Let’s Talk Process: Writing Backwards

I have a project I’ve been working on for ten years.  Yes, ten years, which is an epic ice age, even in writer terms.

Why so long?

A lot of reasons.  The most influential of which is I keep getting bogged down at the same point in the story. A lot of things that need to happen have happened, but the narrative has always, in each incarnation, been free of action for quite some time.  Which is some novels would be fine but in this one, a sort of space opera meets summer blockbuster action novel, is not.  In this book, something needs to get ‘splodey every other chapter or so or even I get bored because there’s a lot of narrative and talking and all that other stuff.

It’s bad when you get bored reading your own stuff, kids, even if it is only a first draft.

I keep waiting for this:

image via davedicello.com

Or this:

And waiting.  And waiting.

And waiting some more.

Seriously, I was still in college when I started this fucker.  I am currently, most definitely, not in college (much to the surprise of those who thought I would be perpetually attached to an institution of higher learning).

Last week, Luke and I were discussing season two of Hannibal (one of the topics of the podcast we recorded today) and, with this very pitfall in mind, I mentioned I didn’t understand how Brian Fuller and the other writers managed to take us to crazy town over the space of the season without losing a single thread of the story or bogging down in the details and I was lamenting a lack of ability to do same which would certainly last to the end of my writing career, Regency swoon, chocolate binge, when  Luke made this pronouncement: “Well, they write it backwards.”

I’m sure you could see my brain mushroom cloud three states away.

Write it… backwards?

I have taken one novel writing workshop and the big takeaway was, “one should always have the end of one’s story in mind from go; it can change as often and as drastically as the story demands, but the thing should be committed to memory and paper, at least in some form, from the moment of conception.” Having the ending in mind gives one a goal and assists one to not wander over the river and through the woods, past grandmother’s house, into the creek, out the other side, into the mountains, and over the edge of a cliff.

One is still certain to lose one’s way, but at least one can stop and ask directions.

I had never considered writing the whole novel, or even a large chunk of it backwards, however.  And I should have.  Because if I know where the bogged down sections are going, and where they’ve been, I can get myself out of the stinky bog far more quickly, with greater aplomb, and perhaps both of my shoes.

Or, perhaps, I can avoid it all together.

image via bbc.co.uk

Holy.  Fucknuts.

If I know where the intrigue is going, it will be easier to stay on track during the approach.  If I know who’s going to die when and not simply that the character must, I can watch the impending demise with a wider, and yet more focused view.  If I write backwards, I can start with each individual error and trace it back to conception.

Luke, my darling pod partner, you are a genius.

Writing is a solitary pursuit but it cannot be done in a vacuum.  Shit like this is why.

Backwards it is.

Let’s get this fucker done.  Finally.  After a decade.  Okay, fine a decade plus.  Hey, you try to get something new out of the King Arthur story!  Yes, I’m sure it’s there.  What, I am!

*growls, thrusts fountain pen like epee, takes laptop, runs and hides*