• Copywork365
  • Posts
  • 23-NOV-2024 | Excerpt from “Catch-22” by Joseph Heller

23-NOV-2024 | Excerpt from “Catch-22” by Joseph Heller

Author

Dan Bogachek
November 23, 2024

Excerpt from “Catch-22” by Joseph Heller

It was love at first sight.

The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him.

Yossarian was in the hospital with a pain in his liver that fell just short of being jaundice. The doctors were puzzled by the fact that it wasn’t quite jaundice. If it became jaundice they could treat it. If it didn’t become jaundice and went away they could discharge him. But this just being short of jaundice all the time confused them.

Each morning they came around, three brisk and serious men with efficient mouths and inefficient eyes, accompanied by brisk and serious Nurse Duckett, one of the ward nurses who didn’t like Yossarian. They read the chart at the foot of the bed and asked impatiently about the pain. They seemed irritated when he told them it was exactly the same. 🏁

  • Interesting use of third person here. Because if you simply replace every instance of “Yossarian” and “he” with “I,” it has the exact same vibe. It feels like first person tone & observations but with 3rd person narration — as if the narrator can see right into Yossarian’s head.

  • Great use of rhyming repetition with “brisk and serious”, “efficient… inefficient.” Funny, and it paints the characters in with similarities and contrast. Like painting with “light” and “dark”, but with very specific character traits that they share.

You glance at your watch.

It’s 6:28. You’ve been at it since 3.
Crap. Your hot date is at 7. Running late. Sink shower it is.
Nowhere close to done editing…

“…at least all the ideas are laid out, so there’s that. Did I miss anything? I don’t think so? Ok, but how do I make it flow? I need to get the final draft to Stacey for design asap, team cutoff is at noon Thursday…”

You’ve spent dinner completely distracted. Your date just took off. You go home exhausted, plod to your desk, and crack open the laptop.

Or… it could go like this:

5:41 — you’re out of the shower and lip-syncing.
6:17 — dressed to the nines and zenned out.
7:03 — the sunset glints off your aviators as you smile hello.
8:36 — it actually feels like you’re hitting it off. Not just hot, funny to boot.
Next morning, 10:27 — polished draft ready in your inbox.
10:31 — Stacey messages back, “thanks, looks good!”

The difference?

You had Copygloss handle it yesterday afternoon.

For help with editing, email Dan:
[email protected].