A writer from New Hampshire asks: how do I know when my novel is finished?

Dear Live Free or Die:

Poke it with a fork and see if the juices run clear.

It’s a really tough question. I don’t have any answers, just some guidelines. First, whenever it is you think are “done,” put it away for a month. A whole month, and then look at it again. You just might gain some perspective for starting the revision process.

Get feedback. Give it to three or four readers (not anyone you’re sleeping with, or the person who gave birth to you). Sometimes a writer will tell me that all of his readers had different opinions and now she’s more confused than ever. I think that indicates that the writer has yet to control the story, has not yet gotten his readers where he wants them: in the palm of his hand. If all your readers tell you that the ending doesn’t work, it probably doesn’t work. If everyone hates a certain character, you need to develop that character more deeply so that we come to love his or her flaws.

Also, if you have a nagging suspicion that it’s not quite there, it’s not quite there. I think a lot of people write without being completely certain what it is they are trying to say, the writing itself is a kind of reckoning or awakening or grappling with. But when you think it’s done, you should have some clear idea of what it is you wanted to say. What is the operating metaphor? One of my favorite quotes (paraphrased here) is by Bernard Malamud who said he wrote the first draft to get it out, the second to improve the prose, and the third draft to compel it to say what it still needed to say.

Then, I gather, it’s done.

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