I believe that this information is so important, that I am purposely making this article incredibly short—offering the bare minimum, so that people are more inclined to dedicate a mere sixty seconds to reading this.
This should be every writer's definition of "finished:" When a writer is able to read through his or her entire work without changing a SINGLE THING—from something as complex as removing or adding an entire page, to something as simple as adding a comma or correcting the spelling of a word.
It is ONLY then that the short story is ready for publication, or the author is ready to advance on to write his or her next chapter.
Crap, I continue to change mine even after it's done. I have to just stop when I start making changes that take it back to the original version.
ReplyDeleteDoes this mean you just finished a project?
I know! Through the eyes of the artist, any type of artwork is never truly finished;however, this method has proven successful time and again, and it has become my mantra. I just completed another short story, last week, entitled "The Terrestrial Hunt." It took me roughly seven read-throughs (And that was after the 'final draft') until I was able to read through it without making a single change, and I couldn't have been happier with the end result!
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