[Laer Carroll]

A devotion to quality, from the smallest detail to the largest whole, is a good trait for a writer to have. Unless the devotion becomes obsession.

The result of perfectionism is that you never finish a story, or even a paragraph, or a sentence. Because nothing in the real world can be perfect. Or if you force yourself to finish a sentence, paragraph, or story it never satisfies you. You end up bored or depressed with writing and give it up.

If you are a perfectionist who wants to be a writer you must conquer this false virtue. Here's what I did and do. And as I have imperfectly conquered perfectionism I'd like to know - What do you do to handle this troublesome side of yourself?
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Writing long-hand in a notebook, my first attempt to fix my problem, made it hard to re-re-re-write stuff. I quickly lost patience with having half the page being blacked out and dozens of red arrows indicating where corrections were to be made. I learned to let go of fixing problems the instant I noticed them, unless they were major structural problems.

Instead I left little reminders to myself to attend to later in a rewrite. These looked like this !!!EXPAND THIS or !!!SLIM DOWN THIS or !!!ADD FRSHDOW ONE CHAP BACK or !!!CHECK HAIR COLOR.

After many months of thus torturing myself I eventually learned enough discipline that I could replace my notebook and typewriter with a computer. I got the (hah!) perfect computer for a writer - a cheap but good PC with a cheap but good laser printer. And a very cheap but good color inkjet printer for photos and maps and such.

Another habit I adopted to replace my bad habits is a "journalistic" approach. I pretend to be a reporter observing events as they happen, with very little time to write. I pretend I have to get the bare essentials down before something else happened that required my attention.

At work I discovered another way to handle perfectionism: "iterative" or "spiral" or "fractal" development of systems. Make a pilot system that does actual essential work but is designed for expansion. The first iteration left out, for instance, subsystems which can take up to half a system's resources - error checking. Which are absolutely needed in working million-dollar weapon systems and commercial transport planes.

Iterative development for artists is called "layering." They draw a faint main outline on canvas with lead pencils, working in detail only on the most essential parts, mostly faces and hands. The second layer covers the penciled layer with broad swatches of paint. The third layer covers the second with detail but can let some of the second layer seep through to, for instance, give skin tones more complex and life-like textures.
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Well, that's what works for me. What about you? What techniques have you developed?

[kmtolan]

Wow, such eloquence! I do the same thing...it's called "drafts".

Kerry (having a little good natured fun this morning)

[Michael Cooper]

I typically start out with oodles of research--in some cases as long as a year of research before the story starts. Then I write a few chapters (often discarded later) that establish backstory and characters. This usually solidifies the direction of the story.

Once that is done then the meat and potatoes of the story begin and I have at it. I usually leapfrog about, writing whatever portion jumps out to me next. Once that is done I tie it all together with bridging sections.

After that its the process of running through the story as a whole and ensuring continuity. That's actually my favorite part is its where all the little sparks get added.

Then it's off to the editor...

[worldmaker]

depends on the source of inspiration.

In one case I had a dream for a SF thriller and was so driven by it that I'd completed the story (film script) within 21 days.

At present I have this short story in mind, but it's not ready to leap into the forefront of my mind, it's slowly assembling itself in the background while I get on with day-to-day tasks like earning money, avoiding starvation, etc.

But I think, soon, perhaps......


:)

As for the writing process, this is write, then redraft. Once you're writing just let the words come and get them all down on paper as fast as you can, leave the editing and redrafting until later.

[BrightStar]

A devotion to quality, from the smallest detail to the largest whole, is a good trait for a writer to have. Unless the devotion becomes obsession.

The result of perfectionism is that you never finish a story, or even a paragraph, or a sentence. Because nothing in the real world can be perfect. Or if you force yourself to finish a sentence, paragraph, or story it never satisfies you. You end up bored or depressed with writing and give it up.

If you are a perfectionist who wants to be a writer you must conquer this false virtue. Here's what I did and do. And as I have imperfectly conquered perfectionism I'd like to know - What do you do to handle this troublesome side of yourself?

I can most definitely relate. I've learnt a lot about myself through the process of writing, one particular discovery being that I am a huge perfectionist. On a bad day, I can't even get out a single word, nevermind a sentance or a paragraph. It's frustrating, because typically if I can turn my hyper-perfectionist-critic off, then I can (sometimes!) actually make some decent progress.

I'm sorry to say that the writing long hand didn't work for me, though I tried it. Initially, I had great hope, but unfortunately I have a disability in my hand that makes it near impossible to write for any amount of time (more than perhaps five minutes) and whilst to begin with, I thought this might be useful because it would ensure I wouldn't waste time deleting and editing everything, it soon began to have the opposite effect and was more destructive to my writing than actually helpful.

I've been in a slump with my writing for the past year. Though much of my time spent not writing has been due to personal commitmants and the sort, when I have found the chance to write, I've noticed a gradual decline in my confidence. This, has seen a rise in my desire to be a perfectionist. It's like the less confident I am, the more I fret and worry over every single little word.

There are a few tips that might help, which I use and have managed to produce a fair amount of words during a writing session. I just find that a single stratergy is not always best suited for every situation. Sometimes you have to use different statergies at different times.

Since a lot of my problem is confidence, I like to plan. I don't just plan my plot, I plan my writing. What am I going to describe first? What next? What will my character think? What will he do? What will happen next? Maybe it's a bit like your journalistic approach. After I've written a chapter (at most) of "planning", I then go and actually turn that planning into story.

It's what I'm using recently, (when I manage to find the time to write) and I do find it helps for me with where I am in my story at the moment. One of the reasons why I have a lack of confidence in my writing currently is because the part of my story I'm at takes place after a huge, huge event. A lot has happened, my character is lost and confused and overwhelmed, and I, in turn, am almost sharing the same problems because there's just so many details about my story that I don't know what to write first.

So, this super detailed planning method works for me.

Another thing that has worked is to limit the amount of time you actually write. I downloaded a timer program, which I could set at a certain time and then made myself write just for that length of time. I was lacking motivation to write when I tried this, so I also promised myself a reward (read more of a favorite book, for example) once the time was up.

Again, it did suceed to produce a lot of writing, though much of it did require editing afterwards. But it allowed me to make some progress with my WIP, which is what's usually my main problem at the moment.

The downside to this stratergy is that it only works for when I know what I want to have happen next. I tried using it to get past a particular nasty bit of writer's block a few months back, and I just came up with a blank.

But, when I did have something in mind for a scene, it really helped to stop me agonizing over every word because I knew I only had a set amount of time to write. I also kept the time to quite short (about 15 minutes) because when I'm not busy fussing over every word, 15 minutes can actually achieve quite a lot of writing.