What does 'done' look like?

 What does ‘done’ look like?

This blog is one of those practical ones. We love to see what other writers do, don’t we? We love to see how they deal with the same conundrums and challenges we face.

 So this is one of those, the thorny issue, not of starting, or of the process itself,  but of the end of the manuscript.

 It’s a sort of paradox; we only find out by really doing, and it’s a lonely business, learning the hard way. Yet there’s also benefit to be had in seeing what others do, from ‘where do ideas come from,’  (actually I might actually try and answer that question next month), to this subject:  how do we know when it’s finished?  Indeed, is it ever ‘finished?’  Is it more a case of choosing the right time to leave a work in progress? 

So here’s some insight, but of course, I’m only really talking about my own experience. I hope it’s of some use.

So, what does the phrase 'final draft' (FD) mean?

It means no more changes are possible. In an ideal world that would mean no more changes are necessary, but for an author it can mean when you’ve hit deadline and have to deliver, which is at least  useful in forcing you to make timely decisions, and not dither. Or, perhaps it’s FD when you can’t see the wood for the trees, or when you get the feeling that further tinkering might improve the draft, but you’re not really sure. And if in doubt about changes, perhaps it’s better not to make them? I don’t think there are hard and fast rules. I think, like so much in writing it comes down to leaving it alone when it feels right to do so.  Even so, I still find it hard to read long ago written text without thinking about how I’d like to improve it in some way. As I already noted, maybe there’s no such thing as a finished story?  They just evolve.

What is the process when writing a final draft?

Assuming I’ve done the structural changes, and line edits, FD means going through it and making sure – again – that it feels right, and that it flows and that nothing jars; is out of place, or is too long, or too short or too much this, or not enough that. The process has been likened to sculpting a horse from a block of stone, (I wrote about that in last month’s blog). In editing, you know the shape of the horse, so you go in and take out anything that isn’t the horse. Once I’ve done that, I go over it and think: is this the horse as I imagined it? It might be a different shape but hopefully it might still be a pretty good horse. As soon as it feels like I’m chipping at the horse’s flesh, I stop.  I’m reasonably ruthless about taking stuff out. Getting other writers to look at my work is also critical to my process before it goes to agent and then editor.

Are there any particular challenges in writing a FD?

It’s easy to be too subjective; to hate or love it all.  You can get so close to a text it’s impossible to be clear minded about it, or to see an idea or phrase or character as the reader will see them for the first time because you are so (over) familiar with them. It then gets hard to ‘kill your darlings,’ or to recognize stuff that really works.  But in truth no matter how good you may think one aspect or element is, it may not fit with the whole, so it has to go.  It’s also difficult – but important- to give yourself space to not look at a draft for a while before going in for final edit.

The wonderful Julia Green, course leader on the MA in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa  Uni, once told me: ‘writing is re-writing.’

I think that’s true. It’s also critical to know when to walk away, and start on a new story.

So, in the end, it might be a deadline, but I hope, for all of us, it’s more organic than that, like a relationship,  or a job, or like a hobo, with itchy feet, sometimes we just know, in our heart, it’s time to move on.

 Chris Vick’s Girl. Boy. Sea is published by Zephyr (Head of Zeus) 8^th August.