What’s more important: what you say, or how you say it?
Parents all over the world are sure to point out that how you say something is no small matter. If your parent asks you to do a chore and you respond “fiiiiine,” you’ll probably get a very different response than if you give a simple “sure!”
But we decided to experiment more with this question by taking a look at examples in literature. Many authors have cultivated their own personal writing style. How does that change what they’re writing about? To find out, we rewrote the first three paragraphs of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the style of four famous authors.
J.K. Rowling
J.K. Rowling is, of course, the author of the Harry Potter series. She needs no other introduction. This is the original we started from.
Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.
Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual among of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors. The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.
The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn’t think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters. Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley’s sister, but they hadn’t met for several years; in fact, Mrs. Dursley pretended she didn’t have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be. The Dursleys shuddered to think what the neighbors would say if the Potters arrived in the street. The Dursleys knew that the Potters had a small son, too, but they had never seen him. The boy was another good reason for keeping the Potters away; they didn’t want Dudley mixing with a child like that.
Jane Austen
Jane Austen was a British novelist who lived and wrote in the early 1800s. Her novels comment on social issues of the time, especially the treatment of women, and her style reflects the manners and way of speaking from that time. Her most famous novels are Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility.
It was a truth universally acknowledged that one ought to strive for normalcy in manner and behavior. Therefore, in the neighborhood of Privet Drive, Mr. Dursley and his family, when they were thought of at all, were considered acceptable members of pleasant society, a position that they held quite dear.
Mr. Vernon Dursley, though not from significant wealth, made a not insignificant allowance in business dealings. His most notable physical attributes were his rotund form, a neck that could hardly be seen, and large moustache of last year’s fashion. Mrs. Petunia Dursley, in contrast, was a thin woman, upright and formal, with enough neck to contrast Mr. Dursley’s lacking feature and a certain sourness in all her aspects. She was a woman who spent her days collecting trivial gossip with little use and caring for Dudley, her son, upon whom she was thoroughly indulgent though he bore not great merit.
While the Dursleys had a comfortable home and a mild existence, they were vexed by a most horrible secret. Mrs. Dursley’s family of origin was a constant source of stress and disgrace to them. Though Mrs. Dursley and Mrs. Lily Potter were children of the same family, the same blood, and the same first associations, Mrs. Dursley heartily disapproved of Mrs. Potter in almost every single way possible. Indeed, Mrs. Dursley had long since severed her attachment with Mrs. Potter, and the marriage to Mr. Potter, who was viewed by the Dursleys as commonplace and perhaps even eccentric in manner, did not help the matter.
Despite the Dursley’s regular social calls and commitments to their acquaintances, all would be shocked to learn of the Potters, as Mrs. Dursley pretended she did not have a sister and that no such a person or family had ever existed.
It was the greatest fear within the Dursley family that someone would hear tell of the Potters and associate them to Mrs. Dursley, for the Potters were not at all suitable. Undoubtedly, should the Potters pay a visit to Privet Drive, Mrs. Dursley would make haste to snub them and descend into a fit of nerves.
The Potters also had a young son, but so strained was the family’s association that the two cousins had never an opportunity to meet, for no kin of the Potters, saving Mrs. Dursley herself of course, could be of upstanding merit or acceptable temperament.
Raymond Chandler
Raymond Chandler wrote detective stories in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s. His style had a huge influence on detective stories, and many of the stereotypes about private eyes copy his works. His most famous novels are The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye.
The Durlseys place was up on Privet Drive, one of those streets that looks like just about everywhere else you’ve ever driven past on your way to somewhere better. The way the Durselys tell it, they’re a normal bunch. They didn’t stand for riff-raff, and they made it known to anybody that would pause long enough to hear it. A little too eager to share, if you asked me.
Pa Dursley sat in an office pushing paper all day at a business called Grunnings. He was the kind of man who looks like a piece of meat, but he’d go as rubber-legged as a hose if you so much as flexed at him. He wore an overly large mustache to compensate for his lack of neck, which I thought made him look even stupider. Ma Dursley looked like any vain dame on first glance—thin and blonde—but she had a neck longer than a giraffe’s and it threw off any cuteness she might’ve boasted otherwise. She made everybody’s business her business, and hoarded secrets like a bookie hoards bets on a race day. They rounded out the happy family look with a son named Dudley that they spoiled worse than meat left outside on a summer day in LA.
But everybody’s got secrets they don’t want dug up, and I’m in the digging profession. The Dursleys weren’t any different in that regard. What did it matter to anyone that the Dursleys had family they weren’t keen on? But they were downright terrified some other busybody would find out about Ma Dursley’s sister and her family, who went by the name Potter. To the Dursleys, those Potters were good-for-nothings, and no amount of blood relation would change their thoughts on the matter. The dame even went so far as to pretend she didn’t have sister. Any mention of the subject and her lips would thin faster than a boxer on weigh-in day.
News got to the Dursleys that the Potters had a son too, same age as their idiot boy. Dursley just licked a pencil and added that tally to the long list of reasons to keep clear of the Potters—no sense in their kid getting mixed up with a kid like that.
William Faulkner
William Faulkner is widely considered one of the great American authors. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949. He is known for his complicated novels that contain long, confusing sentences. His most famous novels are Absalom, Absalom and The Sound and the Fury.
GRANDFATHER SAID:
The Dursleys—Mr. and Mrs., of number 4, Privet Drive, who said, with pride, that they were, and would thank you very much for listening when they said so, perfectly normal—were the last people (he, Mr. Dursley, being the director of a firm, Grunnings, which made drills, a big, beefy man, and with hardly any neck either, although he did have a very large mustache on him, and Mrs. Dursley, thin and blonde and with nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences and spying on her neighbors, and their small son, Dudley, the finest, in their opinion, boy anywhere) who you’d expect would be involved in anything strange, or mysterious yet, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense and had everything they wanted, but also had—this because they didn’t think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters—a secret, their greatest fear being that somebody would discover it, that Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley’s sister (and not even meeting for several years, and Mrs. Dursley pretending she didn’t have a sister, and them shuddering to think what the neighbors would say if they, her and sister and her husband, good-for-nothing and altogether as unDursleyish as it was possible to be, arrived in the street); the boy, too—they knew that the Potters had a small son, though they had never seen him—was another good reason for keeping them, the Potters, away (not wanting Dudley mixing with a child like that).
Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss doesn’t need an introduction, either. He is the famous author of children’s books like Green Eggs and Ham and The Cat in the Hat.
Mr. and Mrs. Dursley,
Of number four, Privet Drive,
Had not a lick of flabberfloob,
Nor any nonsense to contrive.
Mr. Dursley made drilldoodles,
And had a mustache to boot.
Mrs. Dursley was kind of necky,
And a woman of sleuthy repute.
The Dursleys had a small son,
Perfect Little Dudley was his name.
They also had a secret,
A sister of shimsham-shame.
The sister’s name was Potter.
They hadn’t met in years.
The Potters were good-for-nothing wrimbrups.
Oh, the neighbors would surely sneer!
Blarroob!
Murkummoosh!
Sneer-ma-drippy-drat!
The Dursleys did not want precious Dudley
Mixing with the young Potter dingbat.
Want to try your hand at writing in the style of another famous author? Submit your version at our Hands On submissions page!
The Dr. Seuss and William Faulkner versions were written by Ivan Ross. The Jane Austen and Raymond Chandler versions were written by Adrienne Anderson.