Finishing touches to a hairstyle put the extra oomph in your clients hair. It distinguishes professionals from the in-the-kitchen-beauticians. But sometimes it’s hard to figure out when to stop. When do you know when to stop fiddling with your client’s hair and to whirl them to the mirror and pronounce them finished? (One clue is when they start sighing loudly, twitching their foot, and looking at their watch every two seconds. Or when they start asking, “Are you done yet?”)
When we’re on a deadline, we feel the pressure to finish. It can be likened to that impatient client who asks if we’re done yet. When we’re under the gun, we try to send in our best work, but mostly we just want to be finished.
When we’re not facing looming deadlines, it can be hard not to keep fiddling with our work. Even after we’ve done several necessary re-writes, we still want to poke around and change things. But when does poking around shift to messing things up? In other words, how do we know when our writing is finished?
I struggle with this, especially as I’m close to finishing my third novel and I’m approaching the dreaded re-write. Sometimes my mind still drifts to my second manuscript and I wonder if I can poke at it more, if I need to change scenes around, delete scenes, or both. I was sure when Six O’clock was finished, but my second manuscript is totally different than my first, and tackles deeper subject matter. Did I do my characters justice? Did I flesh them out enough?
Experience has to be my guide when I answer that yes, for now it’s finished. My gut tells me it’s done. I know if I keep tinkering with it, especially when I’m feeling unsure about something, I’ll damage the integrity of the novel. So I stop once I’ve done about four re-writes (that’s the number it usually takes for me to finish and that’s before my editor looks at it.), and I won’t change it again unless my editor points out needed changes.
When you’re doing someone’s hair you reach a point where it’s the bounciest, prettiest, it’s going to get. If you keep tinkering, keep putting on hairspray, or keep slicing with your razor, you could turn something that would have been quite beautiful into something so ugly you’ll have to refund your client her money.
It’s a delicate line with endings. Experience and gut feelings have to be your guide to let you know that this time you mean it. This time you’re done. Anyone else want to chime in on when they’re novel is finished?
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