Your book is done when you're ready to publish. Right. And your book is ready to publish when it accomplishes the goal that you set out for it. And that goal could be a number of things. But I'm guessing. Since you're writing a novel. That it's probably some version of the following. You want to make your readers feel something? You want them to love your story and have a moving emotional response to it? And not just any emotional response.
You that book was bad is an emotional response, but probably not the one that you're going for. There's a specific experience that you want to create for your readers. So your book is ready to publish. When it creates that specific experience for your readers. welcome to your next draft. How do you know when you're done? That's a question I've received a few times in the last few weeks. How do you know when your editing process is finished? How do you know when your story is ready to publish?
One writer, Kate called this the holy grail of editing questions. When she wrote in to ask me. And I agree. I think this is a question that we're all always asking. Writers editors, everyone. How do you know when a book is done? It is super hard to know. This is such a hard question for me to answer. I had to sit down with it for a long time and ask myself, how do I decide when to call a book finished? What am I looking for when I make that call?
And I did come up with an answer, which I'm going to share with you in this episode. In fact. I even came up with a checklist. I'll tell you more about that in a moment. But if the idea of a checklist gets you excited right away. Go ahead and grab it at Alice sideload. Dot com slash done dash checklist. But even as I was compiling, my thoughts, all I could think was. This is my perspective on the answer right now. This is what I, Alice subtler, I think in may of 2023.
It's probably different from what other writers think it's probably different from what other editors think. In fact. I know that some of my colleagues have different ideas. It's probably different from what I will think in one year or five years or 10 years. I don't say that to indicate that anything in this episode is wrong or incorrect. I just want to acknowledge that there are a lot of ways to approach this question and honestly, I will probably evolve in my own thinking on it.
So part of the fun here is that I'm sort of sticking my flag in the sand and saying right now, this is what I think. It'll be really interesting to come back later and see how my answer changes. So, how do you do it? How do you know when your editing process is finished when your book is done? When it is finally time to publish. First off. Let's define done. For the purposes of this conversation, I don't mean done as in perfectly proof-read and polished and ready to be published immediately.
I mean done, as in the developmental editing process is finished, the story is working and you're ready to move forward into polishing for publication. The book is not copy edited or proof-read at this stage. It's style is developed and refined. That might have happened during a specific line editing draft. Or it might have happened organically throughout the developmental editing process. But it is not completely free of technical errors.
So when I say done, I don't mean throw it up on Amazon tomorrow. I mean now stop changing the content of the story and start preparing it for publication. How do you know. How do you know when you're done? Here's my first response. Your book has done. When it feels done to you. A lot of the time when something's not working in your book, you have this gut feeling that something's not quite right yet. If you feel like something's not right. You're probably not done.
And conversely, you will probably also have a gut feeling when you are done uh, sense that your book is doing what you want it to do. Or you might just be super tired of it and ready to be finished. So listen to your gut, do a gut check and see how you feel about your book. Do you feel like there's something missing? Or do you feel really proud? Like you've created the work of art that you set out to create? That's my first answer. Your book is done when it feels done to you.
But if you've listened to this podcast for more than a couple of episodes, you know, that I am not satisfied to approach writing and editing from a purely subjective standpoint. This feels done. Is not enough for me. I believe in combining the subjective with the objective and finding as many ways as possible to make your editing process objective. So let's go deeper than it feels right. Now, there are a lot of factors that go into determining whether a book is done.
I thought for a long time about this question. And I really considered all the things that I look at to evaluate whether a book is working or not. Whether the story is ready to publish. And I did create a list for you because I can't help, but make lists of objective measures for how stories work. This is what I do for fun. But there's one overarching principle that I want to share with you that supersedes that whole list. And to explain why I believe it's so important.
I'm going to walk you through a line of logic here. So stick with me. Your book is done when you're ready to publish. Right. And your book is ready to publish when it accomplishes the goal that you set out for it. And that goal could be a number of things. But I'm guessing. Since you're writing a novel. That it's probably some version of the following. You want to make your readers feel something? You want them to love your story and have a moving emotional response to it?
And not just any emotional response. You that book was bad is an emotional response, but probably not the one that you're going for. There's a specific experience that you want to create for your readers. So your book is ready to publish. When it creates that specific experience for your readers. This is an others focus metric. You cannot know in your own head, how other people are responding to your story. Uh, the only way to know how other people are responding to your story.
Is to share it with them. So the principle here is that in order to be able to tell whether your book is done, You will need to get feedback. That might mean feedback from an editor or a book coach. I highly recommend getting this kind of professional feedback. Or it might mean feedback from alpha readers, critique partners, or beta readers. If you're wondering where to start getting feedback. Check out episode 24 of your next draft for five free ways to get feedback on your novel.
You can find that@alicesaidthe.com slash 24. But anticipate that getting feedback from others is a step that you will need to take in order to know whether your book is ready for publication. And keep in mind that eventually you're going to get feedback from readers. This is what it means to publish your book and share it with the world.
