How Do You Know When Your Book Is Done?

After sending my manuscript to a friend, I told her that I am running out of big problems to fix, apart from every single sentence.

Dear I Have Notes,

I’ve been working on a book for a couple of years now. My goal was to finish the manuscript and then begin querying agents and trying to sell it. But now that I’m finally so close, I’m hesitating—how do you know when something is good enough to let others read? How do you know when it’s done?

— Hopeful Novelist

Dear Hopeful,

Last week, after sending my manuscript to a friend, I told her that I am running out of big problems to fix, apart from every single sentence. I am at that stage—I call it “writing a book”—when I cannot tell whether what I’ve written is any good. A draft can always get better, which is why I struggle to let go of mine. I recently saw a tweet (which I have since searched for, but cannot find) about how finishing a book requires you to let go of the one you thought you’d write. How dare this person subtweet me in this way, I thought. Because of course I think about that book I’d hoped to write, the book of my life, all the time. It is unassailable, this beautiful, ideal book, because it does not exist.

All this to say: I would love to be the kind of writer who knows when the book is done.

One thing I can tell you is that your book does not have to be perfect for you to find and work with an agent. A good one will be able to share their opinions about what’s working and what isn’t, and help you determine whether it’s ready to share with editors. They should also be frank and tell you if they don’t believe you’re quite there yet.

If you finish your draft and still feel anxious about reaching out to agents, you could try sharing it with friends first. I know that can be scary too—it’s often hard for me to think about letting others move in and explore a structure I’ve built when I’m not sure how solid it is.

But there always comes a time when I feel that I’ve taken a draft as far as I can on my own, and need to seek the opinions of readers I trust—which is why my manuscript is now sitting in the inboxes of several writer friends. If they are able to see and understand what I’m trying to do with it, I still might not feel 100 percent certain that it’s “done,” but at least I’ll know that it’s on its way.

It’s wonderful that you are so close to a full draft. I understand why you want to feel convinced of its merit before you let anyone else read it. Sometimes, though, that assurance comes not before you start sharing your work with others, but after—I know my projects always feel more solid and real once I’ve let others in. You may feel a shift when you have more readers and more feedback to work with; when your book is no longer subject to your thoughts, questions, and criticisms alone. If you do choose to begin sharing your manuscript, I hope the resulting feedback proves helpful and allows you to believe in and build on the work you’ve done so far.

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Dear I Have Notes,

Have you had a moment when you wanted to walk away from writing? What or who kept you going?

— Struggling With the Next Book

Dear Struggling,

I’ve never wanted to walk away from writing, but I’ve certainly gone through periods when I wasn’t able to work on it in any serious way. I didn’t write for months after my mother died. My longest writing “break” lasted roughly three years, from the birth of my first child to the birth of my second. Whenever most of my mental or physical energy is focused elsewhere by necessity, it’s suddenly, shockingly easy to imagine a life in which I no longer try to cram creative work into the margins of my day.

After that three-year lapse, I returned to writing for the simplest of reasons: I missed it. I also found that I couldn’t be alone with it anymore; if I was going to work on it, I needed community, accountability, connection. I took a couple of classes, and eventually pulled together a sample and applied to graduate school, ignoring the voice in my head telling me that it made no practical sense to work and hope and sacrifice for a career I did not yet and might never have. I’d realized that if I didn’t focus on my writing—and give it a real shot, investing in it in a way I hadn’t before—I might lose my drive to do it, and lose a piece of myself, too.

The thing about this work (and most creative pursuits) is that there’s usually something more stable or profitable you could be doing. If you’re a writer, you still write. Even if you need to spend most of your time doing something else. Even if you take the occasional break, or struggle to find your way back to it.

Sometimes I joke that the only thing worse than writing is not writing. When I say this, I’m usually not thinking about my current deadline, or whatever problem I might be having with my book, but how terrible I felt when I was barely writing at all. How close I came to giving up. What kept me going on the most discouraging days? Only the feeling that I would be giving up on myself as well.

You’re working and learning and constantly striving to be the writer you’re meant to be—to tell the stories you want to tell. No one else can be that writer; no one else can bring those books into being. I say this not to create more pressure for you, but to remind you that you’re on your way to doing something only you can do. The place you’re trying to reach is waiting for you alone. Be patient with yourself, and try to believe that your best work is still ahead of you.

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