planning.

I used to be the managing editor of a magazine. A few years later, I ran special events for a hospital system. Both jobs, believe it or not, had similarities. In writing a fiction story, I’m again finding that similarity: start with the end.

At the magazine, we’d block out what we knew we had in the bag — feature articles, news stories, the directory, etc. Out of a 32 page book, right from the get-go, let’s say we had 20 pages covered, leaving us 12 pages to fill. Start from the back.

Same with special events. We knew that the only time the stars aligned for the location, our top administration, and the big-wig docs was at some specific date. Invitations go out five weeks before, which means we should circulate the mailing list to interested parties eight weeks prior. We’d need to set-up tastings, printings, swag, etc. all in advance. Back then I had a time table pinned to my cubicle that outlined exactly what I needed by when — all working backwards from the date we had resereved “the room.”

I’ve outlined the beginning of my screenplay any number of different ways. It’s constantly getting tweaked, and has everything to do with what I’m doing later in the story. I can’t rightly have a long-lost daughter show-up in Act III without first at least making reference that one exists somewhere before — and that “somewhere” is Act I, for the most part.

I haven’t read one book on screenwriting that says start from the back, but from the way things seem to be working in my trial-and-error fashion, it seems like that’s just what I should do. Start with how it ends.