Managing Perfectionism as a Writer
What to do when perfectionism hijacks your writing process.
You want to craft a story that shines, but somewhere along the line, that desire for greatness became hesitation. You feel torn between getting words down and making them good, and you know perfectionism is strangling your momentum. You want to get back to making progress on your story, but how?
The good news is that perfectionism isn’t something you need to overcome—you just have to manage it. There’s room in the writing process for perfectionism, so long as you aim it in the right direction.
Perfectionism is your editing superpower, but it’s creation kryptonite.
When High Standards Help (and When They Don’t)
Your desire to put out a perfect book can save you from rookie mistakes—like self-publishing a book riddled with typos or querying your dream agent with a manuscript that’s full of holes. But before we judge those writers too harshly, remember that they did something we perfectionists struggle with: They actually wrote the book and let someone read it.
A healthy dose of perfectionism might protect you from heartbreaking rejections and one-star reviews, but those same high standards can hold you back, too. The problem is, most of us let perfection get in the way long before we reach the point where it’s useful. We let it stop us from starting. We spiral instead of moving ahead.
Questions to Ask When Perfectionism Takes Over
When perfectionism starts to impede progress, ask yourself the following:
1. Why are you driven to make this story perfect? Get specific here. What will happen if it isn’t flawless? When we dig into our fears, usually they’re related to the final product. Which means that if we’re anywhere in the writing process besides the proof and polish stage, it doesn’t have to be perfect yet. This mindset shift takes some of the pressure off.
2. What does perfection mean to you in this context? What’s the ideal outcome of writing this story? Is there a less-than-ideal outcome you’d still be happy with?
Here’s an example: I recently signed up for a short story contest that gave me ten days to write from a prompt. The ideal outcome would be to win, but I’d be happy if I just submitted a complete story.
By determining the slightly less-than-ideal outcome we’d still be happy with, we lower the stakes. When our measure of perfection becomes more realistic, it helps us move ahead.
3. Are you moving ahead? Are you getting closer to having a finished product?
Hint: If you’re not writing (or deleting) words, you’re not making progress. Before you come at me with the “but my process involves a lot of thinking, and actually, I can edit a blank page” excuse, trust me, I get it. (#3 Intellection here). Take a walk, first, if you have to. But when you get back, start writing. The words don’t need to end up inside your manuscript to count. You can start an ideas document, get out some scratch paper, or just talk into your notes app. The important thing is to turn your ideas into something solid.
Our inner perfectionist thinks it’s good at evaluating ideas in thought form, but it’s not. They’re too ethereal, too flimsy, too malleable. So give it something to properly react to. The act of putting your ideas into words is action, and action moves you forward.
Stop Searching for the Perfect Story Idea
Tell me if this sounds familiar: You’re thinking about your story constantly, but you keep running into plot holes, so you refuse to put pen to paper. You tell yourself you’ll start once you have a good enough idea. Except days turn into weeks, and you’re still not writing.
That was me with that short story challenge. For the first seven days, I didn’t write anything at all. I told myself that thinking counted as progress, that the words would pour out of me as soon as I found the right premise. What really happened is that I got stuck on the idea of perfection in the ideation phase.
The ideation phase is the absolute worst place to get stuck in a perfectionism spiral. Every idea has the potential to become a great story; it’s just a matter of how much you’re willing to tweak it and whether it’s the story you want to tell right now.
The way to get past this is (you guessed it) to put pen to paper. Start writing your story ideas down. Set a timer for twenty minutes and jot down as many ideas as you can. The point isn’t to find the perfect idea; it’s to get something on paper. Even the “bad” ideas can spark something better later. At this stage, you’re just giving your editorial side something tangible to react to.
My first short story idea—a werewolf who rejects her mate—was solid, but it was too big for a 2,000-word limit. Writing it down showed me the mismatch. In my head, it seemed perfect. On paper, the flaws were obvious, and that clarity allowed me to move forward. Putting ideas on paper exposes what’s working and what’s not. And that’s progress.
Fighting Perfectionism in First Drafts
It’s easy to get caught up in getting the words exactly right. You start rewriting sentences instead of allowing ideas to flow onto the page, even though you know your first draft isn’t the place for that.
“Just write it messy; you can clean it up later,” is what I’m supposed to say here.
(I hate that advice.)
Not because it’s wrong, but because it doesn’t work for everyone. When I write a hot mess draft, I end up with a pile of garbage that needs to be rewritten from page one. That said, it works really well for some people, so don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it. Also, while I no longer draft my whole novel this way, sometimes putting my unedited stream of consciousness onto the page helps me find my way into a problem scene. So it’s good in small doses.
If messy drafts don’t work for you either, try this: write it as a summary or outline. This works at both the story and scene level, and it’s my preferred way to get out of the first-draft-prose-perfecting cycle. Something about putting my ideas down on outline form feels less threatening than writing the scene itself. I’m no longer trying to tell the perfect story, I’m just jotting down what happens. Here again, when we turn our ideas into words, our analytical brain has something to respond to. Are you on the right track? Great, you can actually write the scene. This doesn’t work? Now you know, and you can try something else.
Let Your Perfectionist Out at the Right Time
Once you’ve finished your draft, your perfectionist finally gets to shine. All that attention to detail now becomes an asset. Your need to produce a flawless manuscript makes you dig deeper in revisions, and keeps you motivated when the editing process gets hard. It might even help you kill your darlings.
But watch out. Perfectionism can turn against you when fear sneaks in. You know you’ve reached this stage when you find yourself editing your first ten pages over and over. Or you’ve been revising so long, you don’t know whether you’re making it better or worse. If you’ve put in all the work and you still can't let it go, that’s not embracing high standards—it’s fear of failure.
When you hit this point, go back to the questions above. What’s the ideal outcome for this project? What’s the “I’d still be happy if” version? Then ask yourself two more:
Am I improving this story, or just reworking it out of fear?
What does good enough even look like?
If you can’t articulate what finished looks like, it’s time to hand your story to someone else.
You Can't Make It Perfect on Your Own
Eventually, if you want to be published, you have to let other eyes on your work. Your job isn’t to make it 100% perfect before anyone sees it. It’s to get it far enough that feedback can help you make it better. You can’t fix what you can’t see, and even the best writers can’t see everything on their own.
Once you get that outside feedback, invite your perfectionist back in. Embracing that drive to get it right will carry you through the editing stage.
And when you reach the final polish, let her take the lead. Proofreading is where your perfectionist shines brightest. Check every comma. Read it out loud. Format it differently to catch typos. Let her revel in the details.
The place for perfectionism is at the finish line, not the starting gate.
Use Perfectionism to Your Advantage
Perfectionism isn't a flaw; it's a strength. If you aim it at the right stage of your process, it stops holding you back and becomes the secret superpower that fuels your best work.