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Literature Text
x. I still have your phone.
ix. The boardwalk carnival was shut down a few months later, roped off and boarded up like a condemnation of joy. The ferris wheel still rose high above the skyline, towering in silent reminder.
viii. The funeral was on a beautiful, balmy, sunny day and somehow that made it all the worse. The wind would pick up a little and ruffle your goldspun hair and I could hope, just for a moment, that you were still here.
vii. It was a cold, white room. I don't know why hospitals are so cold. Or maybe it was just me - maybe it was just me trying to siphon out all of my warmth and channel it into you.
vi. I didn't see the crowd that gathered on the beach - I barely registered the flash of red and blue lights - I only saw you, skin pale as the stretcher they were loading you on to, blue shirt stained black like a death sigil.
v. Someone was drowning. You cast an arm out pointing - there was someone out there in the dark water drifting further and further from shore.
You asked me to hold your phone.
iv. We wandered away from the carnival boardwalk, away from the neon and the chatter and the screams of delight, exchanged for the crunch of sand and rush of waves. The moon cast a metallic sheen over the whole world and made you look older than your seventeen years.
iii. I wiped the powdered sugar off your nose; you always ate the funnel cake before anything else. I grabbed your hand as we passed by the swings.
It felt like flying.
ii. I heard your beat up old Mustang before I saw it. The squeak of brakes in front of the house was a dead giveaway; my father's breaks always sounded like the voice of the most obnoxious girl in math class. Yours sounded like the whine of a puppy.
i. My phone buzzed on the kitchen table -
CARNIVAL 2NITE? <3
ix. The boardwalk carnival was shut down a few months later, roped off and boarded up like a condemnation of joy. The ferris wheel still rose high above the skyline, towering in silent reminder.
viii. The funeral was on a beautiful, balmy, sunny day and somehow that made it all the worse. The wind would pick up a little and ruffle your goldspun hair and I could hope, just for a moment, that you were still here.
vii. It was a cold, white room. I don't know why hospitals are so cold. Or maybe it was just me - maybe it was just me trying to siphon out all of my warmth and channel it into you.
vi. I didn't see the crowd that gathered on the beach - I barely registered the flash of red and blue lights - I only saw you, skin pale as the stretcher they were loading you on to, blue shirt stained black like a death sigil.
v. Someone was drowning. You cast an arm out pointing - there was someone out there in the dark water drifting further and further from shore.
You asked me to hold your phone.
iv. We wandered away from the carnival boardwalk, away from the neon and the chatter and the screams of delight, exchanged for the crunch of sand and rush of waves. The moon cast a metallic sheen over the whole world and made you look older than your seventeen years.
iii. I wiped the powdered sugar off your nose; you always ate the funnel cake before anything else. I grabbed your hand as we passed by the swings.
It felt like flying.
ii. I heard your beat up old Mustang before I saw it. The squeak of brakes in front of the house was a dead giveaway; my father's breaks always sounded like the voice of the most obnoxious girl in math class. Yours sounded like the whine of a puppy.
i. My phone buzzed on the kitchen table -
CARNIVAL 2NITE? <3
Literature
The Ease With Which I Drown
I breathe blood and brine
in equal measure
as I struggle beneath the weight of
waves, curling like the edges of burning paper,
ships, rising and falling like breath,
the great girth of a blue whale,
his eyes locked on mine.
My lungs are filling with more than regret,
and it burns like fire,
like acid,
like that look in your eye
and my limbs are so tired now,
battling beneath the insistent pull of the sea,
beckoning me down to its depths
where all is still and quiet.
The cry of gulls and the crash of water
and the beating of my own heart
press against my eardrums
and I just want it all to stop.
A split second and I am f
Literature
In Reverse
13.
Jesus flew over the city today.
He cast a dark shadow upon our bleak and childish faces
and the now dark towers that surround us in the midst of this town.
I usually never notice his presence;
the yearly autumn rush mixed with the lingering summer sun overpowers him, fixing my focus to inhaling as much of those last sweet August scents as possible, knowing that as soon as we let go of them, we'll forget what they feel like
for twelve agonizing months. I know it should never be like that.
Such trivial things overpowering the shadow of God's son,
his breath lost in the smell of honeysuckle, his shadow in the early September sun
Literature
Arise and Breathe
little siren girl, held up by fishhooks
and lines - you'll only be free when
they cut you loose.
still, they tell you: you will not fall
victim to swelling tides, you
will float. (you are a dead weight.)
you are something incomplete
like the forgotten house on the
end of the row, eating itself,
dimming day by day:
paint chips and chapped lips
have nothing left to say.
there are monsters nursing
deep beneath your flesh, with
threadbare spines and trembling
hands, they are afraid of their own
shadows. (you are only weak when
your eyes are open)
a new year waits upon your doorstep,
promising to take all that was ever [you]
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Well this is depressing.
