Rough draft

HalloweenJack

This is a (very) rough draft of the opening of a story in my mind. I plan to write it in the style of B.E.E's Rules of Attraction. Any feedback or suggestions be welcome.

Invitation


Dear Graduate of 1988,


You are cordially invited to the St. Brendan's Secondary School Reunion for the Leaving Certificate class of 1988.


The celebration will be held in the Function Room of the Bay Hotel on 22 July. Dinner will be served at 8pm and a reception will be held afterwards.


Tickets are €90 each. Due to size constraints, one ticket per invite.


We wish to see you there.


RSVP to Sue Curran, 011-3512276.


Sue


With a week to go, 23 of the 26 have responded positively. So that’s it then. 23. Good number, I suppose.

There's still a lot of work to be done, though. I still have to get in touch with Mr. Hurley, sort out the flowers, order the dinners, arrange the seating...much more. Martin will be home soon, he better give me a hand.

****e, then there's the kids. I better go get them now. And go shopping too.


Daniel


“The 10.15 flight departing for Dublin is now boarding.”
Better hurry along. That was a pretty crappy $7 cup of coffee. God, it’ll be great to get home and have some proper tea again. Just have to get through this ****ty seven-hour flight.

I wonder how Mam is anyway. I hope she’s up and about. How much will she be in the hospital? I’m sure Blake will take care of the apartment while I’m away.

This reunion should be fun. God, I haven’t seen any of them since Dave’s wedding. Seven years ago. It’ll be good to see them all. I wonder who turns up, actually.

davyjose

My advice would be not to try too hard to stick to another's particular style. The two main reasons for this are a) you might actually be disappointed with what you have (however good it is), because it doesn't compare to what you aimed at (as it invariable won't be, because you're not B E Ellis, or anyone else, but yourself).
And b) you're severely limiting your own potential by doing this. Aren't we all glad that, for example, Hemmingway didn't try to write like, say, Dickens. Because not only would it have been inferior, but also he'd have ignored what made him a great writer.

My advice, find your own style, and go with that.

Madou

So, B.E.E and 'Rules of Attraction'? I have to stop you right there. If you're going to choose a B.E.E work for style, let it be 'Glamorama', where at least there is a sense of the surreal. But anyhow, besides that, I know it's probabaly the subjective style, coupled with immediacy in the writing that you are trying to impress upon yourself. There is really better people to learn from. Go back to Kerouac and Burroughs and Ginnsberg and get a sense of the 'Beats'. WIth Kerouac, if not 'On the Road', then at least 'Visions of Cody'. I swear, it will really get you being more conscientious about what you write (if indeed you're writing within the capture of fast subjective pros). Also look at New Journalism. Wolfe, Thompson, Mailer. Read, read, read and write, write, write. It's the only way to operate.

For what you have, it lacks rhythm. It plods along and does not really grab me at all.

"Better hurry along. That was a pretty crappy $7 cup of coffee. God, it’ll be great to get home and have some proper tea again. Just have to get through this ****ty seven-hour flight.

I wonder how Mam is anyway. I hope she’s up and about. How much will she be in the hospital? I’m sure Blake will take care of the apartment while I’m away.

This reunion should be fun. God, I haven’t seen any of them since Dave’s wedding. Seven years ago. It’ll be good to see them all. I wonder who turns up, actually."

This is not as snappy as one would want internal dialogue/narrative to be. I'm not going to point to how you should re-write it, but the world would be a much slower place if people thought in six word sentences. Let it flow, the beauty of the style is that you can forget standard punctuation. Good practice for this is to start recording your thoughts into page long sentences. Through this you'll find rhythm and through this you'll develop style. Forget about B.E.E. for now.

HalloweenJack

Thanks for your advice, both of you.