In so many words

In So Many Words  May 2025

By Nicki Ehrlich

What happens when the book you’re writing has twenty-five chapters and you’re finishing chapter twenty-four? Did your toe just get caught in the cross tie of a railroad track? Is the train coming? It was so much fun climbing the tree, but now you have to get down. You’ve been looking forward to this vacation for a year, and now you don’t want to leave the comforts of home.

Yep, that’s it. Fear of completion. All this time reveling in the creation, and now you have to go back, read it all, edit. And then, OMG, let your beta readers at it. Then wait in agony until they finish and tell you they loved it. Or they hated it. Or horror of all horrors…“I liked it.” (Good beta readers won’t do that. They’ll give you constructive criticism.)

Then come the rewrites, the do-I-leave-that-in or do-I-kill-my-darlings moments. Send it off to the editor and wait in agony for her notes. More rewrites, edits—wring it dry of inactive verbs and -ly adverbs, missed opportunities and out-of-character dialogue, and anything else that makes it less than perfect. Off to the designer it goes. And then the proofreading—once, twice, oh, dear writing-god no, not three times. 

No wonder we experience the fear of completion. Today, I write away on the next chapter, immersed in my characters’ world, their experience. I’m just along for the ride, watching and recording, laughing and crying with them about their lives. As soon as I type “The End”, it’s up to me to let their secrets out. To release them into a world of readers who may not all love them like I do. Will they be acknowledged? Will they be cared for? Will they be read?  

I don’t believe in writer’s block, but fear of completion may be kin. So here are some things I do to get over it. 

First of all, I tell myself, “Get over it.” You have another book waiting in the wings as soon as you’re done with this one. Take a little vacation before you start. Or try one of these:

1. Write the back cover copy. Maybe you already did this, but now might be the time to polish. Is your who, what, when, where, why included? Don’t forget the “twist.” Ask a question that a reader wants answered. Will she find what she’s looking for? (Be specific.)
2. Write a short story or poem that follows a thread in the book. Maybe a spin-off on one of the minor characters. Have fun with this. It might just give you a better story ending.
3. Know where you’re going. Even if you’re a “pantser,” I bet you charted your course before you set out on this book-writing cruise. Yes, you did. You had an idea that nagged at you until you sat down and wrote all those other chapters. Has that idea come to a satisfying conclusion? The same one you started with or different? What changed? How did it change? What themes have emerged along the way?

By no means should you be in a rush to finish your tome, but by all means, finish it. Don’t be afraid, be bold.

Every ending leads to a beginning. Enjoy the process.