At What Point Do You Call a Story Done?

I struggle with this quite often. Is it after five, six, seven critiques? When you yourself think it's done? When you can't be bothered with it anymore and just want to see that submission email in your sent box? My own private system is to

• send my first draft to two friends
• get feedback from them, then put the story on this forum with any improvements from said feedback
• wait until I get a handful of critiques
• implement changes as these responses come in

I worry if I had only waited a little longer I might have got an acceptance. There's always more one can do, of course.

Interested to hear your thoughts on this.

Thanks.

T.

 

"A work of art is never completed, only abandoned."—Nobody is quite sure who said it first.

 

Suppose so, Xoic. I suppose one aught to just let go of one's own anxieties and doubts. I think that's the only real response any writer can give, so I'll just ask if I you--and anyone else reading--have a particular system you employ? Do you find you stick to this or does it vary from story to story? My system is pretty much always the same. I think the only variance comes when I feel the current work is strong, so I hold it back for a while.

Thanks.

 

i dont think im ever really done. like Xoic said... it just gets abandoned.
i have works that i continuously tweak. i have works that are published, but i cant read them because i'll see something i want to fix or add. I've interviewed a few established authors (for my job) via live stream. 2 of them, i've asked this question. one says she's continuously critiquing her novel, even though its been years since it came out. another, who ended up on the New York Times Bestseller, she says she wishes she could change quite a bit, and often reads it and thinks "ugh, i cant believe i wrote that!"
a 3rd basically said "its done when its published"

 

In writing I can't really say, because I've finished so few stories. I mean, I used to finish a lot of short stories when my standards were a lot lower—they were all basically first drafts though.*

With a drawing or painting it seems to be different. I reach a point where it's totally satisfactory, and I know from lots of experience when more tampering will just screw it up. But not all artists feel that way.

The scene I remember most clearly from The Power and the Glory (I think that's the name of it, about Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling) was a montage where each time the Pope would come in and ask "When will you make an end of it?" Mike would reply "When it is finished." This went on for a ridiculously long time and caused a massive falling-out between them. Guess who won that one? And guess who refused to back off on his implacable will anyway?

Leonardo was infamous for never giving up his commissions. He'd contract to do a painting and then he'd labor on it endlessly, for years or maybe decades in some cases. His clients would send angry texts (I believe they used carrier pigeons in those days—angry birds) demanding to know when they would receive their painting. In one case the client took it and installed it in his mansion, and Leo kept sneaking in at night (the wife let him in I think) and working on it right there on the wall. Was he also sleeping with the wife? I don't remember, but I think the client at least accused him of it and there was a big kerfuffle. Ah, the ever-demanding muse. She takes all our best and only demands more.

* Not true, I did edit some of them come to think of it. As with drawings and paintings, I just could feel when they were done, and when I was about to start over-working it.

 

Personally? When the changes I'm making, even with feedback, aren't making things noticeably better, just different. It's a logarithmic curve of work put in to improvement going out. Eventually, I'll approach the skill cap of what I'm currently capable of and the only way to 'level up' is to keep practicing writing something new. Of course, this is in the case where I do want to edit until it's polished. Often I'll let the story go when I hit 'the end' or just do a round of editing on my own because I don't plan on doing anything fancy with the story, it was for me.

 

When the project both feels complete and my interest in perfecting it more is mitigated to trifling changes.

Personally, i like to draft, review quick, toss to a couple betas, and then stick in a folder for a very long time. If I revisit the story and the only changes I feel are necessary are minor ones, that story is more than good. At that point its time to move on

*Edit: Mind you all, this is for short stories and poems.

 

It's never done, but once its published, I let the revisions go.

 

ideally you would be able to polish it down to the point where you're fussing over commas, and then you would put it away for two years and forget about it, and then you would give it one more pass and send it along. but these conditions rarely exist.

and the point where you call a story done varies depending on your experience, you circumstances and your production support team, so your definition of done will change as time goes on, but very loosely speaking, when you have done every reasonable step you feel you needed to do.

