Coming up with the premise after the conclusion.

I was never completely satisfied with the original premise of Sometimes a Dragon.  The premise was just good enough to let me tell my little love story adventure with the theme of writing as magic (never spelled out.)

"Just good enough" isn't good enough, obviously.

What I've come to understand in my latter career is that the original premise dictates the motivations of the characters and the motivations dictates the plot.

Linda pretty much thrashed the original premise when she rewrote the first third of the book and I went along with it.  Now, in the final third of the book, the premise is completely wrong.  Now the motivations of the characters are muddy and contradictory.

So I'm in weird position of having to go back and create a premise that accounts for everything in the book.

It's a bit like coming to a conclusion, and then going back and finding evidence to back it up.

At least with writing, the conclusion is intuitive so it is O.K. to find the reasons to back that up -- as long as it makes sense.

So I've been struggling with this for days, and then today -- in the shower -- the solution suddenly came to me.

This is some kind of miracle.  I'm always amazed when it happens.  Then again, I'd tried a couple of dozen premises on for size before this one actually fit.

So now, in the next rewrite, I'll be able to work out all the kinks in the plot and the character motivations and make it all one piece.

I actually think the restraints of having to match the premise to existing material sparks some creativity.  It will add another layer of meaning to the story.  Not so much that I need to explain everything, but that I understand what is happening in my own story.

I think Nearly Human could use a little of too.  Some mulling over what would make the premises stronger and the motivations clearer.

I'm pretty sure other writers don't have this much difficulty with things.