Ever tried writing a book backwards?

I tried, but I couldn't get past DNE EHT...



Okay, serious answer now. Maybe your ending is actually the beginning? Or maybe your story is one of those that starts off by showing the ending, then shows us who we got there? You could try writing the ending as Chapter One and see where the story seems to want to go from there.

I do know that some people do write the ending and work their way backwards.

I tend to write the scenes of my story and then go back and connect the dots.

So my advice to you--write the ending and see what happens.

If I tried to write backwards, I'd end up with a big old pile of drivel. Even if I know how it ends when I begin a book, I still start writing with chapter one. Part of the fun (for me) of writing is following my characters on their journey through and experiencing their highs and lows. It isn't quite as much fun backward.

Unless you're watching Mememto.

Just because you think you know the end, doesn't mean you actually do.

You don't know it until you actually, physically place the pixels on the paper in all the order.

Things change. Drafts change.

I may start with a rough idea of where I want to go and how I want it to end. But then once I begin writing, all things are open for change.

never a book. but i do it alot for short stories. I put the ending first and take thru how they got there. I works good if you have a really weird end. so you are not alone.

I tried this a few weeks ago and ended up getting a pretty good idea for a short story. (I think it wants to be a novel, but I won't let it.) I only wrote the last two sections backwards, then started forwards, then restarted forwards twice, and now have something decent to work with, all from writing a random ending that made absolutely no sense.

It's a fun exercise if nothing else.

Nicole

badducky said:

Just because you think you know the end, doesn't mean you actually do.

You don't know it until you actually, physically place the pixels on the paper in all the order.

Things change. Drafts change.

Click to expand...

Truer words were never spoken. (Besides, if I knew the ending when I started, it would spoil a lot of the fun of writing. Characters so often surprise you with what they do, and new people are always coming in.)

I've actually written a book this way. I wrote the ending, went back to the beginning and worked my way there. Of course, I had to re-write the ending a bit when I got there, but it was still fun. This was actually a novella and not a novel.

YMMV.

Eric, presumably you have major characters already sketched, or your ending wouldn't have much impact.

Maybe your next step then is to look at the themes and through-lines rather than the plot. In other words, I'm suggesting a top-down approach to the next steps since the 'just write until you hit your end-point' seems not to be working.

Could you perhaps 'caption' your end-scene with a message as though it were a cartoon or comic-book? Can you express the caption as 'if A then B' or 'when A then B'? If you can then your ending will illustrate 'B'. Your remaining job is to turn 'A' into the set-up story.

The trick is to link 'A' to the main characters somehow: situation, objective, opposition and risk of disaster.

Here's an illustration.

End scene: A man stands in a kitchen cradling an inside-out cat. Near him, a woman cries out: "My meatloaf!" (Yes, I'm just making this crap up as I go along)

Caption Idea: Be careful what you ask for -- you might get it (I have no idea why this caption - it just popped into my head)

Character ideas: He's a basement inventor. She's his long-suffering wife.

Story concept:
Okay, that's pretty cheesy but it also only took me ten minutes and there does seem to be a real story there -- despite how stoopid the ending scene was. Hopefully with a good ending scene and decent characters, this method could help you get a decent story too.

Hope it helps!

My stories change so much between scene one and scene end that it would be pretty useless for me to write the end first, in most cases.

Besides, the anticipation is so sweet!

This is an interesting idea. When I finish a novel I find myself going back to weave in seeds from the end into the earlier parts. Actually I'll do that even when I'm right in the middle. So I wonder if it would be easier just to start with a detailed outline and work backward?

I don't know if I've ever written the ending first, but I've never written it last either. I just write a detailed outline and then write the scenes all out of order. This works beautifully for me, because I always leave the most difficult/annoying scenes for last, but then I'm so close to being completely finished that I have enough motivation to tough it out. A lot of people would go insane(r) writing this way, though. Obviously I have every detail pretty much planned out before I begin too.