Define Done

It’s been said many times: a writer never finishes a piece of writing, he just stops working on it. This is true. The risk is that the writer never stops working. And this would be easy to do. But we must stop working if we’re to be successful, and we must somehow decide when to cease our efforts.

Here are a few ways to define done:

• Give the work to beta readers and see if their reader experience matches your vision for the work.
• Send the piece to an agent or editor. While a rejection doesn’t tell you the work needs more attention, a dozen might. And an acceptance says you’re likely finished——except for the requested edit or two.
• In the writing process you find you are getting less and less energy from the manuscript. The manuscript is telling you less of what it needs, making fewer demands for development. It may be you’ve reached done. It may be time to stop working.

Beware, there are variations on this theme. Sometimes it’s necessary to abandon a piece of writing before it’s finished. Manuscripts can fail for a variety of reasons. But this is not the case here. Here we’ve produced a piece of writing to the best of our ability. It’s time for the writing to become a part of our body of work. Readers welcome.