Discover in this post …

• examples of perfectionism in my own life.

• the cost of staying a perfectionist.

• three simple strategies to help you erase perfectionism during the drafting stage.

Awkward Teen, Awesome Teacher

I took a math test in eighth grade and couldn’t sleep that night. With my head on the pillow, I grew hyperaware that I’d gotten a question wrong. My common sense told me to forget it, but the perfectionist side of my brain couldn’t do that.

This is a true story, for anyone wondering.

The next morning, I showed up at school and made a beeline for my math teacher’s class.

I was an awkward teenager—the kind of student who’s incredibly shy, yet cares so much about her grades and schoolwork that she’s willing to be bold and advocate for herself in that area.

I approached my math teacher and asked her if she had graded the tests yet. She hadn’t. I asked her—I can’t believe I did this, but I truly did—whether it might be possible for me to fix one question on the test. I told her I SWORE I hadn’t looked at my notes, I hadn’t looked in the book (both true); I had simply realized the night before that I’d made a terrible mistake on one specific problem. It was gnawing at me, and I couldn’t let it go.

Here’s the kicker: she looked at me, shrugged, and handed over my test, allowing me to fix my error!

To this day, I’m not sure if it was because I was a good student, because she was a kind and understanding teacher, or because she didn’t think it worth the hassle to refuse. (Ironically, around ten years later, I became a teacher myself, and under no circumstances would I have allowed a student to do this.)

But I fixed that question, earning me another few points on that test.

This is the story of someone so ingrained in her own perfectionism, so intent on doing everything right, that common sense gets in the way. I went through a disproportionate amount of stress when you compare it against the result of the slight increase in my test score.

Perfectionism hits hard for many writers looking to finish their manuscripts. It’s easy to put an extreme amount of pressure on ourselves as we outline and draft. On the outside, we tell ourselves, “I’m working on a book. No big deal,” while our subconscious says, “This must be the most outstanding first draft ever written, or else I’m no good as a writer.”

When perfectionism costs us time and adds stress to our writing lives, it’s important to look at ways to move forward anyway so that we can stay on track and achieve our original goals. Before we dive into three ways to combat perfectionism, let’s identify whether you are, in fact, a perfectionist—because sometimes it rears its head in sneaky ways.

Are You a Perfectionist?

Perfectionism often manifests itself in an “all or nothing” personality. You’re either exercising five days a week, or you’re not exercising at all. You’re completely on track with dishes and laundry, or your house is a disaster. You’re writing every day, or you haven’t touched your manuscript in months.

Can you relate to that?

Another way perfectionism shows up is in the way you approach your draft. Do you edit as you write, constantly backtracking and revising your opening chapters? I’ve had clients who rewrote their first 20,000 words for five to ten years before finding me.

It’s easy to tell yourself you have no choice (“That’s just how I write”), but until you’ve opened your mind to new strategies—and actually tried them—you don’t know for sure.

In many cases, I’ve found that perfectionism is tied to fear.

Right before the fall semester of my junior year of high school, my brilliant English teacher signed me up for debate class. She knew my older brother was in debate and great at it, and she knew I was a good student who needed to come out of her shell.

Rather than accept the implied compliment and try something new, I immediately called the school and removed myself from the list.

I was terrified. Being in debate class meant you had to think on your feet in front of other people. If I didn’t think I could do something well, I wasn’t interested in doing it at all (hello, perfectionism). At the time, I didn’t view myself as someone who could do difficult things, so I took the easy way out. No way was I subjecting myself to potential humiliation.

Looking back, I wish I had challenged myself. I wish I had asked myself, What’s the worst that could happen?

Even if I had publicly humiliated myself in debate (lost track of the conversation, forgotten what I was supposed to say, etc.), I would have survived, and I would have exposed myself to some essential life skills.

But because I doubted I could do it perfectly, I decided it was better not to try.

Almost twenty years later, after experiencing life as a full-time teacher, a developmental editor, and now a book coach, I’ve learned that pushing myself into uncomfortable situations is the best thing I’ve ever done to develop my personality and skill set.

So if you’re someone who thinks, “My writing methods work for me,” but you’re scratching your head as to why your draft is still incomplete, I’d encourage you to try the three strategies below.

What’s the worst that could happen?

1. Realign Yourself with Your Goal

What’s your exact goal related to your draft? Is it “I want to finish my draft by the end of next month”? Or “I want to write 2,000 words a day, 5 days a week”? Sometimes we don’t have goals in mind at all, meaning we haven’t pinpointed what we’re working toward. And it’s hard to feel accomplished when we don’t know exactly what we’ve set out to do.

Other times, we set goals and then forget them. This is why I recommend writing down your goal and putting it somewhere you’ll see it on a regular basis.

If you get off track—say you get sick, or you binge-watch Netflix, or you beautify your author website for hours, or you worldbuild and you worldbuild and you WORLDBUILD but you never write—ask yourself, “Is it still my goal to finish my draft by the end of the year? Is that something I still want to accomplish, and is that my priority right now?”

