I am now on my 4th draft of my novel and it has taken on a personality of its own. Do I keep editing or do I accept it and send on to agents? I an so excited by it being either finished or nearly finished, I know its just a matter of opinion. When do I stop editing and correcting my myself? It has held up well to criticism.
When it's done! Have you had any outside editors take a look at it? If you've just been doing the rewrites yourself or just based on the feedback given to you by betas, you might consider finding an outside source to take a look at it. It's easier to tell you when you're done when we can see it ourselves, you know what I mean?
Mate of mine teaches English. He has done grammar checks, but as I have learned from everything else, its all conjecture. Chapters 1-3 is holding up well. Chapter 4 is not bland, but is not my best. (A lie. It is my best but its not... wait... I dont know).. The rest has kept a few 14yr olds reading. The End is awesome. Not by my own admission.
If you are uncertain on when to stop editing something, especially if you are on your fourth draft, have someone to review it and see what they think about it. Even published stories aren't perfect, so you can have someone to review it. Then, when you do have someone to review it, go check one last time and fix the comments some others gave you, and then you can try submiting it to an agent or publisher. Trust your first instance. If your instant is telling you to go right ahead and send it to a publisher, give it a try.
Chops, you crack me up. As always. Sounds like a bestseller to me! You should have a professional editor take a look at it! With you editing it so many times, I'd worry that you might be overworking it at this point.
Its a Low-teen to high-teen and adult modern fantasy. OMG is that wrong? ****it!. Its aimed at 9-16 year olds, and written from a 16 year old perspective. I am very confident in the prologue and the first few chapters gaining interest. I am just a scared little bunny, worried about not doing things right!..
Might I add. Modern contemporary story of a teen finding telekinetic powers in middle america. .... I cant type anymore. I'm boggled.
Why don't you post the first page up? Or else if there's no way you can think of improving the book then take the leap of faith and start submitting. At some point you need to rely on yourself to be able to judge when your novel is ready.
If you are still not sure about if it is ready to send off to an agent, leave it to one side for 3/4 weeks and then take a look at it with fresh eyes (common advice). If you have done the best you can, then you have to stop somewhere. Send it off to a few agents and see how you get on. Well done in finishing your novel in the first place and the Best of Luck with it.
Do YOU think it's done? When you think everything is nice and polished to where you want it, then it's time to submit. So what's key here? You.
There's a quote but for the life of me I can't remember how it goes nor the author!! But, it's something along the lines of: 'The greatest writers never feel their work is finished...' Perhaps that's saying something about you and your book Good luck for when you do submit it.
As long as you can read through it and feel it isn't complete, it still needs something, then it's not done. Don't feel you have to rush it, just get it right. Trilby's advice is on the money - walk away and then come back and look at it with fresh eyes and an open mind.
If there is even one sentence that you're not happy with -it's not finished. You owe it to yourself to make the best work possible. Although that's the opinion of a creative - not a sale directive who will tell you, get it finished and then sell, sell, sell. On the other hand, send it to a publisher/agent and see if you get any interest. It could be that you are just too close to the story to see it for what it's really worth. Perhaps leave it for three months and then read it through in one sitting. I did this recently (forgot everything I'd written) and it turned out that I could edit with a lot more clarity than before, because I'd stopped being a writer and started being a reader.
Okies, I have put it aside for a while and I'm going to continue writing my next piece. Ill prolly look at it again in another 1-2 weeks.
If you can step back, look at it objectively (or as objectively as possible since its your own story) and decide it's finished, then it is. Otherwise you could fall into the habit of endless editing, going for perfection.
