Writing Backwards?

By Annette Cole Mastron, Communications Director for Southern Writers Magazine

Over the summer, I read two different books that had a unique style in telling a story. Today, I’m going to discuss the style of Megan Miranda’s book, All the Missing Girls. My daughter actually recommended the book after she spent three days  on the beach reading it from cover to cover. I figured it must be good. I had no idea it would have a plot structure and style unlike any I've seen used before in a psychological thriller.

The beginning quote in part one sets the stage. “Life must be understood backward but lived forward.” -Soren Kierkegaard.

With that quote, a unique tale unfolds. The first part of the story is a present day set up. 

The book’s second part, opens with another quote by Soren Kierkegaard. “It is quite true what philosophy says; that life must be understood backwards.” Then the reader turns the page and discovers that Miranda tells the story from Day 15 backwards. The next chapter is Day 14. Chapter by chapter...consider it a countdown to the book’s part three, the conclusion. I know what you’re thinking, "Annette, that’s so confusing." Well some of the reviews I read said that they were confused and didn’t enjoy it because it was so different. It was a real risk, but my daughter and I loved it.

As a writer, it was so intriguing. Telling a story backward comes with some concerns. A reader who enjoys solving a mystery via clues may not like this plot structure. It is a very different way to tell a story since it goes against the linear grain.

The plot structure is known as reverse chronology. It is a fairly rare plot structure. What we know as writers and readers is that most books are chronological versus reverse chronological. Using reverse chronological the plot is heightened. It starts at a higher point with an unexpected event. There is no real establishment of the protagonist which could be a clue in and of itself. You won’t know until the last page. There aren’t the normal character introductions. The character is revealed within the action of the story. It’s not about solving a mystery in order of events, involving the well-placed clues with a logic to the conclusion. In the genre, of psychological thrillers it’s a brilliant plot strategy that adds to the plot.

Deep South magazine interviewed author, Megan Miranda who revealed a tip about writing in reverse, “I kept lists for each day,” she explains, “so there was a list of what the narrator knew and also what the reader knew, and my goal was to sort of walk that line and stay true to both.”

As a "seat of the pants" pantser writer, I’d actually need to plot with the use of an outline if I chose to write in reverse. Did you just break out in a cold sweat? I did. Would you ever write in reverse? Have you ever tried writing in reverse?

Don’t Write a Word

By Marla Cantrell

Writers like to talk a lot about not being able to write. We attach all kinds of angst to it, and we blame our busy lives, our lack of inspiration, and our obsession with social media. So what happens when we’re specifically told not to write?  If we’re lucky, something spectacular.

I learned this trick a few years ago, in an online class. The instructor asked us to come up with a plot or a main character, if we weren’t plot-driven writers. (I am not.) “Jot it down,” she said, “just the basics.” And so we turned in our one paragraph. Mine was iffy at best; you couldn’t have picked out my main character from a police lineup with what I’d written. “Thirty-something,” I said, “with an attitude,” I said. “Angry, but doesn’t know why.”

During the next session on the next day, I expected to be told to work on my story. But that’s not what the instructor said. Instead, she told us not to write. NOT to write. I couldn’t believe it. She wanted us to sit with our story, to let it come to us, and so we were instructed not to write a word for seven days.

At first, I thought she was shirking her duty. Still, I did what she said. On the first day, nothing much happened. On the next day, while at Walmart, I saw a woman with a butterfly tattoo on her ankle. My main character had a butterfly tattoo, I suddenly realized, but hers was on her left breast, just above her bra line. These revelations kept coming. I saw a yellow Honda, so old it was mostly rust. That was her car. By the fourth day, I could hear her voice, the familiar twang of a country singer, and that attitude I said she had. She was showing me that in spades.

By the time I sat down to write, I knew this girl. Her story flowed as I typed away. All that waiting caused me to consider who I was writing about, why I chose her, and what I wanted to let her say.

I can’t imagine the mess I would have made of that story if I had written it just after being given the assignment. I was not an experienced writer, and it felt as if everything I wrote sounded depressingly similar. I remember those last days, waiting to write, itching to write, more excited about writing than I’d been in a long time. The reason was I’d been told not to do it. That gate the teacher put in my path made all the difference in the way I saw my story.

I’m not suggesting that as a writer you stop all writing for a week. What I am suggesting is that if you’re having trouble getting started on a story, or if you’re stuck trying to finish one, that you put it away, that you forbid yourself to work on it for a week. Spend those seven days internally trying to write the story. Think about it at odd hours of the night when you can’t sleep, or on your drive to work. Keep your story alive, try to remember all the lines you think are perfect, and let your characters chatter all they want. But don’t write a single word until the eighth day.

It could be the break you need to restart your engine. You could come away with a story you absolutely love.

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Marla Cantrell is a 2014 Arkansas Arts Council Fellowship award winner for her work in short fiction. Her work has been published in several publications, including Deep South Magazine, Do South Magazine, @Urban Magazine, Word Haus, and in the Show Off Anthology. She is also the managing editor/writer for Do South Magazine, in Fort Smith, Arkansas.  Her work can be seen at her website,www.SouthernPencil.com, and at www.DoSouthMagazine.com.