• Copywork365
  • Posts
  • 25-NOV-2024 | Excerpt from Kurt Vonnegut’s “Welcome to the Monkey House”

25-NOV-2024 | Excerpt from Kurt Vonnegut’s “Welcome to the Monkey House”

Author

Dan Bogachek
November 25, 2024

Excerpt from Kurt Vonnegut’s “Welcome to the Monkey House”

So Pete Crocker, the sheriff of Barnstable County, which was the whole of Cape Cod, came into the Federal Ethical Suicide Parlor in Hyannis one May afternoon and he told the two six-foot Hostesses there that they weren't to be alarmed, but that a notorious nothinghead named Billy the Poet was believed headed for the Cape.

A nothinghead was a person who refused to take his ethical birth-control pills three times a day. The penalty for that was $10,000 and ten years in jail.

This was at a time when the population of Earth was 17 billion human beings. That was far too many mammals that big for a planet that small. The people were virtually packed together like drupelets.

Drupelets are the pulpy little knobs that compose the outside of a raspberry. 🏁

  • We see a unique story-telling voice — it’s spelling everything out explicitly instead of leaving in hidden meaning. Like the opposite of Hemingway’s iceberg technique.

  • Note the rhythm we get with the pair of 1-2’s. The main thread in a larger block. Then a shorter block with an explanation of the last piece from the larger block.

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].