I've wanted to try my hand at writing a story backwards for sometime - not perfect, but not too bad an attempt either
TWR Critique: [link]
Questions:
- Too confusing?
- How is the length? If this were written the right way round it would probably be longer, but should I try for more anyway?
over at #EliteLiterature 
I've wanted to try my hand at writing a story backwards for sometime - not perfect, but not too bad an attempt either
TWR Critique: [link]
Questions:
- Too confusing?
- How is the length? If this were written the right way round it would probably be longer, but should I try for more anyway?
over at #EliteLiterature © 2012 - 2024 SilverInkblot
Comments64
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Overall
Vision Originality
Technique ImpactThis piece was so fascinating to me that I just had to leave you a nice critique on it. (Let me just say that I truly despise the star rating system, so don't read too much into that.) First of all, I would like to congratulate you on an excellent piece written in reverse; it reminded me very much of trying to watch a movie as it is being rewound. It is a very interesting and unusual way of writing, at least to me as I've yet to come across anything like it personally.
I'll answer your questions then address my own thoughts on the piece.
<img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/b/b…" width="10" height="10" alt="
" title="Bullet; Black"/> Too confusing?It has to be a bit confusing as it is written in reverse. It simply can't make sense from the beginning; otherwise I would say that you missed your goal. To answer your question, I don't think that it's too confusing. You did an excellent job of stepping on but not crossing the line. The descending Roman numerals helped in this regard, but even without paying them much attention, I would still have picked up on the reversal by numeral viii. Also, the title helped me figure out what was happening as well.
<img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/b/b…" width="10" height="10" alt="
" title="Bullet; Black"/> How is the length? If this were written the right way round it would probably be longer, but should I try for more anyway?I feel like the length is perfect as it is now. If this were written normally, there would be room for a great deal more description and filler, and it would make sense to add it. As it stands, this piece feels complete as is with its vivid imagery and emotion and lean structure. I would advise against adding anything to it for the sole reason that you feel like it should be longer; I would say to only add to it if you have something that needs to be said, something that is essential to the telling of the story backwards.
<img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/b/b…" width="10" height="10" alt="
" title="Bullet; Black"/> Now for my thoughts, which you may take or leave as you desire...Though I like the title and it describes the events of the story very well, I would suggest renaming this piece. To already know that someone drowned before beginning to read the story takes away the bit of mystery that could have been present without that knowledge, and it is pretty obvious by the descending order of Roman numerals that the story is written in reverse, making that part of the title unnecessary. However, that is only my personal opinion. Other than these points, the title serves its purpose well.
I really liked how you started and ended the story with the phone and message, also mentioning it in the middle. It gives the piece a sense of cohesion and also one of closure. It also allows me to connect to the character; through it all she held onto her friend's phone, and now that her friend has passed, that is what she has left of her. The very first line of the story takes on a sort of melancholic tone once the whole story is understood because of this.
I also love the imagery. Even though this piece was short, the details and imagery were rich and vivid. For example:
ix. The boardwalk carnival was shut down a few months later, roped off and boarded up like a condemnation of joy. The ferris wheel still rose high above the skyline, towering in silent reminder.
I get the sense of a tombstone and graveyard from this imagery, which is fitting once I read the rest of the story.
We wandered away from the carnival boardwalk, away from the neon and the chatter and the screams of delight, exchanged for the crunch of sand and rush of waves. The moon cast a metallic sheen over the whole world and made you look older than your seventeen years.
Little details like these really make the story come alive and take on meaning as two friends share their last evening together before tragedy strikes. The sensory details of colors and sounds works quite well in setting the mood.
Also, I found other powerful imagery like:
blue shirt stained black like a death sigil
a beautiful, balmy, sunny day
a cold, white room
maybe it was just me trying to siphon out all of my warmth and channel it into you
These help to convey the emotions and the state of mind of the narrator. The story could certainly be written without such attention to small details, but I think it would lose a great deak of its impact without them.
I found it very endearing how she reminisces in numerals iii and ii; these are memories that she recalls easily and can always hold onto, positive memories to balance out the negative events of the night her best friend died. I also quite like the single, stand-alone sentences that pop up throughout the story in numerals v and iii. Those marked significant events to the narrator, and their being written apart from the other groupings of sentences highlights this fact to the reader as well.
In conclusion, I really enjoyed this tale, and I think you executed this form well for it having been an experiment. Great effort. I hope this critique will prove helpful to you in some way.