I used to do multiple revision passes on a short work. now i write it, get someone to read it and point out anywhere that stuck out to them, and then decide if I agree. if i do, i fix it, and then i get rid of it as fast as i can. because there will always be one more thing to fix. you have to decide when to abandon the process, and that interval gets shorter as you gain experience.

however. it might take you longer to write the draft than it used to.

 

I'm at the same point. I've been working on my MS for a year and have revised several times, and applied beta feedback. There are still things I'm not sure about, but I don't know how to make them better. So I think I've got to take the plunge (into my pockets!) and hire a professional developmental editor. It's a big leap, because I know if I do, I'll have to publish it somehow. And that's something I've never done. Yet.

 

At a point which the story feels dragged off with filler from after it is where the story ends, when all the key plot points are achieved and the main characters have nothing related to the story left to do and the moral of the story is revealed. Thats where the story ends, maybe when cliffhangers seem to appropriately fit in thats where a story ends in my opinion.

 

As well as when grammar and spelling is properly written

 

Agree with TK. When the goal of the story has been reached, whether the ending is happy or not. You may not know how your story is going to end when you start writing, but somewhere along the way, whether it's in the plotting or the actual writing, a lightbulb will come on, and you'll have your ending. Once you get there, you're done. You don't need to ramble on about what the characters did afterward. If you have subplots that need to be tied up in addition to the archplot, you tied them up first. Forget the epilogue concept. When your story is done, it's done. Move on to the next one.

 

I'll just leave this here:



It's from The Agony and the Ecstasy, starring Charlton Heston and Rex Harrison.

 

That's exactly what I was talking about above when I said this:

Oops! Agony and Ecstasy, not Power and Glory! My bad!!

 

My first novel was a resurrected hand-written work out of storage. I started in June 2014 and published in November 2018. I pulled it back several times for editing and finally had to have it professionally edited. I went through it one more time and still there were comments. I went nuclear and sent it to the Online Bookclub, which sent it out to four hundred reviewers all getting paid to find mistakes. I worked through those ten at a time. In the beginning, I was grateful and made all the changes. But now when someone tries to point out an error, I'm real defensive and will fight tooth a nail over the correctness of my book. So it really was finished by 2019, except I made it an audiobook plus a French and Spanish translation. Thank God I'm done....

 

they probably had more to say, but just never got round to it.

 

To me, a story is done when it has been told. How well or poorly the telling is has no bearing on where/when/how the end arrives.

Editing, revisions, proof reading, more revisions, ad nauseum, do not complete a story - they only add to it or subtract from it. These are just details an author tends to after the story is done.

 

George Lucas once said: "Movies aren't released, they escape."
But considering the state the original Star Wars is in today, his catch & release program might need some work.

I'd say a story is done when you're dead, and even that might be debatable, depending on your level of success.
I've got my thing at the typesetter and I just have to force myself to only look at the manuscript anymore when I need to check the work they did. The moment I start reading actual words, I will find things that need changin'.
I'm sure even if the current top-shelf editor came to me and said "this is so perfect, it will bring world peace" I can find a reason to go "Eh. Are you sure?"
Be good for my ego, though.

 

You mean the single most iconic and influential piece of individual cinematic pop-culture of all time, bar none? I think it's great.

 

George Lucas, who released the original Star Wars and then recaptured it and edited it after audiences had seen it. Han shot first.

 

Not to hijack the thread, as a Star Wars discussion will definitely do, but I wholeheartedly agree with you. I saw Return Of The Jedi so many times that I'm ashamed to even guess at the actual number. I even kinda enjoy the prequels, provided you adhere to the Machete order. But I'm going to guess we might agree that the original trilogy was already as good as it could get before it got special editioned. If anything absolutely had to be done, he might have stuck to polishing lightsabers and the occasional background bantha.

My point exactly.
A whole character defined in mere seconds, ruined by the archaic idea that the good guy needs to be completely good.

 

When the pain of looking at it is outweighed by the pain of 'fixing it'! I'm never 'done' with my photography, but my pathetic attempts at fiction seems to lead to easy despair.

 

After writing the story, I re-read it several times and make grammatical and stylistic corrections. After that I read the story aloud again and if I like everything, it's ready.