Writing a first draft can often feel like a guessing game. The whole time you’re wondering What the hell am I trying to say?

In my experience, the answer often appears—somewhat magically—in the very last sentence of your first draft.

Why? I can’t say for certain, but here’s my guess:

By time you’ve written a first draft, you’ve done some deep thinking about your subject. What’s more, you’ve done the hard work of actually writing down those thoughts. They’re outside your head now. So you’ve gained a new perspective.

Plus, the last sentence is often a nice distillation of everything that came before.

So here’s what I like to do:

Once I’ve written that last sentence, I move it to the beginning. I make it the very first sentence.

This edit doesn’t always work or make sense. But you’d be surprised by how often it does.

Now your essay/blog/email/Tinder message opens with a really clear statement. It says exactly what it’s about.

From there, you can see how everything else you’ve written relates to the first sentence. It becomes much easier to cut, restructure, or rewrite, because you finally know what you’re trying to say.