Before I launch into writing my own story (title yet to be decided) I will analyse the writing of Danny Wallace's Yes Man (2006). This story is about a man who has broken up with his girlfriend and then fallen into a rut and just keeps saying no until he meets a man on a bus who suggests that he say Yes more. After this, the story is about his adventures in saying Yes to everything. It begins with a day and ends up being for a year. The book is about that year. I chose this to look at as the book is humourous, contains well-told stories of his adventures and includes quite a bit of dialogue which in my timed writing I realised I had used much more than I had in other writing. Teen Ink states of the stories that; 'the only thing that bothered me about the book is its lack of fluidity. It isn’t that the writing wasn’t good, it’s more that the plot consisted of disconnected episodes. Although the things that Wallace does are fun and interesting, they don’t really make up a story as a whole. They are a series of smaller stories that are loosely tied together.' (Kimbel Sannit, 2009). I tend to disagree with this only as I think that life is many small stories loosely tied together that end being your life! Wallace himself who speaks in first person also explains this:
'Now, conventional storytelling dictates that, if I were doing this properly, I would now tell you everything that happened over the course of the next few days, in the correct order and one at a time. I'd tell you what happened on Monday (which was great) and then on Tuesday (similarly great) and then I'd tell you what happened on Wednesday (which I really rather enjoyed)
But this isn't a conventional story. And if we were down the pub, you and me, and you asked me to tell you what happened next, it would take all my concentration and willpower not to skip straight to this next bit, tell you it, and grab your shoulders, and shake you, and say 'so what d'you think of that?!' I know I shouldn't do it, but believe me, I've told the story in pubs to friends who bear more than a passing resemblance to you since this happened, and this is the way a story like this should be told. So I want to skip forward slightly. Only to the end of my week of Yes. To Friday. Because what happened on Friday was incredible.' (Wallace, 2008:43)
This extract gives a good sense of the writing of Wallace, he write in a very British style and using long sentences or run -on sentences. These can give more detail but they also affect the pace of the writing so the reader feels they are moving along more quickly through the words. The style is also conversational, very informal as if he is a bloke you do know from the pub. Wallace himself has stated: 'I like to test my stuff out on actual people. I write in quite a conversational manner, and I always thought of those books as the way I would tell you the story if I was in the pub with you.' (Beadle, 2015)
The use of the long sentence also can engage a reader more in the story, drawing the reader in like a secret, it uses anticipation as the end is not certain. Farnsworth argues that; 'the short sentence can become boring. Breathtakingly boring. It can become repetitive. Monotonous. Monotone. Routine. And dry. Which frustrates the reader.' (Farnworth, 2017). The reason that Wallace's long sentences are interesting is that they are not made up of a lot of 'ands' or coupling clauses they are called polysyndeton (a literary device) - there are some of these but there is a run on pace that is very conversational and engaging, I want to know what happened on Friday with all heat when he gets to the end of this.
I am only looking here at a small extract and the style but this reminds me of the kind of pace I want to build up and makes me consider further how I will be engaging the reader if I have taken a God's eye view, I think that is perhaps why I have used more dialogue in my timed writing as this is immediate and engaging.
I will be looking at further writing and literary devices in this project but for now I will go back and explore the possibilities of my own story and see what develops....
References
Beadle, C. (2015). Danny Wallace: Ten Years of Yes Man. [online] British Comedy Guide. Available at: https://www.comedy.co.uk/features/danny_wallace_ten_years_of_yes_man/ [Accessed 8 Feb. 2025].
Farnworth, D. (2017). How to Write a Brilliant Long Sentence. [online] Medium. Available at: https://medium.com/@demianfarnworth/how-to-write-a-brilliant-long-sentence-5f006e85db3#id [Accessed 8 Feb. 2025].
Kimbel Sannit, A. (2009). Yes Man by Danny Wallace | Teen Ink. [online] Teenink.com. Available at: https://www.teenink.com/reviews/book_reviews/article/157793/Yes-Man-by-Danny-Wallace/ [Accessed 8 Feb. 2025].
Wallace, D. (2008) Yes Man, Random House, Ebury Press, Berkshire UK.
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