That feedback will come in the form of Amazon reviews, good reads reviews, and other places where readers are sharing their opinions about your book after it's published. And at that point, you're going to discover whether your book is creating the experience for readers that you want to create. In order to know that ahead of time before you publish whether your book is accomplishing that. Be sure to get feedback before you publish.
So now we have two ways to know that your book is done and ready to publish, or rather maybe to put it more accurately to indicators that your book is done and ready to publish. First. You have a gut feeling that your book has done? And second. Other people are telling you that it's working. Now as an editor, I am often the person that writers turn to, to help them figure out when their books are done.
And when I'm trying to figure that out, I definitely look for both things that I just mentioned. I watch my own gut feelings about the book and I check in with the writer to see how they feel about it. And then when we think it's ready to go, we send it off to beta readers to make sure that it's landing the way that we want it to, which is honestly such a rewarding part of the process is getting to see, oh yeah.
These other people who have not been this close to this book for so long are also experiencing it the way that we imagined that they would. But while these are probably the most important ways to tell that your book is finished. They're not the only things that I rely on. I do evaluate a number of aspects of a book to determine whether the stories of filaments is finished and it's ready to move forward to the next stage.
And because I love to make the subjective objective and the implicit explicit. I have a list of nine objective questions that you can use to evaluate your book to. Plus, because I love to make checklists and worksheets. I have also compiled this list of questions into a checklist that you can download. Gosha dot com slash done dash checklist. And you can grab that checklist, get the checklist, save it, print it out and use it to help you determine when you have finished editing your novel.
And when you still have something more to do. And I'm also going to go through each question here in this episode. I'm not going to go into a ton of detail about each one, because honestly, each one could be a podcast episode of its own. But I will point you to other episodes that will give you more context on some of these questions. And where I have questions that don't have accompanying episodes. Well, I'll probably talk about them in more detail in later podcast episodes.
So make sure to follow the podcast. So you get all those episodes as I create them. All right. Let's get to these questions, starting with question one. Is your word count appropriate for your genre, your audience and your publication path. Starting here with a simple, straightforward question. Although this can be one of the hardest to get right. If you have ever had to cut 10,000 or 50,000 words out of your novel to get it down to a publishable length. You know, the struggle here.
But this is a super important consideration to keep in mind, especially if you're planning to traditionally publish or the expectations for novel links are very clear and where the competition for attention from agents and publishers is steep. If you're a debut author, And your book is much longer or much shorter than the typical length for your genre and audience. Publishers are not going to be incentivized to take a risk on it. So ask yourself. Is your word count appropriate? Question two.
Does your story establish a character want and a character need at the beginning of the story. Spins the middle pursuing that goal. And pay it off with either achieving or failing to achieve that wants and need in the climax and resolution. That is a really big, long hefty question. I know, but it's so important. Essentially, what I'm asking here is do your plot and character development work.
But I added in a lot more specificity to define what I mean by work out, repeat the question so you can hear it again. Does your story establish a character want and character need at the beginning of the story. Spins the middle pursuing that goal. And pay it off with either achieving or failing to achieve that wants and need in the climax and resolution. If you want to go into this in more depth, I recommend two episodes for you.
Episode 21, how to identify your protagonist wants and need, and why those matter to your plot? And episode 25 4 act structure, the simple structure to edit your novel and why three acts aren't enough. You can get to those episodes by going to Alice sobo.com/ 21. And Alice said, load.com/ 25. Or check the show notes and find the links there. Question three. Does your story establish a value at stake that begins one way at the start of your story?
And resolves another way at the end of your story. Or to put it more simply. Does something change in your story? Value shifts are such an important part of story. So I highly recommend that you go check out episode 27 value shifts, how to craft compelling change in every story. You can find it. I was sub lo.com/ 27. Question four. Are the six elements of story present in every scene. Story structure involves six elements.
Inciting incident, progressive complications, turning point crisis, climax and resolution. You'll find those at play in the course of a novel as a whole. You'll find them with NH act and you'll find them in every scene. When I'm developmentally editing with a writer, I start big picture and work my way to a narrower focus. First we look at the arc of the whole novel. Then we find the six elements in every act. And then as we go scene by scene through a novel.
We built the six elements into every single scene. Do all of your scenes include these elements? Yes in this question, I am inviting you to go scene by scene through your story and to evaluate every single one to find the six elements. And yes, this process takes a lot of time and a lot of deep thought. I know because I do it. But let me tell you this. This process is so rewarding. You will discover so much about your story. By examining every scene for the six elements.
For more on these elements and how to make sure that your scenes are working. I recommend episode eight, what is a scene? The ultimate guide to write and edit amazing scenes. You can find it. Alice said low.com/eight or in the show notes. Of course. Question five. Have you raised the stakes in every scene so that they're as high as you can make them while still being appropriate for your story. Once the structure of the novel as a whole is set.
Then one of my favorite things to do is to go through the story and raise the stakes. From start to finish. I look for ways to make things more exciting. More intense, more risky, more impactful. Now, how do you raise the stakes of a story is a big question and it's something that we'll be tackling in a later episode of your next draft. But the first step to raise the stakes is to establish the stakes. And for that I'll point, you back to episode 27 on value shifts.
