How to Know When it's Finished

Last night at the writers workshop I moderate I talked about how to know when something you're working on is finished I came up with a few guidelines that help me decide when something I'm writing is finished.

1) Know where your story ends. Know where you want to go with the plot and the characters, and where they will all end up.

2) Know what you want to accomplish in your work. Whether you're working on a sentence, paragraph, or chapter keep in mind what you want to accomplish in that section. Are you building the character? Setting the tone? Giving a backstory? Keep that goal in mind while writing.

3) When you change a scene, a sentence or a word and your changes are interchangeable and don't affect the meaning or advance the story in any way.

4) The opposite of number 3. When you do change things around and its having a detrimental effect on the sentence, paragraph, chapter or book and what you're trying to accomplish in your work.

5) If you're unsure if something is bad or good, put it away for a day or two, some distance and a bit of a perspective may be able to give you a better idea how the piece is working either for better or worse.

6) Write for yourself- If you have a sense of satisfaction about what you've written. When you're finished if you say to yourself "yeah, that's good, that's what I had in mind, that's what I meant to say."

Have a great day!
Jim