Thread: When do you know you have finished?

I feel I am nearing the end of a particular story. I have made starts on a second story but only to test the water of the new story/idea. Does anyone instinctively know when they have finished with one story? Or is it like the expression "A book is never finished, only abandoned."?

I love that quote, though there are too many conflicting opinions on who first said it (and whether it was about art, poetry, writing, etc).

Personally, I have three different stages that count as finished.

1. I've got the story out and it's presentable. Yay! Time to move on and ignore it for a while.

2. I've revised it and revised it and fixed it up and am willing to send it places and have people read it.

3. This means the work is perfect and exists in ideal form. This stage is unattainable. Whenever I re-read my works, I feel the need to fiddle with them and change lines here and there.

Originally Posted by j.w.olson

I love that quote, though there are too many conflicting opinions on who first said it (and whether it was about art, poetry, writing, etc).

Personally, I have three different stages that count as finished.

1. I've got the story out and it's presentable. Yay! Time to move on and ignore it for a while.

2. I've revised it and revised it and fixed it up and am willing to send it places and have people read it.

3. This means the work is perfect and exists in ideal form. This stage is unattainable. Whenever I re-read my works, I feel the need to fiddle with them and change lines here and there.

Thanks for this. I would say I am at stage 2 but I am not willing to send it anywhere yet but I am letting people I know read it. I have to do more copy editing but I want to get feedback from someone who is reading it now. I suppose the 3rd stage is out of reach for everyone and am not thinking of getting there with anything.

Well thanks ThePoetic, I will digest your post over the day! It gives a lot of food for thought.

I think there is more truth to the statement about stories never being finished than most people either realize or will admit. There will always be a word, a sentence a passage (or two or fifty) in a story that could be improved. I have never read a book that did not have such quirks. What authors need to do is simply know when those quirks are down to an acceptable level and move on. Otherwise they never will.

Currently I am having this problem with my first intended for submission short story and just blogged about it on my site this morning. Knowing when something is "good enough" is hard.

You are technically finished when you write the final word. You're properly finished when you are happy with everything up to the final word.
However, it is hard to attain that final statement. I would say it is a term of contempment, not perfection. If you can read it, and say it's fine, it's fine. You don't have to see it as a masterpiece or the pinnacle of your work. Just be happy with it. I you're not happy with it, you're not finished.

I'm finished when I realize that no matter how dissatisfied I may or may not be with the story, there is nothing more I can add that really makes it any better. Different, perhaps, but not better. It's like knowing to stop editing when you're merely exchanging one word for another and they mean the same thing.

With short stories, I finish when the story I wanted to tell comes to the end. Yes the character goes on other adventures I am sure, but I do not care about that or I simply do not know it. Sometimes the ending is open, sometimes it is final, when I'm done, it's just done. I don't know how I know, I just do.
With novels, I know it's done when the whole thing comes to a conclusion, the entire driving point of the novel is finished with.

I never really think about it, I just accept it as the end and don't question it. Generally the only time I only continue the story is if I want to see where it goes. I do have a few stores (by few I mean most!) that could continue but I am not really interested in where it goes when I am done with it, at least not at that point in time. Though this probably come downs to my output which is a lot and I try to keep the schedule going so I don't linger on short stories like I could otherwise.