How Do You Know When A Story Is Complete?

[ShelbyDawn57]

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.

Once I've got the story told, I move works to a pending folder where they will stew for days, weeks, months, and in a few rare cases more than a year. I revisit those pending stories on a regular basis, and when I can read through one twice without making and changes, it's done.

 

[TiberiusPrime]

-30-

That's how.

 

[madelinemasoch]

-30-

That's how.

I don’t get it. Can you explain?

 

[TiberiusPrime]

I don’t get it. Can you explain?

YEARS ago newspaper writers put "-30-" at the end of their article to indicate that it was finished. Essentially it was shorthand for "the end". It's still used in press releases I believe.

 

[JenniferSmithJones]

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…

In general, things have gone about as far as they can go when they have gotten as bad as they can get. The end wraps up the threads and any other dangling issue (unless NOT resolving them is part of the story or leads to a sequel!), write "Fini," spell and grammar check, read through it three more times and post it up!

There's a lot of useless advice in writing: never use passive voice. Nope. Sometimes passive voice is what is needed to keep a story moving! Some people will say "never use the word "was." Toss that one in the trash, too. Basically, anytime anyone says, "Never do this in your writing!," they have just revealed they may be grammatically correct, but in terms of telling a story, they could have done better.

Mark Twain said, "Usually, a story is best told in as few words as possible. But not always!" Jerry Pournelle said, "A story is like a train. There's a bunch of moving parts, but everything is going in the same direction." So keep it moving. Don't bog your story down in endless detail that adds nothing to the story (case in point: one very successful writer of military science fiction has, in my mind, one thing that keeps him from being up there with Clancy: when he writes a spaceship scene, he goes into endless detail. The number and types of rivest used, different materials in the hull in different parts of the ship, it goes on and on. He writes a great story, if you can wade through the endless, pointless, exposition that does not move the story!

And all of this is utterly subjective. Plonk any two writers down at a table for lunch, and they can't even decide what to have for lunch even if there is only one item on the menu! Writing style is like that, multiplied by infinity.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

One of the challenges for many of us is that we are essentially writing "slice of life".
In a typical story, the story is over when the conflict is resolved. In our genre sometimes that's obvious, and sometimes it isn't.
If the story turns on a "will Becky and Tommy end up in bed together" then the climax is, well, the climax. Story is over.
But sometimes it's not so obvious. If Becky and Tommy are in an ongoing relationship then when is it over? If we are just watching their relationship grow and develop (and that can make for a great story) when is the end? Some people's relationships grow and develop over 70 or 80 years (would that we were all so lucky), what's the stopping point for any particular slice?
Hard to say.

 

[SkyBubble]

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…

I'm doing final edits on one now.