The question becomes—how do you know if a story or a poem is finished?
For many writers, the answer is never.
For me, that varies, but here’s my advice.
Whether you are working on a poem or story, write it until you get sick of it. Write it over and over until you get to the point where you are no longer thinking the structure, characters, tone, etc. of the piece—write until you are looking at the words.
Great writing is rewriting—it’s very cliché, but it’s true.
I will write something until I know I’ve captured it, and I believe in it, and then I’ll write it a few more times. If something I write gets published, I rarely read it afterwards. I’m done with it by the time I send it out—I never want to see it again, lol.
I’m a perfectionist, not with everything, but with writing.
And writing is competitive. You are competing with 300 to 500 other writers, and a publisher is only going to choose a few. You have to make sure that your first line is dynamite, and every sentence is the best you have.
One of my writing mentors, Joanne Mescherry, would always tell me that her friend, the great writer, Beryl Bainbridge, knew that she was done with a story, when she went to the hospital for nicotine poisoning.
I think that’s a bit dramatic, but work on your writing until it makes you sick (in a good way).
And speaking of mentors, I believe in workshops, especially for new writers. During undergrad and graduate school, I was in two or three workshop writing classes a week. I learned how to write from other people. I also learned how to write from reading my colleagues’ writing. Also, seeing writing in various phases, I learned to see what something publishable looked like.
When I graduated, I was in a writer’s workshop, where we met every week, and I was part of this group for ten years.
And what this did for me—it taught me the difference between good feedback and bad feedback, what needed fixed, and what could stay, and most importantly, I learned to trust myself. I learned what was a good story and what wasn’t.
BUT, the biggest reward, is that I found a lot mentors along the way. Some have passed away, and some I haven’t talked to in years, but every time I draft something, I hear their voices in my head, guiding me in the right direction. I ask myself—what would Joanne say? What would Ivonne say? And, they guide me in the right direction.
I spent 20 years in writers workshops, and I learned craft from the best.
Keep going!