How do you know it’s time to pull the trigger?

[Victoria14xs]

Hello, all you vastly more experienced writer-folk…
I write what I suppose y’all would refer to as stroke stories. That said, I obsess over them, taking typically a couple weeks to write and rewrite each.
As I polish a story, I find myself thinking it’s ‘there,’ and mentally flirt with the notion of posting. But then I back off for no clearly-discernible reason and set it aside. This happens - I dunno - five, six times before I actually pull the trigger.
Do you have some better way of knowing? A metric? A firm process?

I’m sitting on one now, itching to post it. Hence the question…

 

[MelissaBaby]

The perfect is the enemy of the good. There will always be that nagging feeling that it could be a little bit better, or that you can't possibly have found every typo, but at some point you have to just send it out into the world. There's no formula, no certain process. Every "submit" is a leap of faith.

 

[Winter_Fare]

Read through until I can't find any more typos and other fixes. Leave it for a week, then read through again. If I need to make plot or story changes repeat step one, until it's gone a week and I'm happy basically.

 

[Bamagan]

The opposite of how you know when brownies are done...

 

[Winter_Fare]

Yours is a level of restraint with which I’m unfamiliar…

But seriously, how can you reread for typos and such, and resist the urge to rewrite here and there?

I don't, I constantly rewrite as I'm rereading until it's done. I think that helps with dialogue especially, tweaking what the character says until they really have their own voice that stands out.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Yours is a level of restraint with which I’m unfamiliar…

But seriously, how can you reread for typos and such, and resist the urge to rewrite here and there?

Perhaps you should recruit a beta reader, and let them make the call whether or not the story is ready to go, or needs any reworking.

 

[AchtungNight]

Pull the trigger? I presume you mean scrap or publish. What I do is call up an alternative personality I’ve developed who is my editor and alpha reader. She looks over the story and we fix inconsistencies, grammar errors and so forth. Sometimes she calls in other characters in my mind who help me address plot holes and other serious problems. When my inner editor is satisfied I publish. If she’s too disturbed or not into the story, I know it needs more work. If fixing the story bothers me more than publishing it, time to scrap. Sometimes I have also called in beta readers or other editors, but my network of those is lacking these days. And my stories must always clear the alpha reader first.

 

[Winter_Fare]

There are a few live writing threads on the forum, if I want a quick fix I do that. And I have bashed out a couple of quickies too, but I'm assuming you're talking about proper stories with plot, maybe even chapters. In that case it's best to wait until you really are done imo because regret otherwise, and unnecessary edits xxx

 

[Djmac1031]

Oh I've been there. So I can relate.

There's no such thing as too much editing, IMO.

The true problem stems from self doubt: "Is it GOOD enough?"

That's a hard one to get past sometimes.

I spent weeks agonizing over my Nude Day story because I felt it wasn't "good enough."

Finding a beta reader can be helpful, get an outside, unbiased opinion.

In the end though, if it's good enough for you, it'll be good enough for an audience.

 

[Bamagan]

Um….still rollin’ this one around in my head…

It's not a very good joke anyway, best to let it fade into a dignified obscurity

 

[bumpercars]

It's not a very good joke anyway, best to let it fade into a dignified obscurity

You made us all hungry for brownies, so you can feel good about that.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I write until I have a relatively complete story. Then I format it to post in draft, and I copy that daft post and paste it into a Speech2Go app and listen to the spoken story. After a few iterations of reviewing the spoken text and fixing the misspellings and word flow ... and adding other ideas ... I'll finally click on "Publish". THEN I'll continue listening to the story and find even MORE things which should be fixed!!! ARRRGGGG!!!!

I might bite the bullet and fix the most offensive of those. But even after I let it go to public, I'll still find something stupid which I should have caught!

Perfect is the enemy of "good enough". I've realized that even if it's perfect in my own expectations, ... there will still be 1-bombers hating it.

"Let it go!"

 

[ElectricBlue]

It's never a problem for me. When a story is finished, it's finished. I use a rolling edit process, working over the previous portion before I start writing the next, so when it's finished, it's one or two read throughs for final coherence, then I submit.

By then, I'm onto the next thing, or back to something on hold. I couldn't do all this tinkering about with stories that so many people seem to do. I'm lucky, I think, in that my first draft is always pretty clean - I'm a stream of consciousness writer, so most of the cooking is done subconsciously, and doesn't need much done to it once it's on the page.

 

[Bamagan]

I confess I don’t know what that is. I guess not an editor, or you’d have said editor…

And it's not a submissive, either, I was shocked to learn. Basically just means a test audience of one or two people who give feedback.

 

[Bamagan]

It’s pretty fuckin’ sweet, rolling into a group of folks who I sense kinda all know one another, and be the one dumbass who can’t get the joke.
“I spit on myself!”

Don't fret, I'm new here too and it's not an in joke, just a poorly executed one.

 

[MelissaBaby]

It's never a problem for me. When a story is finished, it's finished. I use a rolling edit process, working over the previous portion before I start writing the next, so when it's finished, it's one or two read throughs for final coherence, then I submit.

By then, I'm onto the next thing, or back to something on hold. I couldn't do all this tinkering about with stories that so many people seem to do. I'm lucky, I think, in that my first draft is always pretty clean - I'm a stream of consciousness writer, so most of the cooking is done subconsciously, and doesn't need much done to it once it's on the page.

