End to Beginning Editing

One option to attempt when editing a novel is to start at the end of the novel and work backwords. You don't have to do it one word at a time, that might be a tad tedious, but to catch some of the small, easy to miss errors, it helps to do it one sentence at a time from the very end of the novel to the beginning.

I did this in my last edit. It took a fair amount of time, since it's monotonous and difficult but it had many benefits.

Benefits of the end-beginning edit:
Easier to focus on the individual sentences.
Not as easy to get caught up reading.
Focuses more on the technical side and not the overall story.
See the words and not what you think is there.

Drawbacks:
Time consuming.
Not for general story fixes, character development, and such.
Focuses on the very small errors.


This isn't a method for many, but it's a nice option. This and maybe using a speech program to hear the sentences instead of just reading them off the page.  There are many different edit options to help writers get a clean as possible draft ready for submission or publication.


Have you tried this?
Would you?
How do you edit?