A time of opposites
Write it their way · 20 minutes · Published
Read this first
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859). Project Gutenberg #98
The prompt
Describe a period you lived through, a year, a job, a summer, entirely in paired opposites, each pair held in the same short clause, repeated until the reader feels the whole age swing. Keep the passage's momentum: one sentence, no full stop until the last turn. Close with a short line that pulls the pairs back into the present.
Set a timer for 20 minutes.
Short version · 10 minutes
In ten minutes, write eight paired opposites about this week, each in the same clause shape, in one unbroken sentence.
The move
Write it their way. Take a passage you admire and write something else in its exact shape: same syntax, same rhythm, same movement, another subject.
Tags: imitation, rhythm and voice.
In a group
A way to run it with a writing group:
The group's text. Each writes alone and reads to the group. Then the group composes a new text from words taken from one another.
Where the page goes next
Scrin is a home where pages grow into books: you keep writing, from an untitled line to a chapter, and Scrin keeps the rest.