If your answer is yes, then it becomes a simple matter of problem/solution.

• Problem: Binge-watched Netflix and got behind in my draft

• Solution: Write during my lunch break / Write on a weekend / Get up early to write (until I’m caught up)

It’s easy to get lost in the weeds of your draft and lose sight of what you’re trying to accomplish, but clarifying your goal and reminding yourself of it every day will help you move forward rather than backward in your manuscript.

2. Use TK

If you’ve never used this handy tool, I’m excited for you to try it!

TK is a placeholder that stands for “to come,” but we use a K instead of a C because there are very few words in the English language with the letters TK placed side by side, certainly none you’d use on a regular basis. This allows for easy findability once you’re ready to fill in your placeholders.

How might this help you, you ask?

The next time you’re staring at your screen, trying to come up with the perfect description of your hero’s surroundings but nothing comes to mind, write “TK: description of creepy forest” and move on!

Maybe you’re writing a witty dialogue scene and you sit for ten minutes, trying to come up with a perfect comeback for your character. Instead of waiting for inspiration to strike (she’s a fickle beast, after all), write “TK: witty comeback” and move on!

Maybe you love to write suspenseful chapter endings, and you’re feeling the pressure to come up with something perfect for Chapter 20, but nothing fits the bill. Write “TK: chapter ending that increases tension” and move on!

Then, when it’s time to revise, you can use the Find feature to jump easily from one TK to the next, filling in the answers using your editing brain rather than your first draft brain.

Using TK keeps us from perfectionism because it ensures we’re never stuck for long. It erases the pressure we often put on ourselves as writers to write something amazing the first time through. Our first drafts can be “good enough,” and we can become perfectionists when it’s time to be a perfectionist: in the revision stage.

3. Solidify Your Outline from the Start

As I mentioned, perfectionism in our writing often stems from fear. What if I don’t write a character my readers love? What if my plot isn’t creative enough, or tight enough, to hold my readers’ attention?

We can combat these fears by organizing our thoughts into an outline from the start. If you’re writing for a commercial audience, and your goal is to connect with a wide readership, you’ll likely gain the most confidence in your draft if you use a structure that has been proven to resonate with readers. I love Shawn Coyne’s Story Grid and Jessica Brody’s Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, but you can use any model you like. I’ve read many books on how to structure a novel, and I’ve found that plenty of experts are making similar points but using different wording, so choose one that appeals to you.

Once you hit the drafting stage, you can adjust your outline anytime it makes sense to do so. New ideas can be fun to integrate into your story! But whether you end up altering items or not, if you know your outline works from the start, you’ll gain confidence that you’re not wasting your time in your draft, and your excitement will help fuel you to finish your work as a result.

You’ve Got the Power

I’d like to leave you with a final thought, and it’s slightly controversial:

• Finishing your draft will take as long as you choose for it to take.

If you’ve set your goal, and you’ve prioritized your goal, and you’re taking action toward that goal, the only thing that typically gets in the way of achieving that goal is … you.

Yes, extreme situations sometimes arise: a death in the family, an unexpected time commitment outside your control, etc., but in most cases, we’re simply wading through everyday life, encountering all the usual setbacks, while watching our original goal of finishing our novel sometime this year get farther and farther away.

When that happens, it’s usually because we’ve lost sight of our goal or we didn’t prioritize it. One of the first things I do with the writers I coach is ask them why their goal is nonnegotiable. What makes finishing their novel something they’ve decided to accomplish, no matter what gets in their way? Identifying their compelling reasons and planning what to do if something unexpected crops up (doesn’t it always?) ensures that they have both a primary plan and a backup plan. They’ve decided ahead of time exactly what they’re going to do, and I’m there to hold them accountable.

Do you believe that finishing your draft will take as long as you choose for it to take? Or do you see yourself as subject to the muse, only able to write and produce work at certain times?

Set your goal, prioritize your goal, and use the punting technique of TK throughout your draft to keep you from succumbing to perfectionism along the way.

That’s how your unfinished draft will turn into a novel.

Fighting perfectionism during the drafting stage is a battle that gets easier over time. Pride yourself on setting realistic but challenging goals, taking those goals seriously, and making your writing nonnegotiable (because if it’s not nonnegotiable, you’ll let yourself get out of it). You’ll build trust in yourself and finish your novel one day at a time, one step at a time. And if you resonated with this post, don’t hesitate to email me at [email protected] to let me know your thoughts and fill me in on how your progress is going!

Do you want to learn how to write a story that makes your target readers stand up and cheer? If you’d like support from A to Z (from brainstorming to drafting to revising to publication), book a Discovery Call with me to see if you’re a good fit to join my book coaching program, Fantasy Footsteps: Road to Publication. And if you haven’t done so already, grab your Free Guide on how to hook readers from your story’s start!