Candle Craft 18: Start at the End
By Royal McGraw
Royal McGraw has written professionally for film, television, comics, and games for over 20 years. He led development on the mobile smash hit Choices: Stories You Play and currently serves as CEO of Candlelight Games.
Welcome! This is the 18th installment of a multi-part series on how to improve your writing process and storytelling.
Last time was Part 2 of 2 of a reaction series. This week, we’re going to dive back into some writing fundamentals with some essential advice: Start At The End.
Physics of Time
In 2025, researchers at the University of Surrey published a paper that demonstrated quantum systems can operate both forward and backwards in time. What had previously been believed to be “an arrow of time” pointing in a singular direction was now defunct. The Arrow of Time, it seems, points in two directions: forward and backward, with no distinction. Of course, that’s all at the quantum level.
Us regular people experience time in just one direction. The lives we lead, and the stories we read, watch, and play all proceed from beginning to end. And in the very best of those stories, the endings feel surprising and inevitable.
The secret of the best stories (and the authors who write them) is that the best stories are crafted in a way that mirrors the quantum realm: the Arrow of Time points both ways.
The end informs the beginning every bit as much as the beginning informs the end.
Writing Backwards
Obviously, it’s impossible to write a story backwards. Nobody scrolls hundreds of pages down in their word processor software and types “End” followed by “The” followed by the punctuation that concludes their final sentence. And in fact, many writers revel in the thrill of “discovering their story” as they go.
I don’t want to take that away from you. Everybody needs their own reasons to confront the blank page. As always: write how you write.
But all writers can – either in outline or draft form – look at their written conclusion and then step logically backward through their story. From the vantage point of that conclusion, there are a few things that become instantly clear.
Let’s go through them, back to front.
Central Theme
In The Story Mind, I discussed the literary theory that all stories are an entertaining argument for an idea. The characters and situations in the story underline and undermine that idea. The idea in question is the central theme of the story.
It is not uncommon for writers to reach the end of the story and ask the question: “Okay, so what exactly was I trying to say?” Well… if you like the ending you wrote, you know. Your ending is your theme.
If you don’t like the ending you wrote, then stop whatever else you are doing, and do your best to write an ending with a theme that you do like.
Saggy Middle
When you’re sure you have an ending you like, you can step backwards through your story and test the characters and plot beats against that central theme.
Is every aspect of your story arguing for or against your theme? If yes, you can move on. But if not, you now know exactly what to change.
And to be crystal clear, the odds are very good that something really will need to change. Most early drafts have scenes, sequences, or even entire acts that don’t advance the story toward its inevitable end.
Wrong Beginning
The most common flaw in the early work of talented writers is the Wrong Beginning. Usually, this beginning is tight and propulsive. It asks intriguing questions. But then deeper into the story, everything begins to feel shapeless.
The questions that worked early on seem to have no good answers. The compelling character flaws are abandoned or left untested.
Many readers will point to the third act, where the issues become most evident, and talk about the problems that are there. Unfortunately, this well-intentioned criticism is most often something of a trap. The correct answer is not to “fix the end”.
That’s just painting the walls in a house built on sand.The correct answer to this problem is write the ending that you like, as well as you can, then re-write the beginning into something that can support that ending.
Because you didn’t have a third act problem. You had a first act problem in disguise. Usually, this means that the story starts much later on than you thought. Usually, this means the protagonist has more flaws than you thought.
Every writer will experience this problem at least once. As much as it hurts, the only way to master the craft is to learn how to overcome challenges like this one.
The Last Page Test
If someone took your novel or screenplay or treatment, and skipped ahead to the last page, could they tell what your story was about? Do they understand the theme? Do they understand the main characters? What would their ultimate takeaway be?
Or maybe an even more pointed question: if someone ripped out the last page, would it make sense to rewrite that exact same page? Do all the pages leading up to that one single page make the contents inevitable?
If the answer to any of these questions is “no”, you should spend some time really locking down what your story is about.
Going Forward… or is it Backwards?
The physicists at Surrey uncovered something beautiful, a deep mystery in how the universe works that we had not previously known. Or maybe it was known, and we are walking backwards toward the question.
As a writer, by embracing Two Arrows Of Time, you can ask the question that is most useful in the moment:
What lesson does this flawed character need to learn to become better?
What lesson did this noble character learn along the way?
Two questions, same answer, but the difference in perspective can profoundly affect how you search for that essential truth.
LESSON: The Audience experiences a story beginning to end. Writers should always strive to construct their stories (either through outlining or planning) from end to beginning.
When in doubt, use The Last Page Test to diagnose your narrative.