The Art of Fiction

Editor’s Note: While we are sad to lose Lisa’s regular contributions, we are thrilled that she has agreed to continue to contribute special articles to Authorlink from time to time. We wish her all good things wherever her new journeys lead her. Also, note that we have welcomed a wonderful new regular columnist, Dale Griffiths Stamos. We always welcome reader feedback at dbooth@authorlink.com.

How do you know when a fiction is finished? This is a question I’m asked fairly frequently, and my response is that every writer’s answer is tied to the way s/he works. For an intuitive writer like me, knowing I’m finished comes straight from my gut sense of the work.

If you’ve been reading my columns for any length of time, you already know that I believe revision and rewriting are the best routes toward reaching The End. Of course (knowing you as I do), I know you want to know how many rewrites it takes to get it right, and how many times you’ll need to go through a fiction with your red pen until there’s nothing left to change. My answer to those questions is, as many times as it takes. If you’re revising thoroughly and honestly, at each rereading you’ll add and subtract less and less, until your manuscript needs only a final flourish.

That Final Flourish

Have you ever gotten dressed for an interview or a party, then looked in the mirror and known something was missing? Maybe a change of shoes was all it took, or the addition of a scarf or the right tie or belt. When you looked in the mirror after adding that final flourish, what you saw was someone ready to go.

The same thing goes for a fiction.

One of my favorite stories about knowing when I was finished concerns my novel Dissonance

I completed the first draft of the book in 1995. Then I put it away for five years, until I saw a blurb for the Jim Sagel Award in an Albuquerque paper. Because Dissonance seemed as if it might be a contender, I took the book out, read it through, and did a lot of nipping and tucking and adding and subtracting. Then I printed out a new copy and read it through again.

The book, which had (has) plentiful line breaks, was at that time not divided into chapters or sections. During that last read-through, though, it seemed to fall naturally into five parts. (Five is an important number to one of the characters in the book, and so this seemed particularly fitting.) After adding these section breaks, I printed out a copy of the book and sent it off to the contest.

Now, when the judge called me (nearly a year later) to let me know I’d won, my first thought was that it was because I’d divided the book into five sections. I used to laugh when I told this story (full disclosure: I still do),but the truth is that final flourish was just what the book needed to be perfectly tied together. In other words, it was finished. I’d reached The End, and I knew it. And so (if you’re honest with yourself) will you.

The End

Six years and sixty columns ago, I began writing The Art of Fiction for Authorlink with a column called “It Begins,” so it seems fitting that I close with one called “It Ends.” I’ve learned a lot, both about writing fiction and about those who write it (or hope to). But I hope you’ve learned even more over the course of these columns, and that you’ll continue to check in with me via my website, www.lisalenardcook.com, and let me know how your own writing is going. Good luck—and keep the faith.