When it comes to many things, I am a perfectionist. I don’t like things to be half-assed. I guess that’s one reason why I hate group projects. I either feel like I’m the one doing all the work, or I feel like I’m not doing enough to make the project perfect. Either way I’m never happy. One of my professors said something the other day that seemed sort of profound:
“Perfection only lasts for a few minutes, and then disappears.”
I’m sort of taken aback by this. I think that it is true, but at the same time I don’t. It’s like hair. You spend your time trying to make it how you want it, but then step outside and a slight breeze screws it up. But then I see a classic movie like “Jaws” and think how it’s still perfect after a few decades. I like to think of perfection as something that works. “Jaws” works, and it works very well. There may be some flaws, but it is still perfect in a way. I think flaws help in making something perfect, which is a bit of an oxymoron. A flaw makes something real, and something realistic is perfect to me. But then again, flaws tend to stand out. And that drives me insane.
If they can do it, I can do it! Wait, you thought I was talking about flying a jet!? No, I mean perfection!
This leads me to my real problem. Being a writer and a perfectionist is hard. Really hard. It’s one of the reasons I haven’t had anything published yet. I like everything to be perfect and make complete sense. But the further you get into a narrative, the further you get from information that has already taken place. Here’s a concurrent example:
Just a little while ago, I was reading an older chapter that detailed how a planet was pitch-black at night because there was no moon. It had me second-guess myself on one of my newer chapters, which took place the next night. Lighting was a big part of the chapter and I thought to myself, “Did I forget this earlier line about there not being a moon?” It was just a single line, but was relevant to the rest of the story in that I couldn’t contradict it. I didn’t even have it written down in any of my notes. So I proceeded to go through chapters looking for any reference to a moon that shouldn’t exist. This took a little while, and I soon found that I never referenced the non-existent moon anyway. It’s things like this that set me back. I’ve started writing more notes than before, which are mostly just small details that might not mean anything. But it’s the details that count and you can be sure some reader will find one small little contradiction and call you out on it.
Another horrible part of being a perfectionist while writing is in needing everything to work. This is probably the worst part for me. I’m constantly thinking about my current project. If I’m sitting there all quiet, I’m probably thinking about my work. Every spare second is me trying to work everything out; from a government system to the basic plot-line. The worst part is that that government system might be something small and in the background of the story. But I want it to make sense. Especially if in the future I want to go in depth with that current detail. I mine as well fill out that detail in my head now so I don’t have to do it later. But I also want the main plot to make sense. I will sit and think about this a lot. “Why is this character doing this?” “Would a group of people react this way?” “Would this actually be possible?” These are questions I try and figure out on a daily basis. I also try and get into the minds of certain characters, and research what people like them will do. All of these processes make the story take longer to come about, but I hope it will be worth it in the end.
My first project was a disaster because of my perfectionism. I started the book in 7th grade and worked on it for a few years into high school. The plot was so complex that when I tried to explain it to people, they were confused. I kept going back and changing things constantly. Reading and rereading everything dozens of times. I think I did this after every chapter, just trying to see if things made sense. People still didn’t understand. After about four years of working on it, I had only gotten to about 80 pages. And it seemed like 200 pages had gone by in the plot. Everything was just so fast paced. My writing was all over the place. My mind exploded every time I tried to work on it. In 11th grade I abandoned all efforts to even try working on it again.
Trying to get to "Perfection" often leads you to "Writer's Block", or worse, "Dead End"
In my freshman year of college, I went back to it. After reading over everything, I hated it. Some characters were all right. I could keep them for other projects, but I completely hated everything else. For one thing, it was far from perfect. But my writing style had also changed. To even think of salvaging the whole thing would mean a total rewrite, and I just couldn’t bring myself to typing another word on that file. So I sat back for another two years until I had a flash of inspiration. After another year or so of planning, I finally began work on my current project. I’ve written twice as much as my abandoned project, and have barely scratched the surface of the plot. I’ve also only been working for a fraction of the time. I guess my perfectionism has been managed just a tad better.
Or it’s even more rampant and has lead to creating a plot that actually makes sense this time around.
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