Should I get the story as close to perfect as I can on my own before I ask for edits? Should I submit get feedback on the first chapter while I’m still only writing the third?
That’s a really good question. I think it depends on what your goal for feedback is.
For a short story, I think it makes sense to make it as good as you can make it before you solicit feedback. It’s kind of useless and feels disrespectful to the person who has taken the time to give you feedback if they’re just telling you things that you already know but just hadn’t gotten around to fixing it. All the feedback will be about those obvious things, so it’s not very likely to pull the story up to the next level.
I think it’s fine to get feedback on the first chapter of a larger work, though. Before you commit a ton of time to a new project, you can basically see if the concept is at all interesting, if people like the voice, etc. Plus, if you have any bad habits, you might catch those early before you commit them for 80,000 words and then have to edit them out of the whole work. But even then, you should do your best to fix minor errors so that all of your feedback isn’t just about clunky phrasing or grammatical errors, and so your feedback-givers can really address the content of the piece.
That is such a helpful distinction to make, and it makes a lot of sense. Thanks!