Backwards

Since Jess and a few other people have been a bit surprised by my back wards method of working I thought I'd try and show you what I mean using a short excerpt from Animal Instincts. Be warned it is quite painstaking as a way of working but It works for me. To show this properly I'm going to reverse the excerpt round to demonstrate how I check from the end

“Pay the man, Clo,” Immi ordered and staggered sideways, flinging her arm around the driver’s neck to steady herself.
“Whoops!” She giggled.

In this bit I wanted to show Immi was drunk but I didn't want to use slurred speech or a long description so I checked to see that her actions revealed her condition. Her dialogue shows her as a happy drunk at odds with her emotional state later on when she reveals the events from earlier in the evening



He must have driven her quite a distance to want sixty pounds and it was typical of Immi not to have any money with her.

This sentence reveals Immi's habitual habit of acting without any regard for the consequences a hint towards the chat show issue



“That’ll be sixty quid, Miss.” The taxi driver supporting my sozzled step-sister leaned her against the doorframe, a look of relief on his florid features.

Again this sentence shows Immi's state and the taxi driver isn't a character that will feature again - I just need to give the reader a word picture of the scene without a huge description and to show she must have come a long way to run up such a big fare - something out of the ordinary and a foil for Clodagh's perilous finances.

“Surprise!” Immi wobbled on her heels and blinked owlishly at me, “I’ve got a present for you.” She waved an unopened bottle of champagne in my face.

This contrasts the two sisters, immi with champagne which Clodagh would probably never drink and it gives an early indication of Immi's generous nature even if she doesn't think things through

The light from the hall spilled out into the night illuminating the two figures on my front doorstep.

This is the opening line of the book. It had to have something of a hook - who were the two figures? and why were they there in the night?

So, after that - in the right order as you would read it.

The light from the hall spilled out into the night illuminating the two figures on my front doorstep.
“Surprise!” Immi wobbled on her heels and blinked owlishly at me, “I’ve got a present for you.” She waved an unopened bottle of champagne in my face.
“That’ll be sixty quid, Miss.” The taxi driver supporting my sozzled step-sister leaned her against the doorframe, a look of relief on his florid features. He must have driven her quite a distance to want sixty pounds and it was typical of Immi not to have any money with her.
“Pay the man, Clo,” Immi ordered and staggered sideways, flinging her arm around the driver’s neck to steady herself.
“Whoops!” She giggled.


All the way through I'm looking to catch any repetition, have I foreshadowed something? Have I repeated a phrase that I overlooked on my forwards edits? Have I got enough emotion or does a phrase seem flat when I look up to the one before it? Is the description clear enough to give the reader a picture in their mind of the scene?

I write quite a sparing, clean first draft so my backwards pass tends to add in odd words here and there. For other people they might need to cut things out. I like dialogue and action tags that show a scene and reveal character. How about you? For the writers out there how do you edit?