For now let's go onto question six. Is your story consistent? There are a lot of things that you want to be consistent in your story. Is the point of view consistent. Is the timeline consistent? Is the cast of characters consistent. Or is there someone that you introduced in the beginning that you just forgot about midway through or a new character who walks into the book partway through with no introduction? Like they've been there all along.
You could put more things under this umbrella, too consistent in your descriptions, consistent in your rules for your magic system, consistent setting and locations, et cetera. If your book finds an audience of readers who love it very deeply. Those readers will discover any inconsistencies that you have hiding in your story. So put in the detail work to make sure now that your story is consistent. Question seven. Do all your subplots, both have something to incite them.
And resolve by the end of the novel. This question is all about loosens. It is so easy to introduce an idea at the beginning of your story. And then forget that it ever happened by the middle as the story develops. Or to have a brilliant idea halfway through that you then will need to go back to set up in the beginning. Look for loosens and tie them up. Question eight. Is the style of your story aligned with what you want it to be?
I'm using this as an umbrella question for all the elements that ride the line between developmental editing and line editing. This includes is your dialogue realistic? How do you capture the voice of the protagonist or narrator? Do you have the right balance of showing and telling the right amount of description and exposition, et cetera. Essentially first, you need to make sure that your story works, that the plot is solid. The characters are well-developed. The structure is clear.
And then you get to refine the language that you use to tell the story. Both steps are important to create a book that your readers will love. Which brings me to the final question. A familiar one by now. Does your story, make your readers feel the way that you want them to feel? Yep. This brings us all the way back to the beginning. You'll know that your book is ready to publish when it accomplishes the goal that you set for it. And for novelists, the goal that I hear most often.
Is that you want your readers to feel something. So does your story do that? If you share it with beta readers. Does it make them feel the way that you want them to feel? If you can answer yes. To all of the previous questions and your book is creating that experience for your readers that you want them to have. And you have a gut feeling that your book is ready to go. Ben. Congratulations. You are ready to publish. And if that sounds like a tall order. Well, that's because it is.
It takes a lot of work and multiple drafts sometimes even several years to get to this point. And I'll be honest, even with all of these things in mind. Sometimes it's still really tough to tell when a book has reached this point. You could tinker with your story forever. Trying to get it. Perfect. Which brings me to one more part of that question that Kate sent me. I wonder if you can edit something too much or edit the soul out of it. Is it possible to go too far?
And here's my answer right now as of May, 2023. I may change my mind or develop this more in the future, but here's what I believe right now. There is a point of diminishing returns to doing your own edits for many drafts, without feedback from someone else. You can tinker and make changes to your book for years and years for dozens of drafts. And still have major problems that you haven't addressed simply because without outside feedback, you aren't yet seeing those problems. At some point.
You need to call someone else in to help you see what you're not seeing yet at some point. You have to test your writing by sharing it with someone else. Ultimately you are the only person who can determine whether your book is done. Whether it's ready for publication. Ready to share with your readers. But it does get a little easier to make that call once you've shared it with other people. Also, I tend to find there's a point where you just feel done. You are ready to be finished.
And while that's not one of the qualifiers that I put in my questions. It's definitely something that I keep in mind when I'm working with writers. We just snow. All right. So this book is as good as we want it to be. And also we're super done with this project. I hope the questions that I've shared throughout this episode also help you to determine when you finished or when you're just feeling done. Be sure to grab that checklist by the way, go to Alice subtler.com/done dash.
Dash checklist to get it. Like I said at the beginning, I think this is a question that we are all always trying to answer and the answer is elusive and it varies from person to person. I would love to hear how you decide when you're finished. Head over to Instagram where I have a post asking this question and leave a comment to share. How do you know when you're done? Because the thing is at some point. You do have to make that call. At some point you have to ship.
You have to decide that you're done. You have to publish. As a perfectionist myself. I know how hard it is to ship a creative project. To accept. That now you have to send it into the world and finally let it go. You might've heard the phrase. Art is never finished. Only abandoned. Well, I looked it up and it was originally coined by French poet. Paul Valery. And I really loved the full passage that he wrote. So that's what I'm going to leave you with here.
If you're struggling to let go of your novel. Remember Paul Valerie's words. In the eyes of those who anxiously seek perfection. Uh, work has never truly completed a word that for them has no sense. But abandoned. And this abandonment of the book to the fire or to the public, whether due to weariness or a need to deliver it for publication is a sort of accidents comparable to the letting go of an idea that has become so tiring or annoying that one has lost all interest in it.
I invite you to do the challenging creative work to craft the best story that you possibly can. And I hope that the questions that I asked in this episode. Help you to determine what's working and where your story's still needs some work before you publish. And I invite you to one day, have the courage to abandon that book to publication. I send it into the world. Call it the best work that you can create at this specific moments in your life. And start writing your next book. Happy editing.
And when it's time, Happy abandoning.