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msagaraI've finished the first draft of CAST IN FURY.
I'm curious, though. For me, when I say I'm finished a novel, what I really mean is I've finished the first draft of the novel that I've been working on. I still have to go through it, line-edit, revise, fact check (and, honestly, it is not an understatement to say I am not very good at this last part ), tighten, clarify, etc. The book is not actually ready to head out the door (or in my case, be thrown out the door in frustration, because at a certain point, moving commas does not help) but to me -- it's finished when I have a complete first draft.
What stage in a book is finished, for you, if you write them?
I'm curious, though. For me, when I say I'm finished a novel, what I really mean is I've finished the first draft of the novel that I've been working on. I still have to go through it, line-edit, revise, fact check (and, honestly, it is not an understatement to say I am not very good at this last part ), tighten, clarify, etc. The book is not actually ready to head out the door (or in my case, be thrown out the door in frustration, because at a certain point, moving commas does not help) but to me -- it's finished when I have a complete first draft.
What stage in a book is finished, for you, if you write them?
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Date: 2007-09-12 10:42 pm (UTC)Technically I'm never 'finished finished' but I'd say rewrite/fix 2 or 3 is usually when I get the novel in a somewhat likeable form. After a month of avoiding said fixes, of course.
I think the mechanical part is easier than figuring out the pacing and the specific content, but heaven knows I'm not particularly wonderful at either.
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Date: 2007-09-12 11:43 pm (UTC)It's a process question about finishing stuff, so yes :). Because no matter how good (other people think) we are, we pretty much started from zero and just wrote. And revised. And revised. And etc.
Even the first novel, which was of course, written entirely on spec, was finished for me when I wrote "the end" the first time; the rest was revisions >.>