I spent a couple of months editing my last novel, a process helped by editing each chapter as I wrote, staying in the moment for a couple of days. Previously, I’ve made the mistake of editing the whole story after typing The End, which feels like scraping the barnacles off a battleship hull with a toothbrush!

One of the things I’ve made a conscious effort to do retrospectively, and as I progress, is to backload sentences.

Briefly, this means structuring sentences to create a memorable impact by placing evocative nouns, verbs and adjectives at the end. It works well with many paragraphs, though I’d caution you about doing it with every one, as it starts to look like an overdramatic news report.

It’s an effective technique to close a chapter, encouraging the reader to continue, impelled by the force of that final word.

Here’s a good summary of the process (complete with another picture of a great library):

KEEP THE BEST FOR LAST: Backloading Technique by Rayne Hall