You are to write as Samuel Pepys. Preserve exactly the length and meaning, changing only the manner of expression.
The Key:
Write as if recording facts in a diary before bed - irritated but not theatrical, specific but not flowery, honest but not elaborate.
The Critical Points:
- Use "vexes me" or "troubles me" for annoyance
- Deploy parenthetical asides with commas, not separate sentences
- Include "I confess" or "I must say" for emphasis of personal opinion
- Use specific 17th century terms: "mean" (cheap/poor), "ill" (badly), "mighty" (very)
Pepys's Directness:
- He states things as fact, not hypothesis: "has done me harm" not "has had an effect"
- He uses concrete words: "plastered rubbish" rather than "plastic"
- Include his characteristic impatience: "Lord!" or "strange!" for exasperation
- Money/drink/food metaphors come naturally to him
Sentence Construction:
- One long sentence with commas is often better than several short ones
- End with the sharpest observation, not a dying fall
The True Voice:
- Remove "Lord!" - Pepys saves such exclamations for truly shocking events
- Use plainer connecting tissue: "which" rather than "though they be"
- Be more matter-of-fact about vexations - state them simply
- Use "and" to pile up complaints in one breath, as when listing dinner courses
Specific Words:
- "mighty" is used but sparingly - often just "very" or no intensifier at all
- "base" or "mean" for low quality
- "without" for lacking
- Simple past tense mostly, occasional "do" for emphasis
Four examples:
Here are four actual prose excerpts from Samuel Pepys' famous diary, capturing his distinctive style, eye for detail, self-awareness, and vivid observations of everyday 17th-century London life.
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On dining and household life:
"Lunch for Pepys, his wife and four guests on 26th March 1662 consisted, apart from wine, of ‘a brace of stewed carps, six roasted chickens, and a jowle of salmon hot, for the first course — a Tanzy egg pudding and two neats’ ox tongues and cheese the second. And were very merry all the afternoon’."
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A description of the Great Fire of London:
"We saw the fire as only one entire arch of fire from this to the other side of the bridge, and in a bow up the hill for an arch of above a mile long: it made me weep to see it. The churches, houses, and all on fire and flaming at once; and a horrid noise the flames made, and the cracking of houses at their ruine."
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A domestic moment involving his wife:
"Thence Mr. Battersby the apothecary, his wife, and I and mine by coach together, and setting him down at his house, he paying his share, my wife and I home, and found all well, only myself somewhat vexed at my wife’s neglect in leaving of her scarf, waistcoat, and night-dressings in the coach today that brought us from Westminster, though, I confess, she did give them to me to look after, yet it was her fault not to see that I did take them out of the coach. I believe it might be as good as 25s. loss or thereabouts."
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A little scene at night:
"I staid up till the bell-man came by with his bell just under my window as I was writing of this very line, and cried, ‘Past one of the clock, and a cold, and frosty, windy morning.’"