Finishing a Story

You’ve written the first version of your story. (Or you’re ~80% through that first draft.) What are some tips for finishing a story? What’s the process for getting it revised and/or published?

As always, this Storytelling course is just the practical overview for beginners. For more information, read the detailed Publishing course. (And maybe the ones on Plot about writing endings, and Prose about editing.)

Endings

In general, endings should be easy. The ending has to pay off everything you set up. Your whole book has been building to this ending. As such, if you structured the story well, the ending writes itself. You know exactly what needs to happen or what objects/character traits/information needs to be used (or revealed). Your story should’ve had a clear antagonist, and the ending will deal with them in some way.

If the ending is not easy, the problem is not that you’re “bad at endings”, the problem is that the rest of the story lacks a strong focus and forward momentum.

Also don’t think you must add a plot twist or big reveal to the ending. Only do so if it makes sense, if you’ve build up to that for 300 pages.

It’s better to give readers a satisfying ending they expect, than an unexpected ending no matter the cost

Finally, remember how all those narrative structures ended with the “denouement”: the quick deflation of tension until we reach the new status quo.

It might seem fine to end your story a few paragraphs after your hero kills the antagonist. Or to end on a “cliffhanger” with “does the hero defeat the enemy or not?!?!”

In practice, it’s probably a bad idea.

There are probably loose (narrative) threads to tie up. There should be consequences to this climax. You should show how the hero returns to a new status quo. That is actually the satisfying bit, not the climax itself. Really take the time to properly end your story and show this final part.

Sure, if you want a multiple book series, end on a cliffhanger. But the cliffhanger should not be to just stop halfway the climax. Each book in that series needs to stand on its own and have its own complete narrative.

Dealing with feedback

It’s rare—to the point of being impossible—that your first draft is perfect and can be published just like that.

Most stories need multiple drafts, multiple edits, multiple versions.

The first part is obviously to send the story to people who can give feedback. You can send the story to publishers, but they only provide feedback if they think the story is “almost good enough (to be published)”. Otherwise, it’s just a default rejection with no details.

If possible, join a writer’s group, either near you or online. Submit your work for feedback, which usually requires you to read and critique the works of other (beginning) writers. Both parts are educational, don’t skimp on it.

Here are my four rules about feedback.

• Feedback is worth its weight in gold. Seek feedback wherever you can. Do not connect feedback to your self-worth or the quality of your work: feedback is nothing more than the potential for something to improve. Even the stories that everyone around the world loves, have flaws and things some people don’t like about them.
• Do not get defensive or explanatory. If somebody says “I thought the main character was annoying”, don’t get mad at them or try to “convince” them that the character wasn’t annoying. Your job is to get feedback, consider which of it is useful, then apply it to your book. Your only response should be a thanks for the feedback and optionally follow-up questions for clarification.
• If everybody mentions a different issue, you can probably ignore it. If everybody mentions the same issue, you should certainly look into it.
• People have a tendency to not only state an issue they were having, but also how they would solve it. They are often right about the existence of an issue—but completely wrong about how to solve it. (Most readers are not writers. And even then, they don’t have the knowledge and experience with this particular story that you, the author, do.)

It saddens me to see how most people think feedback (or saying anything that’s negative) is automatically bad. While, at the same time, being taught they should defend themselves or they’re “weak”.

In truth, you should adopt the exact opposite stance.

• Ask everybody to tell you how much they hated your story and why. All the time. Tell people they should be honest, otherwise there is no point giving feedback in the first place.
• When you receive feedback, thank them for the effort, consider it, and draw your own conclusions.

Even a review that states your book was rubbish on all fronts is more information than no review at all. It’s up to you to read it, consider it, and see if they actually have a point.

The “other” bits

Every project has the content (the story itself, in this case) and “everything else around it”. Think of the cover art, the marketing text, even the title.

It is absolutely true that these other bits determine your story’s initial success.

• People will only consider a book if its cover looks appealing
• They’ll lose interest if the title is boring or vague
• And then they’ll lose interest if the marketing blurb is bad or didn’t match their expectation

With the abundance of books on offer, you really need to stand out and make no mistake here. (Unless you’re a famous author and can do anything you like.)

