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More Planning & Editing

I spent the last week editing my noir and continuing to plan my space opera. When do I know I'm done?


I split my time across two of my writing projects this past week. I started laying out the scenes/beats of my space opera and managed 45. I try to have around 100. This allows me to not only include actual scenes, but images and reminders. I find this combination works well for me. Right now it’s just a bullet list. Once I have gotten my 100, I’ll rearrange them into a more coherent order and remove any reminders into a separate list. There is a lot of planning left.

I also completed (yet another) editing pass through my noir. I’m still finding issues. I’ve made around 20 passes and this got me to wondering, how do I decide when something is “done”? I’m not a perfectionist. I know there will always be things that slip through into the finished book. So, when do I say, “It’s ready.”?

If I look at it objectively, it comes down to a balance of risk vs. reward. The risk being, I and others will find the book sloppy and not enjoy it for all the issues. The other factor in risk is time fixing vs. what is being fixed. If I spend a day fixing a typo, that’s not worth it to me, but a day rewriting a paragraph that’s a more difficult consideration.

Note that I said “enjoy” and not “like”. Enjoying something, to me, is more emotional than liking that thing. I’d rather have readers enjoy what I write than like it. I’m drawing a fine distinction, I know. When I write, I try to write the best book I can, but I know it probably won’t be “great” or literature. So, for me, writing is more about having someone read my book and enjoy it for the story than for the technical brilliance, or literary worth it may have. [It’s not that I don’t strive for this, or wouldn’t like it if it happened.] I want the reader to have a fun ride first.

That’s the objective analysis. The emotional consideration of when I know I’m done is more nebulous. I can tire of editing and rewriting, but I can stop for a day (or a week) and pick it up with fresh eyes. I can get frustrated and do the same thing. I can edit and rewrite until I find no problems. Note that there will always be problems, but they are ones I’ve missed, and hopefully there will be few of them. I’m fine with that. If a major issue is found after publication, I can address it in a new version.

I stop when I think my work is “good enough”: when I no longer find obvious issues, when I feel I’ve spent enough time on the process, and when further work won’t progress the story or quality further.

Each writer struggles with the “it’s done” problem and has to decide for themselves how to handle it. There are no rules. There are no absolutes. We, each strive for different things when we write. Finish, when you believe it’s good enough.

Word up!