While exploring ways to improve my writing and writing styles, I recently came across to Raymond Queneau's classic 'Exercises in Style'. I was listening a Radio 4 program on the arcane Oulipo method, Raymond Queneau name was mentioned.

As I've always been concerned about my writing, I was intrigued by this book, 'Exercises in Style'. I was excited to receive a copy in the post and read through it. I was pleasantly surprised how funny, amusing and playful it is.

This is a short book, you can read it in one sitting. It is essentially 99 version of a simple short story. The ideas are endless on how you can play with the written text, explore ideas and possibilities of writing. As per Umberto Eco's prologue, Queneau is not looking to provide an exhaustive list of exercises in style. He is exploring the style in a far more intricate way that the mere titles of the exercises indicate.

Below I am exploring some of the styles by Robert Queneau, aiming to practice the same text with 99 of them. Here is a true short story I picked for this exercise. It's written on my own quasi casual style.

We are going back almost 8 years, a Christmas and New Year holiday period I went travelling for two weeks with a friend. We went on a tour of Turkey from Istanbul all the way down to Ankara, Konya and back. It was all very adventurous, long and arduous trip, not the best time of the year for this type of journey.

When I returned home, I found my house with boarded up windows and doors. It was broken into and police had secured the house. They ransacked the house looking for valuables, all light electrical items were gone, including the laptop and even some of my amber cufflinks. After that incident, I never felt safe in that house and sold in in the same year. A hard lesson that I learned from this experience is: never the leave the house unattended over the holiday periods.

Same story with:

1- Rainbow style

It was a holiday season in London with green Christmas trees in almost every house window, decorated with red bulbs. They were all lit  up during the night, some during the day, with flashing orange lights. We decided to go on this rather unfortunate holidays in Turkey midwinter with the almost all country under a white canopy of snow. After a two weeks of travelling on crowded busses where dark brown Turkish teas were served, I returned home with even a paler skin and with dark black shadows around my eyes from lack of sleep.

Upon my return wearing a crimson scarf, I discovered to my dismay, my house was burgled on dark winter's night. The windows were bungled up with metallic grey panels. It was curtesy of the local police, they came to see me after with their dark blue uniforms. I was so shocked by the whole experience, my face was red with anger and blue with frustration. I remember my eyes turning red, I had a burst blood vessel on my right eye. Every Christmas and New Year I remember those. I was in bed few weeks after this whole experience with flue, I was so pale when I looked at the mirror I'd become a dark shadow of my previous self.

2- Song style

I am on my way to an adventure trip, It's winter time, I hope it goes without a blip. It's Christmas, it's Christmas and I am going to Turkey Turkey in winter, it's a cold Turkey, It's a cold Turkey.

I drink plenty of teas to keep me warm, Holidays in midwinter has its own charm. It's Christmas in Turkey, It's Christmas in Turkey This year I will not eat turkey as I am in Turkey.

I come home on a winters night, My house broken into without a fight. The turkey is gone with the stolen, And the whole fine china was broken.

This Christmas it's a cold turkey, it's a cold turkey, This Christmas it's a cold turkey, it's a cold turkey.

3- Dream style

I was rushing to the airport making sure that I arrive to the airport on time. The taxi that supposed to be arriving 5AM and it was late. Suddenly I find myself floating over Istanbul. I didn't realise what I was going on, I must have panicked I landed on my feet in front of the Blue Mosque in midst of a large crowd of tourists. I thought to myself, this place is so touristic even this time of the year. Then I was on a bus travelling inside Turkey over snowy hills, we were going hinterland, not sure where exactly. I remember I was scared as I'd read about the accidents and busses slipping off the read because of ice.

Suddenly, I am back home, inside my house. Everything in the house seemed all over the place. The whole house was boarded up, I felt there was nowhere to escape. As walked inside my bedroom it was now obvious that the house was broken into and I got burgled. Suddenly got scared in case they come back. I woke with a cream in my bed sweating like buckets. It took me few seconds to realise, it was all just a nightmare.

More styles to come.  If you have a story that you'd like to practice with the styles above, you can add them as comments below.

Nat Tsolak