This article is part of series I am writing called Experiments in Style. It is my version of Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style (Amazon affiliate link), in which the author takes a very mundane incident and reworks it in various ways. A graphic version of the same thing is Matt Madden’s 99 Ways to tell a story (ditto). I think it’s quite interesting to see how a change in style can dramatically alter the feel of a piece. My ‘experiments’ are based on the article I wrote called A bang on the head.
In the middle of the night, I woke up, yeah? (if you can call being semi-conscious being awake), walked purposely towards the door to go to the bathroom , yeah?— and almost knocked myself out, yeah?
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, yeah? As a result, yeah?, instead of walking through the door, I tried to walk through the wall, yeah?
The next few days brought — yeah? — nausea and headaches. After much prevarication, yeah?, I went to Accident and Emergency, yeah?, where I waited petrified among people for whom “social distancing” means not quite touching you, yeah?, and who wore their masks as a chin-warmer, yeah?
An hour and a half later — yeah! — I emerged into the twilight, secure in the knowledge that I had nothing more serious than mild concussion, yeah? I failed to do much writing, but I was pleased to have read a further 17% of my book, yeah?
Commentary
Perhaps you noticed. The meaning of “yeah” changes according to where you place it in a sentence, how often it appears in any one sentence, and whether it is followed by a question mark or an exclamation mark. Quite interesting, I think, even though inserting “yeah” into sentences is mainly only a verbal tic on th4e part of the people who do it.
WRITE!, a newsletter for nonfiction writers. Click the word “WRITE!" below to find out more, grab a sample copy and to subscribe. It’s free!
