How Do You Know When Your Work Is Done?

By Suzanne Roberts

One of the questions I often get about writing is this: How do I know when a piece is finished? The first answer I give is that it’s done when it says what it needed to say, which is usually something different or deeper than what I had set out to do from the beginning, so there are both surprise and recognition. I’m the sort of writer who often has no idea where I’m going until I get there. Writing is an act of discovery, and I only figure out what I’m trying to say by ...