Writing Business, Part V

(Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV – all available for your reading pleasure. You’re welcome.)

And today? It’s all about completion. We must finish the things we start. Say it with me. Finish the things we start. Can I hear it again? Finish what we start.

This works on a few levels.

Please finish writing your book. Whether or not it ever gets published, or even read by another human, being able to say “I’ve written a novel” is the second best thing ever. (If you don’t know the First-Best thing, let’s talk.) Finishing is not my forte. In fact, I have loads of started stories in my computer files. Loads. Starting is awesome. Fun. Easy. Hm. That may be the key, right there. Beginning is easy. Middle is tricky. Ending is like plucking eyelashes. Not that I’ve ever plucked eyelashes… (But that reminds me of a story.*) But the hard stuff is worth it. Because then you’re a writer who has completed a novel. Or twelve.

Completion also means that you tie up your loose ends. Honestly? This is why I haven’t done series books. I don’t know which ends to leave flying around and which ones to knot firmly down. If you hint at something early in the story, you ought to bring it back around and flesh it out. If some character shows a tendency toward floating out of his chair, he ought to get to fly in the story. And then he should suffer the consequences of flight. You don’t have to say what happens to every character from now until they die, but you need to give the story a finished feeling Which is entirely subjective, I realize. But if your readers all go, “Wait. What happened to the doctor who was raising those turkeys?” then you may have left his story unfinished. And then there’s the other totally subjective question of How Long To Drag It Out. Jane Austen books tend to lurch to a stop as soon as there is an understanding and everyone’s in love (and maybe I just feel that way because I don’t want the books to end, ever). But what’s worse? When the end has come and gone and we’re still in the book. I thought of this just last week when I was playing at Disneyland. We rode Splash Mountain about a hundred times (roughly) and every time, I thought “they should have ended this ride on the downhill splash” – because yeah, I get that the story keeps going, and then wraps up, but all the real good fun has already happened. How to know? Have people read it. Ask them. Does my story end too suddenly? Do my characters get finished doing what they need to do? When the story is over, am I still writing it?

Which brings me to the other completion business. Once you’ve typed the words “the End” (which, may I say? I’ve never written) you’re not finished. There’s much to be done now. You have written a draft. YEAH! Celebrate. Eat much chocolate, or ice cream, or deep-fried, salted white starch. Do the dance of joy. And then come back.

Because what’s next is that you take a little break (I recommend a week, but you can do whatever you want, natch) and then you read it all over again. You find huge holes in your story. You fill them in. You wonder, “Why did I ever think this was anything other than utter garbage?” You delete seven million adverbs. You cut “Really?” and “Yeah” from your dialogs. You shudder a little. You laugh a little. You find a spark of something so fine in there. And you set it aside again. Repeat this process until you fall in love with it again (or you decide you thoroughly hate it – either way) and you put it away again. Write a few charming emails. Post some great blog articles. Play with the dogs. Then pull it out again, give it another once-over, and decide that it is as good as you can make it. Then call in the team.

The team is imperative. (Unless you’re Shannon Hale, who does her own critiquing. And remember this? You’re not.) The team will read and comment and slice and dice and tear and offer suggestions and coo at your baby and act like friends or family or acquaintances and Readers. I always ask someone to read my work who will Love it. Lurve it, even. Because I’m shallow like that and I crave some positivity. Also, I ask someone who doesn’t generally read in my genre to look it over. This can be frustrating (because they want to know where are the exploding spaceships, and the dwarfs and swords) but so helpful (because they tend not to get wrapped up in my wit and charm, and can just see my flaws). There’s a lot to say about critiquing, and about how I’m not really very good at it, but I love to do it, and that can all wait for another post. What matters is that you and The Team can work your story into better shape than you ever could alone.** And then? You and your agent can polish it up even more. ANd then? You and your editor will make it shine.

So don’t forget to go the distance.

Yea, Writers!

*Here’s the story. When I was pregnant with Kid 1, we took one of those classes that made Husband pass out with the gruesome reality of what was involved with actually removing this child from my body. You know the ones? So our teacher, who was a total Hippie and completely cool, told this story that a doctor she’d worked with, in an effort at sympathy, told his patients, “Yeah, Childbirth hurts. It’s a lot like having your right arm ripped off.” At which point Hippie Midwife lady looked at the doctor, with his man parts and Both His Arms, and decided that he wasn’t really qualified to make that sort of statement. So she began teaching childbirth classes. I often think of that – “it’s exactly like having your right arm ripped off” when people (self included) make strange, ill-advised comparisons.

**But YOU DECIDE what needs to change, ultimately. Because this is YOUR BOOK. Don’t forget that part. Please.