You can try it on your own by starting at the bottom of a blank page and writing the end of your story/act/scene and working backwards. To read the rest of this post skip to the bottom of the post and work your way upwards:
- …because you’ve probably encountered plotting blocks and could benefit from reverse cause-effect plotting yourself!
- …because we get naturally blocked when we have to think of something on the spot.
- …because it might be the nature of the brain to be more inventive when thinking of reasons for why something came to pass than it is to spontaneously generate a sequence of events in order.
- …because I’ve tried working forwards and for some reason I always draw a blank that way.
- …because thinking of causes, working backwards from an effect forces your brain to connect the dots.
- I’ve been using the reverse cause-effect plotting method suggested in Writing A Great Movie, and it works quite well.
http://nienkehinton.blogspot.com/2007/04/thinking-blogger-award.html at post 30 April my out check Come
I just read the post as intended, but then read the Memento-style edit of this blog post–start to finish. Like, woah. :)
Jokes aside I think it makes good sense, especially for spurring some more inventive approaches. Well, it’s like cliffhangers (“how are they going to get out of this one?”), but I guess reverse-cliffhanging (“how in the hell did they get into this one?”). Makes sense to apply it both forward and backward if you want to keep things exciting!