here is Terry’s house:

Terry’s house, by Terry Freedman

Terry lives in a nice house.

Terry sleeps in a bed.

This is Terry’s bed:

Terry’s bed, by Terry Freedman

Terry sleeps in a nice bed.

One night, Terry got up to use the bathroom.

But Terry didn’t turn the light on.

Silly Terry.

It was very dark.

Terry bumped into the wall and banged his head.

This is what Terry’s head looked like after that:

Terry’s head, by Terry Freedman

Terry felt sick.

Terry had a headache.

Terry went to the hospital.

This is what the hospital looked like:

The hospital, by Terry Freedman

People in the hospital were standing too near each other.

They were not wearing their masks over their nose and mouth.

Terry was very worried about that.

Wouldn’t you be?

Terry is a writer.

But he didn’t write very much.

Terry likes reading.

Terry read a lot of his book in the hospital.

Clever Terry.

A nurse told Terry that he would be fine.

She also told Terry to take it easy.

This is what Terry looks like now:

Terry, by Terry Freedman

So everything was OK in the end.

Index of versions

For the full experience, upgrade to paid and gain access to the older archived versions and to Experiments in Style Extra for inside information about how I did some of the versions.