Just got a tip from a published author that fixed my plot hole problem

I kept getting stuck around chapter 3 of every story I wrote. A guy at the writers meetup in Portland said to try writing the ending first, and I finished my first draft in 2 weeks after that. Has anyone else tried working backwards like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

faithg261mo ago

Oh great, so my way of writing is basically the literary equivalent of assembling IKEA furniture with instructions backwards? That tracks. @fisher.mason makes a solid point though, I guess some of us need the cheat codes just to get past chapter 3 without rage-quitting fiction forever.

fisher.mason1mo ago

Honestly, I gotta push back on this one. "Write the ending first" sounds like a shortcut that misses the whole point of discovery in storytelling. If you already know the exact ending from chapter 1, you're basically writing a connect-the-dots puzzle instead of a living, breathing story. The magic for me is when the characters surprise you and the ending changes as you go. Ngl, half the best plot twists I've read probably came from authors who had no clue where they were headed until they got there.

oliver_ward1423d ago

Friend of mine spent six months on a novel, had this perfect ending all mapped out, got to chapter ten and realized his main character would never do that... so he scrapped the whole thing and started over.