WIP Challenge - Check In Day 13 - Wednesday

[the_rck]

Poll #16682

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 6

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Yesterday and today I

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planned
2 (33.3%)

researched
1 (16.7%)

wrote
3 (50.0%)

sent to beta
0 (0.0%)

edited
1 (16.7%)

posted
1 (16.7%)

rested
1 (16.7%)

did something else
2 (33.3%)

The way I feel about that is

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Mean: 5.00 Median: 5.5 Std. Dev 1.91

Terrible 1		0 (0.0%)
2		1 (16.7%)
3		1 (16.7%)
4		0 (0.0%)
5		1 (16.7%)
6		1 (16.7%)
7		2 (33.3%)
8		0 (0.0%)
9		0 (0.0%)
Wonderful 10		0 (0.0%)

How do you know when a story is finished?

I'm often not sure where the end of a story should be. I end up cutting things off too soon or wandering for paragraphs after I should have stopped. A lot of times, I need someone else to take a look at the story and point out to me where it should end. That's where a first reader can be utterly invaluable. I'm not bad at chapter endings, but ending actual stories is hard for me. I do try for a point where it feels to me like something has been completed. I'm not sure how to express it better than that.

Comments

[dirty_diana]

That's the one thing I usually do know! Writing is primarily an exercise in driving the characters to a specific plot or emotional point, for me. Often they want to take the long way round but once they get there it's time to wrap it up.

[linaewen]

I also don't always know when the story will end, especially a short one. Many times I've been surprised that an ending I had in mind didn't happen and the story ended itself "early" -- or at least, before I was expecting it. When a story feels complete, then it ends, and whenever I've felt that sense of completeness, it's never wrong. Hard to explain, but it really does seem to work as a guideline!