How do we know when its finished?

[pmmg]

Just a general question for all, but what do you need to see, or feel, or reach to know the story is done, done, done...

really, its done, and you are not coming back to it.

How do you know?

 

[skip.knox]

Oh man, I've been there, especially with my first novel. It seemed like I was never going to be actually, really done with it. All I can say is how it works with me.

So, I self-publish. It's going to be different for trad pub.

By now you know it's not done when you've written THE END. There's all the editing, proofing, and suchlike. There's waiting for the cover. There's writing the copy for Amazon, for the paperback, etc. I've found it more useful to think in terms of a list of milestones. The foregoing lists some of them.

Hitting Publish is a milestone. I had thought I was done then. But then there's marketing, and that can go on for quite a long time. At some point along that weary road, I find I am no longer writing new marketing copy. You know, the book pitch that's 300 words rather then the 150 word version you already have. Eventually, you have a version for every occasion. It's harder to mark that as a milestone; it's not as clearly marked as hitting Publish.

By that time, I'm well into the Next Book. The previous book feels more and more like an intrusion when it pops up with need for attention. But my first novel--indeed all save the immediately previous one--is well and truly done.

It may be worth noting that, save for some changes upon receiving the Author's Copy of the paperback on each novel, by the time I'm ready to Publish, I'm done with editing and making changes. And the changes associated with the Author's Copy were more to do with formatting than with actual content.

Anyway, well and truly done has been, for me, a rather long time after I feel I'm done with the story itself.

 

[ThinkerX]

I am the guy who pulled, edited, and then rereleased his first books multiple times - and still needs to do so again. 95% of that, though, is grammar.

 

[Prince of Spires]

It's probably when I just can't be bothered to read through the damned thing again...

I write my first draft linearly, so beginning to end. This gives me a complete story once that first draft is complete. After that, my drafts serve a particular purpose. First, I read through it to take lots of notes and figure out high level stuff that needs fixing. Next up, I go through it and fix high level stuff. After that I go through with a (virtual) red marker and make all sentence level changes, and lastly, I go through it to accept all changes and polish the last bits.

At this point, it's good enough to hand it over to some external reader(s). I've used both a professional editor and beta readers here. They do their thing, give me feedback, and based on that, I go through the above steps again. So high-level stuff first, then the sentence level things.

Normally at this point I call the thing done. However, my most recent project required a lot of high level stuff, which resulted in almost half the book being rewritten. So here I decided to go for another round of beta reads, and then through the whole loop again.

Here I call it done. I'm probably going to hand it to a proof reader to look for typos and obvious grammar issues, accept their changes and then publish it.

I'm personally not of the type to never consider my work done, only abandoned. I'm very happy to call my published works done and just never touch them again. Yes, when I read some older stuff back, I can see lots of stuff that needs to be improved. But that's basically just writing the whole tale again from the start. And I already have too many ideas to begin with. I have no desire to revisit the old tales to tell them again.

 

[SamazonE]

There is the point in which you can see a result. There is a point in which you can know that it is done. I have tried to finish a book until it is done, but there is still that feeling that there is something more to say, more to do. You can climb a mountain, and then it is done.

There is the other side. When do you know that a book is done, in that you cannot complete it? There is the tell tale sign that a book is not worthy, if it is foreboding. There is the matter of when you meant to finish it in the first place. Eventually an editor will give up, and say it is done, or maybe a publisher will say it is done, when it is done.

If I were you, I would read a book as if it were done, and then see if it is any more complete. There is the haunt of the light, the pattering of rain. That will never be a tell tale sign that something is done. But you could try again. There are always chances. Pits you can fall into. Clouds you can ride on. I know that my work has an impact, even if it is something I can never say is done.

In the past I had all these ideas that coalesced into a finish product, and then I abandoned it. There was a shadow that cast over me, and I was shown the light. This may be a step in the wrong direction, but I headed towards the light, and the shadow disappeared. This is an anecdote that might make sense to you. If you take what you have and say it is done, then maybe it is. But maybe it was never finished in the first place?

 

[CupofJoe]

I can always find things to tweak or change.
So for me its the deadline, when I have to hand it over or submit.
After that it is version control.
I've one short story that I have worked on for well over 30 years and probably as many version.
Not that I've looked but I doubt much of the first iteration has survived through to the last.

 

[Devor]

When an editor says it’s good to go, then after one last proofread.

That may not be the answer you want, but there it is.

