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Comments
Completely unrelated question, not having anything to do with my previous story or idea.
If you opened a book or a screenplay and it said at the beginning "Read from the back and move backwards to the beginning." Would you have the patience to read a story in such a way? I had a weird idea yesterday about a story that would do something like this, where if you read it backwards, it would be about one character, and reading it forewords completely changes the perspective, somehow. Not sure HOW you would do this, it was just an idea I had.
I have no idea how you would do that in prose, and even if it is possible, it just sounds like a gimmick. If the story becomes well-known for that, that's a red flag; the actual content should stand on its own and be presented as smoothly as possible.
Well, it might be cool if it was about time travel or something, then it might fit. Agreed though, I have no idea HOW it would be done in prose.
Reading a story backwards in prose is extremely annoying at best.
It wouldn't be pointless if you did it well- people still shit themselves over the palindrome in Watchmen.
Doing it, however, would probably reduce the story to a sea of epitaphs and super-vague descriptions that nobody would put up with.
I could totally see it being done very will with poetry, but not in a novel or summat.
^^^ It's still a gimmick, and time travel's already a sketchy enough concept without that sort of a distraction supporting it. Also, the work that would go into keeping the stor(ies) consistent both ways would leave little room for anything else.
Like the others said, this would be terrible for an actual story. There's more to a story than the artistry (which probably sounds funny coming from me right now, considering the discussion I just had in Bookclub). And incorporating that sort of symmetry into written art, even poetry, would no doubt be incredibly difficult.
I've read at least one manga that had a gimmick like that. However, while the story did change and more or less make sense both ways, it was still, you know, about the same events. Furthermore, being manga means that it could rely on art and not just writing. And even then it worked better one way than the other. Also, most importantly, it was only 8 pages. I don't really think there's any way you could do that, and have it actually be good, in say a novel.
I mean stories that go backward have been done before. They just follow traditional formatting a bit more and start with what would normally be the end of the story and work backwards with progressing flashbacks. It can be done well but you have to ask yourself - would the story's meaning change much if you read it in a linear manner?
It's been done in prose?
If I recall correctly, Martin Amis' novel Time's Arrow is written in that kind of style: Each chapter moving backwards through the main character's life. In film, each scene in Gaspar Noe's Irréversible is shown in reverse chronological order. Really, it's not at all inconceivable; it's just tricky to write and sometimes tricky to follow.
But Alkthash poses a good question here: Does it change the narrative sufficiently enough that it is necessary to the story? In both of my examples, the reverse chronologies are crucial to exploring the stories' themes. If this is not the case, then is it worth the effort?
. . . Wait, something occurred to me: for some reason I thought this was the task of moving backwards word by word. I take it that's not what anyone else meant?
Well, yeah, if we just go by chapter, then I can totally see how that could be done. But I still don't want to have to read a book backwards to get the full meaning, just saying.
Well, you're not reading it backwards, nor would you have to in order to understand everything; the series of events just happens to be presented in reverse chronological order. Think about how any number of books, movies and TV shows present their stories out of order—Pulp Fiction and Baccano! immediately spring to mind. Telling a story from the end of the events to their beginning arguably makes more sense rather than less in that case.
Well, reverse chronological is fine. I just don't like Saturn's idea because I would need to acquire a new perspective by reading it backwards (assuming someone pulled that off, where the perspective itself changes just by reading in reverse).
So, I'm still batting around an idea for a story I need to write for Thursday, and I'm not sure on a few things: specifically, how plausible it is, and how original it is (which is something I'm striving for after reading so many uninspired intro-level classmates' stories).
----
One of the key elements of this story is that the wife never stirs, even in the race, and the man's thoughts, ramblings, and recollections make it apparent (if only symbolically; she must also be a heavy sleeper) that it's because she has absolute faith in him (up to this point, he's merely been this timid man with low self-esteem who hid that he didn't know how to deal with her exuberance and the fact that a woman actually loves him).
----
On one level, I don't know if this is plausible, and on the next level, I'm not yet sure how original this is, and on the NEXT level, this is supposed to be more of a depressing story, but that would require that this man be remotely sympathetic, and that could take more work than I can put in over four days.
I got this idea after considering possible stories within the other story about the highway that I was going to write. I've realized that not all of those stories are as interesting as others, and then I remembered a line that came into my head once upon a time, and thought it might be an interesting concept to explore with a character who's trapped on the highway.
EDIT: how to spoiler. I got this right in another thread
[spoiler]stuff[/spoiler]
Non-printing characters are really useful for explaining forum markup
See, I tried that (and it worked in that other thread), but . . . look at the passage between lines again.
I also tried putting it around one paragraph, but that didn't work.
That's...odd.
Sometimes Vanilla is just Vanilla.
You could try it with [toggle] instead, maybe?
IJBM: Stumbling into a recurring image in my writing, but not knowing how, or if, it'll fit in as a meaningful metaphor.
EDIT: Also, while my current story doesn't exactly ask for colorful imagery, it disappoints me that the writing of it feels so dry.
I had a revelation about how to format my work the day before yesterday. It was nice.
That's good. I still haven't decided how to structure my own yet, nor what to focus on.
@JHM: Format as in the layout on the page or as in what order to put events?
The latter would be structure.
^^ Layout and medium. It's complicated.
^^ Yeah, but I don't tend to think of people having epiphanies about format or layout. Medium, sure (I have a story idea that I think would just work much better in a visual medium but that will have to do as a novel).
Is there anyone around who can look at what I have for a story so far and give impressions, and say what's missing/not all there, or say if they think it's already as long as it needs to be?
I'll give it a look see
On second thought, I'm going to work with it a bit more before I have it looked at by anyone other than classmates.
The draft I would have given you is still very obtuse, owing to my uncertainty over how to incorporate the backstory necessary to flesh the characters out; there was minimal justification for characterization, so that while the disturbed personality of the main character came across effectively, it wasn't apparent enough why he felt that way, and a paragraph meant for that purpose -- intended to be out of the way of the showing of story, on account of my hatred of backstory given in the middle of scene -- wasn't sufficient.
IJCM: Reading prose is a bit of a struggle at times, and the idea of writing stories still overwhelms me a bit, but I can read books about writing all day long. (A Reader's Manifesto arrived, and it still rocks)
It's a very good feeling when you have something that actually starts becoming a story. It was weird. I had characters, with depth and goals, I even had an ending, a goal, etc. But I came up with all of this without having a clue where I wanted this story to be set. I finally just today settled on Austrailia, and so much plot and comedy can comedy from setting, and it is awesome.
I'm considering rewriting a one-page story I have to write for my writing class as all dialogue. No dialogue tags, no names or nothin'. It's not like it's impossible to tell a full story just with words. It's just that I'm probably not yet at that stage where I can pull it off. Truth be told, I'd rather avoid the otherwise-inevitable reminiscence that so often kills pacing but is so often relied upon for context.
I mean, I suppose a description of the place might do. I guess.
I'm starting to question my 1:00-a.m. brain, but it's the only time I can compel myself to write things. ._.
I'm thinking of doing little one-shots that take place before the main story of my comic in order to flesh out some the characters, instead of doing the whole 'expository infodump' thing.
Thoughts?