Yes, content is king. But nobody will read your story and see how amazing it is, if they never actually buy it because the cover art is amateurish.

I have always prepared these other elements myself. I am also a graphic designer and run my own business, so I actually wanted to do it myself and learn these skills. I made some mistakes here and there, but generally had no issue with this.

I can’t, therefore, give much more advice on this front. Only that it’s crucial to get this right. It’s not “procrastinating” or “wasted effort” to spend quite some time crafting the perfect title, cover, marketing, font, and first chapter.

Publishing

All my books so far have been self-published. (This course was written early 2023.)

I have certainly sent work to major publishers (in the Netherlands), as well as joined several writing contests. Each time, I came close to winning or was good enough to receive feedback, but at time of writing I haven’t landed an actual contract. I know a lot about how to send your work to agents/publishers, and how they deal with it, but never actually succeeded on getting to the other side.

My self-published books have done “okay”. Selling some copies here and there, getting favorable reviews. As explained above, my cover art and marketing have always been way more professional than the average self-published book. I am on the more “successful” end of the self-pubbing spectrum.

But even then, no book of mine has sold more than 30 copies. Nothing major, and certainly not enough to be an income.

I wanted to make that very clear!

Self-Publishing

This is absolutely a vital strategy, but with clear drawbacks.

• The number of self-published books is huge. You need to stand out.
• You have to do everything yourself.
• In general, people have a worse opinion about self-published books. For a reason! Many of them are full of mistakes, amateur, first drafts that people threw online hoping to get some money.

The advantage is that you keep control over every aspect, get more royalties per book, and actually get your book into the world.

I’ve used several different services. I hesitate to recommend any of them directly, not knowing if the services might change or disappear. Instead, let me tell you general things to look out for.

• Pick one that has no upfront cost per book. (Unless you have a loyal fanbase and know your book will sell enough to cover those costs.)
  • Some have no upfront cost, except for the ISBN (a unique ID to track each book). Even then, I’d recommend picking a service that gives you that ID for free. Less hassle for you. And I know, from experience, that the cost of buying new book IDs can quickly rise to an uncomfortable level.
• Pick one where all the rights remain with you.
• Pick one that allows you to have one account that handles everything.
  • So, a service that distributes to many places (especially Amazon).
  • And that can deliver both digital versions (ebooks) and physical versions (paperback/hardcover)

Publishing

If you don’t want to self-publish, you should send your work to literary agents. (Or directly to publishers, though many of them do not accept that. The agents are a sort of “quality control” that decide what’s good enough to put underneath the nose of an editor at a major publisher.)

Usually, they require a query letter and a synopsis.

• The query letter contains (brief and summarized!) information about you and the book. Think of genre, length, target audience, standalone or series, etcetera.
• The synopsis is one page (maybe two) with the full plot summary of your book. Yes, including the ending and all the details. They use this to gauge if your book is well-structured all the way through without having to read the whole thing.

You can send out your work before its done, as long as you clearly state it. In fact, if you’re worried about theft, most agents are fine with only receiving the first few chapters (~50 pages) of a manuscript.

A proper publishing company should …

• Give you an advance. They pay you for the book, you do not pay them in any way.
• Help with marketing and editing.
• Support you and your book, trying to put the best possible story into the world. If there is no support, or they treat your book like it isn’t important, step away. You can always give back your advance and retract the rights (until the book is published, of course).

Quite often, if you are successful, publishing companies will also pay an advance so you can write the next book. For some, this is great. For others, this is extra pressure and they end up giving back the advance because they just don’t want to write that next book.

This is all fine. A proper publishing company should support this and help you and your career.

If they don’t, please, do not enter into a contract with them.

Now what?

You’ve finished a book. You’ve done revisions to make it as good as possible. Maybe you’ve self-published, maybe you just sent it to lots of publishers and are waiting for their response.

Congratulations! This is no easy feat. Many aspiring writers stay aspiring writers, but you actually did it.

Now start your next book :)

The next chapter is a bit of a different one about mindset. About how to actually accomplish this advice (if you’re struggling): about motivation, keeping the stories coming, overcoming writer’s block.

And then you’re at the conclusion of this course, the final chapter!