"How do I know when it's done?"
That's a good question!
Writers taking in the view at Shadowcliff Lodge, Colorado, Flash Fiction Retreat.
Hi everyone! This February newsletter goes out to all my subscribers! Thanks, as always, for your support and readership.
One question I get asked a lot is: “How do you know when a story is ready to send out?” Ah, tough one! We want our work to be perfect, but it’s also quite possible to revise the life out of it. I’ll attempt to answer this very good question as best I can in today’s newsletter. But first, a few announcements.
Workshop THIS Saturday, Feb. 21st
There’s still time to register for this Saturday’s live online 3-in-90 workshop: “Originality of Form: Invention, Disruption, Play” 1:00 - 2:30 pm Eastern Time. Expect to come away from the session with THREE fresh, original drafts! Click the button below for more information and to sign up. All sessions recorded. NOTE: If you’ve already registered, you should have received the email with Webex link soon after signing up. Please locate it now (don’t wait until the last minute) and let me know if you’re not finding it. I’m happy to re-send.
Flash Immersion Extravaganza! Feb. 23rd - March 16th!
Our FOURTH paid subscriber extravaganza event will feature twenty-two days of 1) prompts, 2) sharing work, 3) giving each other positive feedback and encouragement, 4) a live online “Write-In,” and a 5) Reading / Salon Night. These flash intensives are a perk for monthly or annual subscribers and are always very popular. Consider upgrading to join us. You will get LOTS of writing done in a fun & inspiring, low stress atmosphere. If you’re a paid subscriber, there is nothing to sign up for, you’re automatically “in.” More details to follow.
And finally…Write with me in Grand Lake, Colorado this September! (Just TWO spaces remaining!)
Join Nancy Stohlman and me for a flash fiction writing retreat in the gorgeous Colorado Rocky Mountains, Sept. 15th - 20th. These retreats tend to fill up quickly!
“I just think the world of Nancy and Kathy. Thank you both for creating this magical retreat and space. You two are powerhouses, and yet you’re also supremely gentle and kind. Thank you for everything you did to make this trip happen. I cannot thank you enough. I hope to return to another retreat in the near future.” ~Kella Thompson
The everlasting question: How do we know when it’s “done?”
It’s mostly subjective, right? But there are some ways you can tell:
You’ve taken out a comma and put it back in 117 times (when you begin to obsess over small things, you’re no longer revising, you’re procrastinating. Send it out)
You’ve read it out loud, as you’ve been advised, many, MANY times and there are. no “hiccups.” (Hiccups are places where you struggle to read it out loud, you trip over the words or the cadence. There’s an awkwardness your voice can’t overcome. You can trick your eyes with a bad sentence, but never your ears. The emotion is comes through. You don’t feel the need to “dramatize” the reading, worthy of a Shakespearean actor, to put emotion in your voice that isn’t there on the page. The character who is “John” on page one isn’t “Jim” on page three (I’ve made this mistake!), and so forth.
Your very honest, very trusted, first reader says, “Send it out!” If you are very lucky to have such a trusted reader in your life, part of that trust is believing them when they say you’ve nailed it.
You STILL love your title! Please don’t underestimate the power of a great title. If you feel the slightest niggle that your title is just “meh” do give yourself time to come up with a better one. Sometimes this means setting the story aside for awhile. Give the problem to your subconscious to work on while you do other things. This has worked for me a surprising number of times.
Vividly imagine the story in print in one of your dream publications. Do you feel it belongs there? This is not to say only stories worthy of the New Yorker are “done” but be absolutely sure you’d feel nothing but pride to see your story in print. Or findable on the Internet. Sometimes in our zeal to publish, we send things out too soon (that’s me, guilty as charged, and I’ve always regretted it).
There’s not a single sentence or phrase that came automatically or “wrote itself.” Meaning: tired, overused language, descriptions, clichés. Could Chatgpt have spit this sentence out? Be scrupulous about this!
But try to avoid OVER revising…
How do you know when you’ve gone too far? You find yourself literally and figuratively “losing the plot.” You’ve lost your grasp on the story. We all know that uncomfortable, scattered feeling when a story that felt cohesive and artful begins to unravel because we start changing everything. And this is a GREAT reason to save ALL drafts!
There is a voice, at least for me, that is constantly telling me, “this could be better.” At some point that voice will go quiet and you know, in your gut, the story is beautiful and ready to go out to the world. What I mean is: Don’t allow the internal editor to override your intuition. Often, we know a piece is ready, but don’t trust ourselves.
In the end, you never really know for sure…
“A poem is never finished; it is only abandoned.” ~W. H. Auden (paraphrasing Paul Valéry)
I often tell writers that a piece is never truly finished. Art is an alive thing. Even after publication, your work is still malleable. Consider that when you begin to pull together a new collection, you have full permission to see each story with fresh eyes. You are not simply pasting your stories into a new document. You are creating a whole new piece of art. Now you may think of each piece in relation to the others. You have an overall theme or aesthetic to consider. I’ll talk more about collections in the future…
Don’t aim for perfection. It doesn’t exist.
“Perfectionism doesn't believe in practice shots. It doesn't believe in improvement. Perfectionism has never heard that anything worth doing is worth doing badly—and that if we allow ourselves to do something badly we might in time become quite good at it. Perfectionism measures our beginner's work against the finished work of masters. Perfectionism thrives on comparison and competition. It doesn't know how to say, ‘Good try,’ or ‘Job well done.’ The critic does not believe in creative glee—or any glee at all, for that matter.” –Julia Cameron
Have a great week, my friends! With love and gratitude, always…
Kathy
It's done when I lose interest and move on to other interesting sentences.
I can’t wait for tomorrow’s Extravaganza to start. I always walk away with a bunch of drafts to work on.