Write backwards. Not as crazy as it sounds

Essays & Creative Writing Essays
1

For short stories you may find that your mind offers you a perfect last line. But no idea how to get there ;-(.

In this respect you are like the murder detective who arrives at the crime scene, looks at the corpse, and starts looking for clues as to why and how it happened. Some are more plausible than others.

Let’s give the corpse a name, we’ll call her Jane. If the line which first sprung into your mind was something like ‘Jane lay huddled on the kitchen floor, all her troubles were finally over’.

Just from that line alone you know she had troubles, and they were probably long-running or deep-seated, but it’s up to you to think up what they were, and how they led to her death.

Not much to work with yet. But at least you know her name. Your fictional detective may have to find her purse to know even this much, and he still can’t be certain purse and corpse belong together.

This is where you, as writer, play the ‘what if’ game. What if it’s someone else’s purse?
What if it’s not even her kitchen?

Did she just keel over and wasn’t murdered at all/ If so what was she doing in a strangers kitchen? Did she know them, even if it’s not obvious.

Could she be the husband’s mistress, coming around to confront his wife. Did the wife kill her? Or, an extra twist, did she commit suicide to hurt the husband. who she discovered was cheating on both of them?

Once you start thinking of the possibilities the story will start to come together. Making sense of the rag-bag of possibilities is your job as a writer.

But weed out the too easy/obvious answers as they arrive. Some people do slip on a wet patch and fracture their skull, but that’s not going to be much of a story is it?

But what if there are a couple of people with good cause to kill her, and her truly accidental death puts them in the frame for a while?

This backward writing doesn’t work for everyone, But I always suggested it to my writing students and gave them a final line to work toward as homework. The next week they were amazed that they all found very different ways to get there.

If you want to try it…

Jane lay huddled on the kitchen floor, all her troubles were finally over’.

Feel free to change the name if you have a close friend called Jane, because subconsciously you won’t want to harm her.

2

Ja… sometimes I end building a poem around a single line or phrase that appeals. When I wrote my novel I started in the middle with a part I wanted to write. I suppose it’s a way to get things going.

3

Looking back on my years as a tutor one of the most common problems faced by would-be writers was getting started. Some of them want to get it all lined up in their head first, and then get distracted.

I regularly reminded them that ‘You can’t edit a blank page.’ If half a page of nonsense gets fingers and brains working in sync then it’s worth doing. You can cut the garbage from the front once the real words start flowing :wink:

4

You guys are great. Thanks for the schooling, Gyppo. I’m not a story-teller. I just love the language and playing with words. That said, I’d like to be. Maybe not in prose, but I find this advice valuable in approaching poetry as well.

I’m one of those you mention that likes to plot it all out in advance and gets overwhelmed. When I’m lucky, A line comes at the same time as an impression or an idea and I’m able to build from it. Most of the time, I just stare at the screen and meditate on an idea and hope. I’m not passed this yet, but a notion is forming. So thanks.

5

You’re welcome.

One of the great moments in tutoring, formally or informally, is when you see the little light come on in someone’s eyes as a mental connection is made.

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6

Interesting. I wrote my one and only novel in, er, an organic manner. I just had a very broad outline of the story in my head but the details got made up as I bumbled along. It was more entertaining for me that way. I remember complaining to Lee that the main character was constantly going off in directions that were superfluous, to my mind and typing fingers anyway. And she said that Basher was telling his own story and that it was my job to write it down. It always felt like i was hanging onto the steering wheel of the story by my fingertips…

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7

When you have believable characters they will tend to tell their own story, leaving you more as the ‘humble chronicler of events’. Sometimes, just like real life people, they’ll wander off into a spurious tale and you’ll have to rein them back in. It is almost invariably worthwhile doing this.

When this happens cut and paste the ‘extras’ into a spare document and save them for later. It’s quite possible you’ll never even look at those notes again, but it sidelines them from your current thinking. Freeing you up to do what you’re supposed to be doing.

On the rare occasion you may find the nucleus to another tale entirely lurking in those side-lined notes. Or even another character who really wants a story of their own,

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Most finished novels, and short stories, aren’t just a meandering stream of consciousness transferred into print. Even those which have been edited to look that way have usually been culled from a more sprawling version which first flowed off the keyboard or pen.

People who are obsessed with the false god of ‘productivity’ will often conisider writing to be a very inefficient process,

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Poems can often be the same. Halfway down you’ll realise the first few lines were just ‘throat clearing’ or ‘warm up’ and the line you’re currently writing is crying out to be the opener.

When this happens draw a line across the page above the prospective new start, or a string of asterisks, and and continue.

When it’s complete read the shortened version aloud, to detect any ‘speed bumps’, and see if says everything you want it to. If so delete all the fluff above the line, let it stand for a while, and then read it again looking for unplanned changes of tense or viewpoint. which will jar a reader.

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8

Yup, that’s all true. Except I kept a lot of the spurious bits in - hey, writing is hard work… Siobhan Mc Kinney was kind enough to actually do a kind of edit on my MS and some parts did get cut under her eye but not a lot.
Siobhan and I share a birthday (date not year) and we would talk about ‘our birthday’ when the time rolled around. I once sent her an alpaca scarf via DHL and it took ages to get there - they couldn’t find her address. We’ve fallen out of touch but I miss Siobhan - any way to get her back now that we’re doing prose? Actually, that might be me - I know I did entice her back once but she faded again. I’ll check if I still have her email address a few computers later.

9

Oh Man, if there is a way. She is sorely missed.

10

I DM’d you with the email address I have… it’s from 2017 :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

I also have a street address from then… if all else fails maybe Colm can take a drive north to Ballymena…

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11

Just after starting my first novel I googled ‘how many people never finish their novels’, it seems that most don’t. One of the main reasons was not being able to find a good enough ending.
So I immediately wrote the last chapter. It worked, for me anyway.

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12

Some writers really benefit from have a definite target to write toward. It’s probably psychological, in that they know where they’re going.

Maybe some of those who start writing straight away with a brilliant opening line but can’t sustain their own interest could have finished if they’d known the destination in advance.

Having a few false starts of my own under my belt I know there any many pitfalls between the original inspiration and the final line.

13

Meant to say ‘my only novel’, so far.
And I too made many starts over the years. I believe writing the last chapter made all the difference. It wasn’t a distraction, just a comfort. And it wasn’t a straightjacket either, more like a distant lighthouse guiding me home.

14

'A guiding lighthouse, not a straitjacket. That’s a good metaphor.

15

I like that. Sometimes it really does work that way. I always know the ending before I start writing a story. And I always think I know the beginning, only to find out later that my beginning doesn’t really work.
Right now, I’m working on a story that I have completely outlined—a first for me. I’m not much of a plotter, but I figured I’d give it a try.
Well, guess what happens. Not even a thousand words into chapter one, my character decides to do things her way. :laughing:

16

A compelling main character can almost write the story for you, as long as you keep an eye on them.

What can derail you is extras who creep in to solve problems the main character(s) should be solving for themselves. You might need w a character who 'really knows his/her stuff to arrange, let’s say a stolen car because the main one has no idea how to do this.

But sometimes these extra will expect you to add their backstory and ‘flesh them out properly’ to the extent that they start cluttering up the tale. Like people who intrude into a conversation which isn’t really theirs.

Gyppo

17

Those extras… yeah. I always promise them their own story. One day… :laughing: