A funny thing happened to me on the way to becoming an editor. *

I learned to use a Reverse Outline to analyze a book’s structure. It helps clarify what happens when, and can reveal multiple problems in a manuscript, like timeline discrepancies, too much time or lack of time between clues in a mystery, and lack of appropriate character background to inform their actions.

Many writers use what I’ll call “forward outlines” to plot out their books’ structure. But sometimes in the writing process, characters and events and worlds diverge from that structure, whether unconsciously (when the characters seem to take on lives and objectives of their own, and the writer just keeps writing) or as a conscious decision, when the writer makes the choice to “just see where the characters go”.