How Do You Know When A Story Is Complete?

[madelinemasoch]

There was another thread like this recently but I’d like to raise the question again. How do you know when a story is complete and you’ve finished it? I’m realizing once again how truly bad at finishing stories I am. I started what I thought would be a short story (with a starting estimate of 10-15k words) in March and now I’m still adding to it in May, having discovered it’s actually a novella (at 34k words currently).

I do little spurts of work on it and intuitively new things come up, meditatively new things come up, in the typing process itself new things come up, in editing the first part of the story new things come up… I don’t know when I’ll feel ready to publish my first work back here after my long hiatus, but I know I want it to be this one. I just don’t know when I’ll be all ready to let this bird fly or feel like nothing else could be added or changed and made better about this story.

What helps you finish? Do you have a technique or editing process that ensures your stories are complete? I just want it to be true as it possibly could to the original ideas that compose it. It feels like that process will never end…

 

[Erozetta]

When the characters stop telling me their story, I stop writing it and send it to editing. Add and remove what's suggested as I see fit, and move on.

 

[Bazzle]

When the story arc is either told, or at a convenient break.

When you have a natural conclusion. When more sex is just life. When no sex is life.

When your characters have the answer they were looking for.

When your characters have lost what they had.

When you are ready

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I almost always start out with the conclusion in mind and work backwards.

Not literally, like Ending, next-to-last chapter, 13, 12, 11 ... I do know where most of my stories will end before I start 'em

-Annie

 

[madelinemasoch]

I almost always start out with the conclusion in mind and work backwards.

Not literally, like Ending, next-to-last chapter, 13, 12, 11 ... I do know where most of my stories will end before I start 'em

-Annie

I'm not really asking about the ending–in this case, that's already done. I mean when you're finished with writing it as a whole.

 

[Voboy]

For me, the ending always makes itself known around 7-10k words in. I then navigate from there to the end.

That’s how I know it’s done.

If the story, as it develops, never lets me know how it wants to end? I give it a reasonable amount of time, then abandon it.

 

[Justplainjeff]

With each of my stories, I usually know about halfway in what I want for an ending. I've written multiple endings for many of my stories, and redone them before submitting them. I guess whatever looks right to the author is the correct ending. There really isn't a "correct" answer to this question.

 

[madelinemasoch]

With each of my stories, I usually know about halfway in what I want for an ending. I've written multiple endings for many of my stories, and redone them before submitting them. I guess whatever looks right to the author is the correct ending. There really isn't a "correct" answer to this question.

I don't mean the literal ending of the story. I mean the ending of the act of writing it. I already have my ending set in stone.

 

[Voboy]

I don't mean the literal ending of the story. I mean the ending of the act of writing it. I already have my ending set in stone.

That’s why I mentioned what I did: you navigate toward that ending. There’s no need for endless tweaks or doubt. If your characters are interesting, and your writing is true to their natures, you’ll be done when they are.

 

[Voyeurkenneth]

If the beats are all there and the only thing left is wordsmithing, then I do 3-4 full sweeps of wordsmithing alongside a Grammarly grammar check (no AI revisions!) and a TTS review. Then I can usually feel comfortable calling it done.

 

[TheRedChamber]

If we're talking about the act of pushing the story out of the door...

Either a) when my beta readers tell me they happy with it or b) when making my beta readers happy would make me unhappy.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

You how a canvas can have different sizes, depending on your purchase? Like that. It's a simple as thinking what do I want to write, and then put a wordcount on it as a deadline. In other words, I pick the amount of words I have to use, and use them.

Say, for instance, the deadline is 3000 words. My goal is not to use all 3000 words, but to reach to at least 2700 words. If I meet 3000, good. If I go beyond that, great, but it's better to not go to the next thousand. Having clear limits is good because it keeps you focused on what matters, and my way to have limits is in the same way I did back when I did political caricatures: have a clear size of the canvas, and use it completely.

Many years ago, before I made the switch to erotica, I actually had the chance to handwrite around 13K words in a single A5 notebook that had 96 pages. It worked pretty well. Sure, it was a novelette, but it was the beginning of something major, and even though I ended it with a cliffhanger, the whole thing kicked off amazingly. It was a matter of learning how to distribute your work by working with the space that you have available. If you don't have clear limits, you might going to end up laying a million bricks in a row, and thinking it'll suddenly turn into a house.

This approach always worked for me, regardless as to whether I am plantsing, pantsing, or plotting. That 13K novelette? I pantsed the whole thing.

This is how I make sure it is complete. I also don't use subplots for short stories, and if I do, I try to have as little as possible. If they don't get resolved... well, that's what sequels are for anyway.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

In general, I don't ever wonder when I'm done with the first-draft writing. There's a moment when all the parts are there, and I know it.

I know I'm done revising when I make a pass through the story and the changes I make don't improve it enough to be worth the time I spent.

--Annie

 

[ChloeTzang]

How do you know when a story is complete and you’ve finished it?

The competition deadline for submissions is 5 minutes away. Therefore the story IS complete!!!!

What helps you finish? Do you have a technique or editing process that ensures your stories are complete?

A deadline, adrenaline and endless supplies of coffee do it for me. Without a deadline I will procrastinate endlessly.......

 

[TheRedChamber]

A deadline, adrenaline and endless supplies of coffee do it for me. Without a deadline I will procrastinate endlessly.......

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." - Douglas Adams

 

[Cagivagurl]

Just my opinion, but....
No story is ever finished...
You set out to tell a little slice of life from your characters life.
Often I have found, one slice opens a crack into an unopened crevice...
And so is bred, "Chapter 2." Or as many as needed...
A story is like a life you give to a pile of words. Characters grow, evolve, change. Develop different drama's...
You could go on forever, but.
The story you set out to tell, is finished, when. You think it is... If it feels complete... or as with me. I'm sick and tired of it.

That as they say is life...

Cagivagurl

 

[madelinemasoch]

Just my opinion, but....
No story is ever finished...
You set out to tell a little slice of life from your characters life.
Often I have found, one slice opens a crack into an unopened crevice...
And so is bred, "Chapter 2." Or as many as needed...
A story is like a life you give to a pile of words. Characters grow, evolve, change. Develop different drama's...
You could go on forever, but.
The story you set out to tell, is finished, when. You think it is... If it feels complete... or as with me. I'm sick and tired of it.

That as they say is life...

Cagivagurl

There's a certain beauty to that way of looking at it.

 

[VallesMarineris]

There's a certain beauty to that way of looking at it.

"An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it." -- Paul Valery

 

[TheRedChamber]

"An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it." -- Paul Valery

He's fed up of waiting for the next Game of Thones book too?

 

[TheLobster]

"An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it." -- Paul Valery

Or, if you can overlook the morbid origin of the quote:

But a poem story is never actually finished.
It simply stops moving.

 

[StillStunned]

I edit as I go. So the story is constantly shifting, both what I've already written and what I thought I'd write. When I reach the conclusion, I go back to double-check for consistency and maybe drop a few crumbs here and there. Then Read Aloud and off it goes. By that point any further effort will yield diminishing returns.

 

[onehitwanda]

When there's nothing that needs to be changed, and nothing more to take away.

 

[Plathfan]

It never really is... but at some point, you need to let it go.

 

[MorraRose]

Resolve main conflict and tie up most of the loose ends.

Beta reader’s response.

Sick of it and ready to move on.

 

[jehoram]

When I re-read a work in progress and can't find anything I need to do to make it any better, I consider it done. For some stories, it's after only a few readings, and for others, well, they're still in the hopper. But I keep them around because some of them may have useful pieces for other stories.