Informal, Incomplete, Conversational
Informal, Conversational, You Get the Idea
When writing in a diary, it's not like you're paying super-close attention to grammar or sentence structure. You're just trying to get an idea down on the page, right? In our book, Alice treats her diary like she's writing letters to a close friend in order to get all of her feelings off her chest, so the language is pretty informal. For example:
I wish I could talk to my mother about things like this because I don't really believe a lot of the kids know what they're talking about, at least I can't believe all the stuff they tell me. (17.1)
She's No Keats, That's For Sure
As much as the book is filled hypothetical questions and times where Alice waxes poetic in dramatic flourishes, though, there are also moments where her style is just as dull as the entry: "It's my birthday. I'm 15. Nothing" (4.1). Nothing says I'm bored quite like monosyllabic, short, terse sentences, so the style of these entries helps the reader feel as discontent and disinterested as Alice is.
Care to Fill in the Blanks?
The reason we say the style is incomplete also has to do with the format of the book. Because it is a diary, Alice doesn't fill in all the blanks for the reader. After all, why would she? She was there, so there is information she takes for granted and doesn't need to jot down for herself. As a result, though, we only get a partial picture.
In fact, the only times we get a description of anything is when Alice is discussing (often at length) what her acid trips are like. On the flip side, when she runs away and is (supposedly) writing entries on paper bags, things get even sparser—she's sick, she's cold, but we never get paragraphs describing the cold, or how she knows she's sick because the phlegm in her chest has developed a language of it's own, rumbling and growling through her torso like a trapped tiger… nope. We get this:
I've got a f***ing head cold and I feel miserable, and my period has started and I don't have any Tampax. Hell, I wish I had a shot. (154)
Eloquent, isn't she? This is one of the problems of first person narration.