How do you know your story is finished?

To me, knowing when you’re story is finished–that is, ready to go to your critique group or an agent or editor–is the $64,000 question. How do we know?

In one of my Find a Publisher training series videos, I presenta checklist that helps me determine when a manuscript is ready to send out. And it helps. But there’s still some subjective criteria I apply sometimes, like:

Am I completely sick of it? This isn’t always the best reason to releasea manuscript into the world, but sometimes it’s a...