On Achieving Balance- (or, how can you tell when your story's done?)

[mary_j_59]

My sister is an artist, and, when she's finished a sketch, I've seen her hold it up to a mirror to check it out. "What are you doing?" I asked her once. She explained, "I'm trying to see if the picture's in balance."

I'm at the stage now when I need to do the same thing. Somehow, I have to step back from a manuscript I've been working on nearly every day for more than three years and find a way to see it as a whole. But we writers can't hold our finished works up to a mirror to see if they are top heavy or, as my sister calls it, out of drawing. What I need to know now is whether my ending works; whether it arises as logically from the story as I hope it does, and whether the character arcs I've drawn are organic, coherent, and satisfying. Right now, I'm much, much too close to my story to be able to tell. Somehow or other, I need to gain some distance and get a fresh view. But how to do this?

All of my beta readers have been wonderful beyond praise, but I can't really ask them to do this for me. They (especially my sister and another friend) have been with me every step of the way, from the first word. If I'm feeling confused about the manuscript, I'm sure they must be, as well! What I'd really love, right now, is a professional reader who's a stranger both to my story and to me, and who would therefore give it an objective reading. That's one reason why I'd love to get feedback from an agent or editor. I'd love to have someone who had never seen it before read the story as a whole, and then tell me if it is in balance.

I've been trying, in my last round of revisions, to clean up the language and to expand or clarify the arcs of a couple of characters who were slighted the first time round. As with my first round of revisions after my beta readers' comments, all the changes I've made are definite improvements. But - are they enough? Am I finally, actually finished? I can't tell. My guess is that that means I'm probably not.

How do you writers (and artists!) out there tell when you have finally achieved balance in your work? How, failing professional/objective input, do you manage to step back from your creation and see it as a whole? For now, I'm going to take the advice some of you have generously given me, and let this manuscript rest while I query agents and work on my middle-grade fantasy. Maybe, after not working on it or thinking about it for a couple of weeks, I'll be able to look at it with fresh eyes. Any other ideas for evaluating your own manuscript? Or, for that matter, for fine-tuning and editing? I'll be glad to hear from you!

Comments

[sionna-raven.livejournal.com]

In general I leave a finished texts alone for a while to get a distance, the longer the text the longer I leave it.

For the final touch I use a similar method like your sister. Language is audible, so instead of holding it to a mirror like visual art I read it aloud, longer pieces chapter-wise. I feel that I can hear whether it is 'in tune' or not.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

That's a good idea, Sionna_Raven - thanks! I am likely to do it, too, since I want to make a recording of the book for my parents. But I'm still not sure that I wouldn't lose track of things while reading such a long text aloud. I'll let you know-

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[rfannzcaidvx.livejournal.com]

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