Young Writers Society

When you guys are working on a novel, how do you know it's ready to show people? Like for me I'm working on a short story, I've only been working on it for a couple months, I've done rewrite/edit, and I don't know if it's ready for others to read. The thing is though, I'm eager for people to read it and give their opinions now. I decided to post it here and then take the critique and then do ANOTHER rewrite. So in a way YWS is my editor! But when do you guys know when your novel is ready for audience's eyes?

Well, technically a work is never ready, and never perfect. There's always stuff you want to change, but in places like YWS, the point for most people is to post rough drafts to get a lot of suggestions on how and what to edit. There are also people that want to double-check a thousand times and polish their works to no end before putting them up.

I usually just trust my gut -- it's ready to show others when I feel like it.

Demeter wrote:I usually just trust my gut -- it's ready to show others when I feel like it.

That is very true. One way to do it is to write it, then wait a day or two and re-read it. Add in details, take them out, spice it up, take out a bit of spice. Edit dialogue to make it sound realistic and like the characters. Then the last thing you do is correct grammar. (I never worry about my grammar first thing.)
After if feels right to you, post it. It will never be perfect, but most of those little details don't get the readers concerned unless they are pointed out.

The moment you can read a chapter without feeling that 30% of it is missing - it's done. Everything else is a bonus which is good, but not necessary

I know what you mean. I won't show anything to my parents or friends until I'm really happy with it. I certainly wouldn't flaunt my first draft around. That's the beauty of YWS. You can have other people who you don't know critique your work. That way you won't have to worry about your nearest and dearest seeing all your mistakes (which there's probably less of than you think).

It helps to have someone you know in a strictly proffesional relationship who can commit to helping you out. This person should of course be an experienced writer or avid reader. YWS can help with this. For example, there's 2 or 3 people who I try and help in particular (I haven't specifically told them, but they probably know who they are). I also know who's more experienced than me so I can ask them if I get stuck. Get to know the community and establish relations with people who you think can help you, and because what goes around comes around, also try and commit to people you think you can be of most help to).

If you know someone in real life who can do this, all the better.

I have a few friends I pitch ideas to, mostly to check if the idea is realistic/cliched. I'll do this before or as I'm writing, periodically after I've written out the segment if I'm now running into problems, hehe. Sometimes I'll send them the whole draft when I'm done, just to make sure it's not agnsty or a hack job. Recently, I started writing the story once, letting it sit for a night, then printing it out and scribbling my corrections on the paper. I then go to put the corrections into the computer and change half of my corrections. But that duel-editing gives a smoother result, I find. And gives me an original draft printed.

But, usually, I can't tell if it's ready to show anybody. Reason I post it in the first place. I consider it best to hold off on too much self-editing because a work can easily be overworked. If you think there's an issue, show it to somebody before making sure it's an issue.

The short of my method is: Check the basic ideas of your novel against somebody, but don't be so afraid of people pointing out mistakes you overwork. Best to show something you don't exactly think is ready than never showing your work because there's a mistake your afraid they'll find.

My guess is that it's ready when you're finish writing the story or that part of the story, and you added all the stuff like Table of Contents, Title, and Credits.

Then again, I have re-edited book 1 of my book series several times. Things with typos, second opinions, grammar... Sometimes, late at night or early in the morning, your mind isn't having the best thoughts on what you write, and then later, it's not as good as you thought it was when you wrote it. That's another one of the reasons why I kept re-editing it.

The three times that I felt that it was ready, I just could not give more.
Then, I rested. If there were coming new ideas but possible would take other dozen of chapters, i would scribble it for my net story.
I just let it go, be itself finishing on it way.

I usually write something, and then try to get an opinion on it right away to see if it's worth continuing or if I should ditch it. Then I just polish it until I'm happy, take a break, and go back to it a couple times. Usually, it's just whenever you don't think there's anything else to mess with. But there's always something that can be edited, so you just have to cut yourself off at some point.

You don't.