WIP Challenge Check-in, Day 29 -- Wednesday

[linaewen]

It's Wednesday, and that means the week is half over.  Is that a good thing or a bad thing, I wonder....  ;-)

What kind of a writing day has it been today?

• I thought about my fic once or twice
• I wrote
• I did some planning and/or research
• I edited
• I've sent my fic off to my beta
• I posted today!
• I'm taking a break
• I did something else that I'll talk about in a comment

For Discussion:  How do you know when a story or a chapter is complete?  Do you follow a plan and stick to it no matter what, or do you just have a feel for the right moment to stop writing?

Comments

[linaewen]

I wrote 760 words last night, completing a short story and posting it. The posting actually took place after midnight, so that counts for today as well, I guess! I do hope to also get a head start on my June writing goals and do some work on a WIP chapter that is calling to me, but we'll see how the day goes.

I often have a plan for what I want to include in a chapter or a story, and that plan is usually about right -- but sometimes the chapter/story ends before I've included everything I thought would be important. So I guess you could say I have a feel for what a good ending is, and when I come to it, I realize I have to stop. It's only at that point that I can look at my outline and realize that some of my ideas, while interesting, really weren't necessary. ;-)

[the_rck]

I spent today doing stuff with my sister-in-law, and tonight is my daughter's fourth grade recorder concert. I don't expect to get any writing done. Tomorrow for sure. Assuming I can stay awake.

I find endings difficult. I often find that I've said everything I have to say but have no way of tying it all up and concluding it. I tend not to have hard, definite endings. I'm more likely to have the characters look at each other and conclude that they can go on together. Sometimes, I just talk and talk and find that I've gone past the ending while I was doing it.

[lilly_c]

I wrote but I'm not sure what my word count is and I also did a little planning, managing to fix the time line of my ST: Voyager fic, hopefully I'll be able to post a rough version of it to my personal journal next week (work & RL dependent).

I tend to know when I've finished something but I have stuck to a plan for the chapter fic I've been posting, I must get the remaining chapters for that up at some point.

[condwiramurs]

I wrote a few words, edited a couple of lines, and thought about my fic some. I also went to Into Darkness for a second time today in order to do character research. So that's something. :)

[barbayat]

Ah did post a chapter of a new shorter Khan fanfic, edited some more on the other fanfic ... and all that despite feeling crappy!

When it comes to decide how to end a chapter, I usually go by making a sensible cut. All that usually in light of a consistent chapter length. Like chapters are around 1500 - so if I have a reasonable conclusion to what is happening in one chapter, I might cut it off at 1200 or at 2000.

I outline the chapters before hand but sometimes they end up being longer as I anticipated and then I rather split them then make them twice as long as the usual chapter length ...