The Fallacy of Closure In Writing
“How do you know when you’re done?” It’s a question I often asked as a young writer, attending readings or panels featuring my heroes.
Sitting in the audience, basking in their brilliance, I figured they must know. They must have some Spidey-like sense of when whatever book they were promoting at the time didn’t need anything else. After all, there the book was next to them. Bound, with a nice cover, and a sticker price on it. Done, done.
I always figured the moment just occurred to them, and they’d stop, take a deep breath, close their laptop and smile, satisfied. For so long, I desperately wanted to reach that moment.
I labored for a decade on VICTIM, my forthcoming debut novel. It took so long and there were so many variations on the plot and title that, after a while, I suspect most of my family and friends thought I was lying when they’d ask about it and I’d say, “still working on it.”
In May of 2022, I sent off the version of the book that would eventually be sold. But before that, there were at least a half dozen times when I deceived myself into believing it was done, done.
I’d make a show of printing out the whole manuscript and telling my wife. The first couple times, we celebrated with a drink or dinner. Then, within a week, she’d catch me early in the morning at my desk again and ask me what I was doing. “I just need to add a couple things,” I’d say. Or, “I just need to re-read it one more time before I send it out.”
These were lies. Mostly lies to myself.
Because I knew, even upon hitting print, that I was not done, done by any means. I hadn’t had that ecstatic feeling of release, that sense of closure I was searching for.
No, instead, I’d manufactured that feeling for myself and tried to ignore the fact that there were parts of the book—usually the last 40 to 80 pages—that were not all the way there. They were just a sketch of what should be.
Sped up scenes, hastily introduced plot points to tie what I’d written before together. Soft mud I fooled myself into believing was concrete. But the charade could only last so long.
Eventually, I’d have the crushing realization that I needed to go back in there.
When I sent VICTIM to my agent last May, I still hadn’t felt that sense of closure I’d been pining for.
I felt something else. After laboring for a year on yet another full revision— taking apart every scene and putting it back together, turning my protagonist into someone who did things, instead of had things done to him—I felt I’d taken the book about as far as I possibly could.
It was less, “I’m done!” and more, “I don’t know what else to do.”
I hit send on the email and figured in a few weeks I’d get a response from my agent with suggestions on things to fix—suggestions that were inevitably correct because she’s awesome—and yet again I’d have to wade back into the darkness for some indeterminate amount of time.
But instead, she wrote back to say that she’d be getting started on building a submission list and sending it out to editors soon. I remember feeling a huge weight lift off of my shoulders. “Finally, I’m done, done,” I thought.
But of course, that wasn’t the case. Although my editor at Doubleday didn’t think the book needed too much work after she’d purchased it, there were a couple rounds of edits I would have to go through.
I imagined the process to be pretty fast. Not because I was high on my own supply, but because, I figured, I was already, pretty much, done.
What happened instead is that my editor gave me excellent notes and specifically targeted a few key areas of the book to focus on in my revision.
In return, I spent three months adding dozens of pages, changing scenes she hadn’t even highlighted, and pushing the book significantly forward from the version I’d first sold. Why could I suddenly do this, when only months before I told myself as I’d gone as far as I could?
Because I’d gotten great input from trusted, careful readers. Because I had some distance from that old version in May. And because, as with every previous iteration of this book, when I went in with eyes anew, I could always spot things I could improve.
Thankfully, my editor was pleased. I thought I’d done such a good job that, for sure, we’d be done, done.
But alas, there was another round. And the same thing happened.
I got some specific notes, and addressed those, but couldn’t help but address other things, too. “Ehh, this detail could be stronger,” or “Hmm, that’s not the right word for this punchline.” Little things to tweak that, I figured, I’d eventually stop finding once I reached the true moment everything was done, done, a moment I figured wasn’t too far off.
Recently, I sent back the copy-edits to my novel after spending a couple of weeks addressing small queries related to grammar and word choices.
The next thing that happens in the publishing timeline is a look at first pass pages, which are typeset pages of how the book will appear when it’s bound between covers.
It’ll likely be the final read through I’ll ever do before the manuscript is actually done, done and turned into a book with a sticker that people can buy in April of 2024 and, perhaps, watch me read from on a podium one day.
There will be no more tweaks. No more moving around of commas. No more, “let me read it one more time to see about this one thing.”
But trust me, it won’t be because the words are perfect and there’s absolutely nothing I’ll ever want to change about them. It won’t be because I finally experienced that moment I always imagined.
I’ve learned throughout this whole process that I’ll likely never feel that way about anything I write. The feeling of closure I’d been chasing for a decade is really, in the end, just a myth.
Next year, my book will be done because, after countless revisions, tweaks, notes, and suggestions over the past decade, I’ll have decided after one final read that I’m ready to let it enter the world, with whatever imperfections it may have, and live with the comfort of knowing I did my best.
As a writer, I’ve learned, that’s about the only sense of closure I’ll ever really feel. And that’s okay.
Peace,
Andrew
Recommendations:
The Million Dollaz Worth of Game podcast had the actor Michael B. Jordan on recently. The conversation was excellent and gave me a newfound respect for MBJ, his grind, how far he’s come, and his admirable ambition.
Olivia Reingold at The Free Press wrote a fascinating story on a recent spate of faith-based feature films that have been surprising successes at the box office—despite getting very little critical attention. “Christians in Hollywood—no, not an oxymoron, just an endangered species—hope that its success means more Christian films will be greenlit.”
Author, sociologist, and researcher Musa Al-Gharbi consistently produces excellent and provocative work around politics, race, social movements, and inequality. His most recent piece in American Affairs breaks down modern-day liberal and conservative ideologies and how they relate to rising rates of mental health issues in the U.S.
I caught two great comedy specials this past weekend by two young comics I previously hadn’t heard of. Highly suggest checking out Ian Lara’s Romantic Comedy out on HBO Max and Sam Morril’s Same Time Tomorrow on Netflix.
Just finished Andrew Lipstein’s debut novel Last Resort. Novels about writers are a dime-a-dozen these days (my own is about a writer…), but this one stands out because of the thrilling scandal at the center of the plot that keeps the pages turning. I definitely recommend it.