 

[Penpilot]

When I edit, I make passes, moving from big picture down to medium picture and finally to the minutia. The big picture is plot and character arcs. The minutia is the polish, the word choices and rhythm/flow of the prose and dialogue.

I know it's done when I can make a polishing pass and nothing in the bigger picture above needs to be changed, and I'm only tweaking text rather than adding anything significant to it.

Now, does that mean the story is perfect? No. But it generally means that I've taken the story as far as I can with my current skill set and it's time to move on to the next thing.

There's another aspect to this and that's being done with a story even though it's not necessarily finished. I learned this lesson on my first book. It got to a point where I finished an editing pass and knew the story still had countless significant issues. It was a mess, and I didn't know how to identify all the problems let alone fix them. I thought about spending months and months on another editing pass, and that's when I knew I was done with that story, at least for the moment. Because my skills had taken the story as far as they could, and in order to progress as a writer, it was time to start something new and start learning from that.

It's like when your old car breaks down and you take it to the shop for the last time. You know it's time to get a new car, because at that point, you're just throwing good money after bad.

 

[Mad Swede]

Well, as I'm a one pass writer the story is done when I've written all of it. The last bits are usually the bridging vignettes I use to fill in the gaps between the major scenes and events. And then the story goes to my editor and we're off on the editing cycle.

 

[pmmg]

When an editor says it’s good to go, then after one last proofread.

That may not be the answer you want, but there it is.

Do you have any books out there Devor? I am unaware.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

I know because my wife and our writing partner takes it away from me and lock me out of the folder. They tend to know sooner than I do, mostly because I'll sit there and move words back and forth with no substantive change.

 

[Incanus]

I suppose I would consider something finished when all the creative and editing work has been done.

I would consider publishing and marketing as separate kinds of work that don't really have very much to do with the writing part of storytelling.

 

[pmmg]

Well, as I'm a one pass writer the story is done when I've written all of it. The last bits are usually the bridging vignettes I use to fill in the gaps between the major scenes and events. And then the story goes to my editor and we're off on the editing cycle.

How does this square with the editing process? Are you just not involved in that?

 

[Malik]

When it's been through separate rounds of Dev, Line, Copy, and at least 3 separate proofreaders, then formatted, then gone back through another round of proofreading by a fresh set of eyes, and I can't find any errors when they're done. Then, and only then, it's ready.

 

[Mad Swede]

How does this square with the editing process? Are you just not involved in that?

Of course I'm involved in the editing process. But my story writing is done when the story goes to my editor. I regard editing as a part of the publishing process, mostly because the editing doesn't change the story.

 

[minta]

When it seems the end is justified, the characters have nothing left to say or when the extra modification begins to sound like noise instead of improvement. That’s when I know it’s time to let it go.

 

[xena]

I know that a story is finished when I read it through with no desire. When the emotion works, the ending feels deserved.

 

[El_d_ray]

You go through the piece another time and can't think of anything you can improve without dissolving it into something different. Wether you want it or not, you did your best and nothings else can be improved by you at the moment. I'd say this is the moment, when it's done.
And it probably should felt okay to present to the people you'll never meet.

 

[pmmg]

You go through the piece another time and can't think of anything you can improve without dissolving it into something different. Wether you want it or not, you did your best and nothings else can be improved by you at the moment. I'd say this is the moment, when it's done.
And it probably should felt okay to present to the people you'll never meet.

Ah...but something can always be improved. Its a bottomless pit if you dont stop earlier than that.

 

[skip.knox]

It has helped me to think of revision as consisting of separate but related tasks. Improvement is one, but even that can be broken down. There's improvement of the prose--usually at the level of a phrase or sentence, or a bit of narrative or description. A setting can be improved. A character can be improved. Pacing can be improved. It's worth being specific when making one's own editorial notes. pmmg is absolutely right in stating there will always be something that can be improved.

Consistency is a big one. Consistency in a character's voice, in the authorial voice. Consistency of setting. I suppose you could call this improvement as well, but it works better for me to consider it separately.

Much harder (for me) but still important is working on the plot. Do the character behaviors make sense and do they move the story forward? Does the setting contribute or is it just background? Is the plot's premise up to the job? Or is it too contrived? Revising things at this level can result in disheartening chaos, but ignoring can utterly undermine the work.

There's more, but the above illustrates my point that "revising" (or "improving") is potentially a huge amount of work. More than the initial writing (again, for me). How do we know when it's finished? I don't have any objective measure. There just comes a point when I say, this is all I'm going to do on this one. I move on from revision to formatting and production. And then marketing.