My problem is that I run so many motifs and threads through my stories that I go back again and again to make sure they are all tied together properly.

 

[AchtungNight]

Perfect is the enemy of "good enough". I've realized that even if it's perfect in my own expectations, ... there will still be 1-bombers hating it.

"Let it go!"

Perfectionism is an enemy, yes. For my God of War adult fanfic (which I wrote playing on a high difficulty level) I had to bring in some imaginary beta readers based on squirrels from the most recent God of War video game. Anxiety, Arrogance, Bitterness, and Perfectionism. With Ratatoskr to keep the others in line.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I confess I don’t know what that is. I guess not an editor, or you’d have said editor…

It’s a trusted reader, who will give you honest advice and suggestions for improvement. Different from an editor, because they don’t make changes themselves.

 

[alohadave]

This happens - I dunno - five, six times before I actually pull the trigger.
Do you have some better way of knowing?

When any changes you make aren't making it better, they are just changes to tweak. Then you've done all you can, and you should push it out into the world.

At some point you have to declare it finished. And I promise you that when it's posted, you'll find an error really fast. It's a law of nature. Learn to accept it and let it go.

 

[AchtungNight]

My problem is that I run so many motifs and threads through my stories that I go back again and again to make sure they are all tied together properly.

Fortunately my inner editor is into all the same stuff I am, so they can handle this. There’s also plenty of differences between us to keep things interesting- she’s a polyamorous bisexual freethinker agnostic female police psychologist and I’m a monogamous but cupertic straight spiritual agnostic male factory technician with a degree in history. History was her minor in college. We’re both committed geeks for comics, video games, celebrity gossip, and various other things. It also helps that she’s my ideal significant other, but I know when to shut her down should I meet a real woman who mirrors her as an earthly echo in various ways (it’s happened many times, I was married to one such woman for almost a decade and she too was a beta reader for me for a time).

 

[Bramblethorn]

I confess I don’t know what that is. I guess not an editor, or you’d have said editor…

You'll probably get a few different definitions in this thread. In general "beta reading" is a bit more subjective than "editing" and perhaps with less technical depth/expertise expected; in some settings "editor" might imply formal credentials. But "editor" covers a wide range of things, and on Literotica these terms are used informally and not always consistently. So it's generally better to be explicit about expectations rather than relying on a shared expectation about what "beta-read" or "editor" means.

FWIW, I posted a How-To on editing recently: https://literotica.com/s/editors-notes-changes

It's not intended as a pattern for every author-editor interaction, just as an example of how one particular collaboration worked, but I have a bit of discussion there about the kinds of things authors and editors/beta-readers might want to agree on up front.

 

[Djmac1031]

I meant publish. But you‘re causing me to reflect. So far, it’s never occurred to me to scrap a story but if I keep at this, I can certainly imagine that could/ought to become a possible outcome.

To follow up on my earlier comment, I almost scrapped my Nude Day story.

I struggled for weeks to commit to a direction, and once I finally did, I struggled more over whether I'd made the right choice.

I consulted with friends here, had them read some or all of it. Got candid feedback, but ultimately it was still up to me to decide if it was even working, let alone interesting.

I pushed through; finished it. Struggled with the ending, but eventually found it.

I edited so often I got sick of reading it.

Finally, I published the damn thing.

My Daughter The Nudist currently sits with a respectable 4.46 rating after 394 votes and 31.7K views.

16 comments, only one of them negative.

I have other stories with higher ratings, more views, more comments and praise.

But it certainly wasn't the failure I expected it to be.

Most readers seemed to enjoy it.

Good enough for me.

 

[AchtungNight]

I meant publish. But you‘re causing me to reflect. So far, it’s never occurred to me to scrap a story but if I keep at this, I can certainly imagine that could/ought to become a possible outcome.

I’ve scrapped plenty of stories. Some I’ve redrafted and revised before publication. It happens. Be ready.

 

[John_Vandermeer]

Victoria, i get the impression a lot of folk here advocate for way more editing than a very sizable contingent of Lit authors (that dont hang out it AH) ever undertake. For me, if I tried to be so perfectionist, I would never publish. i am an 80/20 publisher. I feel 20% of work gets me 80% there, and i tend to release my stories seriously undercooked. Yet somebody still always loves them (and plenty hate them).

In any case, the point is to have fun, publish, and share with the world your unique talent. I actually have previously read a couple of your stories and I absolutely love them. No need to be hard on yourself. Then again, I am one of those avowed foot guys that can be disarmed in less than a second flat just by the skilful dangling of a pretty pair of pumps from a pretty pair of feet (hence the avatar). I do wish your stories got past the footplay, no matter how hot the footplay. So I am all for improvement. But my point is, you are starting from an awesome base. Dont even consider giving up! Or think you are not adding something “better writers” are not even addresing at all. Get better sure, but just keep publishing.

 

[JGittes]

I write long stories that I find in the editing process. I thought about detailing that process, but I don't want this post to get as long as most of my stories.

The single thing I've found that has helped bring the editing to an end is to print the story on paper for what I hope is the final edit. It's too easy to keep changing things on the keyboard.

I usually go through three printed runs. The first is a messy, major rewrite for plot and coherence. The second is the ruthless cutting of unnecessary words. The third is a minor tweak. I find that often as not, since it's on paper and I make the changes with a pencil, the change makes it worse and I can erase it. That's when I know to publish.