Why and when an editor recommends reading your book backwards

Remember doing mazes as a kid and realizing that you could work backwards in order to solve them most efficiently?

Well, you can do the same thing with editing — though the editor who suggested it isn’t saying it’s a fast process.

Kris Spisak says reverse editing forces you to focus on the grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and prevents you from falling into reader mode.

It’s exactly what it sounds like: you read the last sentence first, then the second-to-last one, and so forth.

Strenuous? Absolutely. Spisak warns that this should be the final pass-through you make of your manuscript; all content issues should be resolved by the time you take this task on.

Spisak's reasons and methods for reverse editing are at Writer’s Digest.

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