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Interview #1133: Chicago, Entry #39

Question

When it comes to major, pivotal plot twists. Moments where the reader goes “WOAH” or “Oh my god”. Are those something you write as starting point or ending point?

Brandon Sanderson

What I do is I plot my outline backward, starting with those scenes. And then I write the book forward to those scenes. The reason I can do it that way is because in the plot I don’t need to know the characters’ emotional state, I can just come up with “This is going to be a great scene”. But I have to have been with the characters through the journey to write their reaction to the scene. So I can’t actually write it early.

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