Since I finished The Professor of Eventide, I’ve had some time to think about how I know when a book is finished. At what point is the book done done and at what point am I still tinkering just for the sake of changing things? 

I’ll start with the obvious answer: every author is different and has their own way of knowing. Some authors may not know for certain and they simply made the decision that they have done everything they could for the story. Maybe sometimes an editor is involved and it’s the editor’s call when a story is finished. 

As a former executive editor of a literary magazine, I can verify that sometimes the issue with a story–and the reason I chose not to publish it–was that the story felt unfinished somehow, like something was missing. There were some stories where it felt as if the authors kept circling some idea but never quite reached it. I would argue that such stories weren’t finished. Perhaps the authors made changes that didn’t improve the story. Perhaps some aspect of the story wasn’t clear in the writing. Simply finishing a first draft and then fixing the typos isn’t enough to finish a story. The pieces of the plot puzzle have to fit together in a way that makes the picture complete. 

The problem with that, and what makes writing fiction far more difficult than it looks, is being able to spot the problems in the story. Sometimes as the author, it’s too hard for us to see the structural problems in our stories. It’s similar to how it’s hard to spot our own typos. When we read our own work, our eyes see what they expect to see, and so they don’t catch that your finger slipped and there’s a mistake. It’s the same with problems in our story. Perhaps we know what’s going on in a character’s mind, but it’s not on the page so the reader doesn’t know, and therefore the character’s actions don’t make sense. 

There’s a wonderful section in Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird where she talks about how she was writing a novel and her agent (or publisher, or editor–I can’t remember which and I’m too lazy to look it up) kept telling her the book wasn’t good. She told the agent (or publisher, or editor) everything about the characters and their motivations and why things happened the way they did, and the agent (or publisher, or editor) told her yeah, but none of that is on the page. As authors, we need to remember that our readers aren’t in our heads. If something isn’t on the page, we can’t expect anyone else to know it. Readers can’t read our minds, which is probably a good thing in my case. If there’s missing information in your story, then your story isn’t finished. 

The number one tip I can offer to writers is to learn to detach your creator from your editor. This is one of the oldest writing adages, but it’s also one of the truest. I learned how to do this because, as an editor, I was reading thousands of submissions by people who weren’t me, so I learned how to read manuscripts as an impartial judge. In time, I learned to give my own work that same impartial judgment. 

After you’ve finished with your draft, put it away for two weeks, a month, or however long you need to give yourself some distance. Then forget that you wrote it. Forget everything in your head that you know about the characters, their motivations, and the events and why they happen, and pretend that someone else wrote it. If you were a reader who paid money to read that book, would you like it? Why or why not? If you bought that book from another author, would you give it one star or five stars? You have to be brutally honest with yourself here. You’re not doing yourself or your story any favors by saying it’s the greatest story yet written when it has so many plot holes it resembles Swiss cheese. Once you can detach yourself from your work, you can see what you did well and what you still need to fix. 

Through my more than 20 years as an editor, I realized that there are different kinds of “needs fixing” when it comes to storytelling. First is when a piece is structurally unfinished, meaning that something in the structure–the beginning, middle, or end–doesn’t quite work. Maybe there’s a character whose arc isn’t resolved, or there’s a question raised in Act 1 that isn’t resolved, or there’s an inconsistency between characters and their actions. I found this to be a common problem in stories I read for The Copperfield Review–this sense of ideas presented that were dropped or forgotten through the storytelling process. Remember Chekov’s gun. It’s well-known among writers for a reason. 

Another kind of “needs fixing” is when some aspect of a story is emotionally unfinished. Maybe the structure is okay, but something (almost always it’s a character) feels hollow. Remember that stories need to be emotionally true, and what happens beneath the surface is just as important as the obvious.

Then there’s the personal kind of “needs fixing” which is more about the author than the work itself. Maybe the work is actually finished but the author is afraid or not ready to let it go. This is where perfectionism comes into play, which is something I struggle with. As far as I’m concerned, nothing is ever good enough, and there’s always something to be improved. And while that’s always true to a degree, at a certain point you have to make the decision that you’ve done what you can. For me, if the story is structurally sound and has emotional truth, and those pesky typos are gone, it’s time to let the story go on its way out into the big world.

So Then To Answer the Question…

How do I know when a story is finished (or not)? 

I know because, with my editor’s hat on, I can sit down and read my own book as if someone else wrote it and I like what I’m reading. There are no more changes that need to be made. Nothing needs to be added or subtracted. The pieces of the puzzle are all in place. Everything is properly connected. The characters come to life and their motivations are clear (even if that clearness doesn’t come until later in the story). There are no holes where information in my head isn’t on the page for readers to find. The story and the characters feel complete. When a story is finished, I feel as if it’s not mine anymore. Now the story belongs to the readers. 

If you want to be a writer, then you have to release your stories into the world. Releasing our stories is a decision made from a position of having done what we can to make our stories the very best they can be. It’s my way of saying I’ve brought this novel into the world to the best of my abilities. Look, everyone, I wrote you a story. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. The truth is, I wouldn’t release a book into the world if I wasn’t happy with it. And if I like it, maybe others will too.