Ok, I had my first experience with “writing the end first” yesterday — and it turned out pretty well. I’ve been stuck for the last week or two on how to wrap up the current book I’m working on (“The Cell”).

I knew basically how I wanted the story to end, so rather than rack my brain to figure out the rest of the plot, I ended up writing the last couple of scenes first and then working backwards from there. A day later, I figured out the last major plot points, put together the outline and scenes, and now just need to fill in the gaps.

The story ended up taking a much different turn in getting from the 3/4 mark to the end than I had planned, but I think it’ll turn out well. Usually I try to lock down a detailed plot and all the story elements in the very beginning, but “The Cell” seemed to take a few different twists (or rather, contortions) along the way.

As this is will be my fourth book, I’m finding that I use the draft phase for working out most of the story and dialog between characters. Then all the “sensory” scene details, grammar, plot/story cleanup and polishing are in the second (and sometimes third) draft, and then the re-polishing/finishing happens in the last round of drafts.

This will be the second book I’ve used iWriterPro on, and it’s working great! I’ve found a few bugs along the way, but nothing too significant. I suppose I’ll get around to fixing those after this draft is done in a few weeks.