So you’ve made this awesome thing–you’ve followed all the Ps, went through the grueling revision stage, and are pouring through the feedback you got.
Now what?
You’re probably asking yourself, “How will I know when it’s ready?” We have a tendency to get so caught up in the revision process, that we start making too many little tweaks. How do you figure out when your project is polished and ready? I’m going to briefly touch on what to do after feedback before jumping into that.
After Feedback
The great thing about getting feedback from trusted sources (see Part Four), is that you’ll see a trend. When I sent The Year is Now to several beta readers, they all had similar things to say without even knowing each other existed!
Common themes I received:
1. I used the word armpit too much (lolz?). They all said that the word was awkward whenever I used it.
2. They did not like a short scene where Elly was stuffing her skirt into her environmental suit. They all felt it was out of place and pulled the reader out of the story.
3. I kept getting idioms wrong. I can’t remember which ones, but I remember that being a theme with the feedback I got. For instance, instead of saying “Well, the cat’s out of the bag,” I’d say “Well, the cat’s out of the hat.”
Focus on the trends
Fix those first. Once you’ve tidied those up, go back and peek at the other things people said about your work. Weed out personal opinion vs structural improvement. What do I mean by this? Years ago, I had someone beta read a story (one that was never published). They didn’t like how it was set in the 90s and wanted it set in the 80s because they were a huge fan of the 80s and 80s pop music.
How do I know it’s done?
There will be a point in time when you keep making minor tweaks to your project. You’ll start stressing yourself out because you are so focused on making it PERFECT. Making minor tweaks here and there is okay, just don’t let yourself get into a tweaking frenzy! Only you can determine if the project is done. I normally know it’s done when I’m out of logical tweaks to make and changing anything else would just be pointless. Other times, it’s just a gut feeling.
Conclusion
I want to thank you for taking the time to read my short series on the creative process! I had fun writing it and hope that you found it helpful.
If you have an idea or would like me to cover something, feel free to send it my way!
