Tried starting a story from the ending first and got a weird plot twist I didn't plan for

I sat down last night with a prompt about a librarian finding a secret door. I wrote the ending where she walks through it into a forest. But then going back to write the beginning, I realized the forest was actually her childhood backyard from 30 years ago. That changed how I wrote the middle because the whole secret door thing became about memory instead of adventure. Has anyone else had the order you write scenes totally mess with your original idea?

3 comments

3 Comments

nancygrant20d ago

Not quite the order, sounds like the ending just revealed what was already there, @parkera22.

kevin_harris7821d ago

Ending first sounds like a good hack for finding what your story is really about. That backyard reveal flipped your whole theme around. Might be worth trying more often just to see what shakes loose.

parkera2220d ago

Well now, that's a fascinating way to run into a story's real meaning. I've always written from start to finish myself, but you've got me wondering if I've been missing something all these years. @kevin_harris78 makes a good point about letting the ending guide you. Here's the thing I'm curious about, did you find that writing the ending first made the middle feel forced or did it free you up to connect the dots more naturally? Because when I try to outline backwards, I worry I'd end up painting myself into a corner where the setup has to hit certain beats just to reach that final scene. It sounds like you stumbled onto something genuine by accident rather than by force.

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