Backloading

[Paul Whybrow]

I've spent much of the last couple of months editing my WIP, while adding a few chapters. 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

 

[Jason Byrne]

This is is an interesting concept. You see this used by writers instinctively at the end of a chapter, oftentimes, and somehow it never correlates to using the same concept everywhere else.
You want to vary your sentence structure, obviously, alongside length, but like all others this is a noteworthy tool in your arsenal.