Editing Less than Zero (novel) (section)

==Background==
Ellis began work on what would become ''Less than Zero'' in 1980.<ref name="white">{{cite book |last1=Ellis |first1=Bret Easton |title=White |date=18 April 2019 |publisher=18 April 2019 |isbn=978-1-5290-1241-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uH92DwAAQBAJ |access-date=April 23, 2019}}</ref> He cites his major influences as [[Joan Didion]] and [[Los Angeles]] [[Film noir|noir]], but he was also inspired by the moral ambiguity of ''[[American Gigolo]]''.<ref name="white"/>

''Less than Zero'' was to become Ellis' first attempt at a proper novel, following much [[roman à clef]] [[juvenilia]]. Its first draft was incredibly emotional and overwrought, and in the third-person. Ellis's [[creative writing]] teacher, novelist [[Joe McGinniss]], advised that he return to the first-person style of roman à clef (which Ellis was hesitant to do) and Ellis stripped it back, from there evoking the [[minimalism#Literary minimalism|minimalist]] style for which it became famous.<ref name=vice>{{cite journal|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/bret-easton-ellis-426-v17n5/|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130210025043/http://www.viceland.com/int/v17n5/htdocs/bret-easton-ellis-426.php|url-status=live|archive-date=February 10, 2013 |title=Bret Easton Ellis|website=[[Vice (magazine)|Vice]]|last=Pearson|first=Jesse|date=June 2010|access-date=June 15, 2010}}</ref>

In the former [[child actor]] [[Danny Bonaduce]]'s 2002 autobiography, ''Random Acts of Badness'', Bonaduce notes the striking similarity between the fictional high school in ''Less than Zero'' and [[Buckley School (California)|The Buckley School]] in [[Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, California|Sherman Oaks, California]], where Bonaduce, recording artist [[Michael Jackson]], film actor [[Christian Brando]], and other children of wealth and celebrity, including Ellis himself, went to school together.<ref name="random">{{cite book|last=Bonaduce|first=Danny|year=2001|title=Random Acts of Badness: My Story|pages=[https://archive.org/details/randomactsofbadn00dann/page/62 62]|publisher=[[Disney Hyperion|Hyperion]]|isbn=0-7868-6722-1|access-date=June 4, 2009|url=https://archive.org/details/randomactsofbadn00dann|url-access=registration|quote=random acts of badness.}}</ref> In commenting on the novel, Bonaduce said, "When the book ''Less Than Zero'' came out, all my classmates were pissed. Not because it was an exact portrayal of our school&nbsp;– but because we failed to get any royalties."<ref name="random"/>