First page, last page

It has long been an axiom of my writ­ing that you can­not write a good first page until you write a good last page.

When you are writ­ing any­thing and you have the first com­plete draft, if you have worked your emo­tions, intu­ition, and intel­lect well, the work will be full of con­tra­dic­tions. This is to say, your emo­tion­al under­stand­ing of char­ac­ters will have led you in direc­tions you had not antic­i­pat­ed. But that first page, more than any oth­er, was, most like­ly, intel­lec­tu­al­ly achieved. It con­tains your idea of a book. How­ev­er, if you have done your job, the last page has been emo­tion­al in its realization.

My choice is always to reach for the emo­tion­al. This means that the emo­tion­al end­ing must be now embed­ded in the intel­lec­tu­al beginning.

Writ­ing at its best hap­pens when the writer crafts his/her work by shap­ing the real­i­ty to bring forth the emotions.

Ergo: you can­not write a good first page until you write a good last page.