“When do you stop revising?” A friend asked me recently.
“You can stop?” was my initial response, but the truth is more nuanced than that. (And besides, that answer was Not Helpful.)
At some point in my writing career – I’m going to say it was two laptops ago so about 2004 – I created a new folder inside my “Short stories” folder in “My Documents” and I named that folder “Done”.
I remember the sublime pleasure of moving the very first story into that folder.
No, I don’t remember which it was. Possibly “DeShaun Steven’s Ship Log” (Currently the oldest file in the “Done” folder by last modified date July 2013) or “Brain Trust” (my first sold story, last modified in 2015).
Both of those are in a sub-folder of “Done” titled “Sold” that I created the very instant I signed the contract for “Brain Trust,” which was published in 2006 so… you can probably noticed the “last modified” dates above were quite a bit after that, and I’m not leaving these poor things alone even after they see print!
I still edit stories in “Done.” I edit them whenever I feel like it. I even edit them when they are out on submission (though I shouldn’t.) I wake up in the middle of the night and I know for a fact a sentence needs to change. I do it.
The difference between the stories in the top level of my “Short Stories” folder and the “Done” Folder is that only stories in “Done” are sent out on submission. They are “done enough to try to sell.” Things outside the done folder may be cut into pieces, combined, abandoned altogether… they are still baking, though I have a shifting idea of how close-to-done they are. They slide off back burners and get picked up again when I scan through the folder wondering “What should I revise next?” I don’t scan “Done” when I’m looking to revise. Things inside “Done” are still edited, revised, rewritten, and so-on, but they are, theoretically, ready to go at any moment.
“Cute,” says my strawman. “Now how about you answer my initial question already?”
When do I move a story into “Done”? I have some criteria:
- Did my writer’s workshop all shrug and say “submit it” without substantive criticisms or suggested edits? (Happened exactly once. Deshaun. Hence my ability to assign done-ness for the first time.)
- A trusted first reader tells me it’s ready. (The list for this is: Geoff Landis, Bonita Kale, and Angus MacIntyre. None of these people will green-light early.)
- It’s a story designed for the tastes of [person] and [person] approves it. (Like… a soft touchy-feely story approved by my husband or a murderous assassin vampire approved by my sister.)
- The story has been through the workshop and at least one second-round reading after workshop-edits, I wait a month and read it through and edit it again, either find a second second-round reader or decide it’s done.
The fourth option is most common. I’m a pest and a nuisance to all potential critique-providers within my influence, but even I have to make a decision on my own, sometimes.
It’s surprising how necessary it is to have that label, to give myself permission to submit the story. (Note: I do sometimes move stories back out of “Done” or into a folder inside “Done” labeled “Hiatus”, and sometimes I just up and rip them a new ending and a new opening and a new point of view right there in the “Done” folder, but that’s unseemly and I don’t do it often.)
My dad is a fine artist. He paints oil paintings. When he decides they are done, he frames them and hangs them up. Then he wanders around the house with a brush and pallet, touching them up. We called this “torturing the paintings” as in, “Dad, are you torturing the paintings, again?”
(One time he covered a painting in thick varnish just to stop himself from futzing with it – he ended up painting on top of the varnish.)
So yeah – my “Done” folder is like my dad’s frames and varnish.
I forget who said “You never finish art, you only abandon it,” but I think it does help to separate your “near to abandon” stories from the rest. It changes the focus of revision from constant fiddling to “wait until inspiration strikes.”
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