In my novel Survivor, told aboard a jetliner that will eventually run out of fuel and crash, time is marked by each of the four engines flaming out. They mark the end of the first act, the second act, the third act, and the end of the book. Friends of mine hated how the diminishing number of pages betrayed how soon a book would end. And because I couldn’t change that aspect of a book, I chose to accentuate it. By running the page numbers in reverse I made them into another clock, increasing tension by exaggerating the sense of time passing.
