I'm new to the writing scene, but I've immediately noticed how I've started to feel pressured (not by anyone but myself) to write perfectly, without any grammatical or functional errors. 

I feel like my paragraphs aren't good enough, and I tend to rewrite my stuff often. 



I guess it's because I'm mentally holding myself to the standards of top selling works, and not free web series like I should. 


Anyone else? Thoughts?  

Penguin for your thoughts? 

-.-keu-.-

I definitely feel you.  Sometimes its hard to keep writing because I notice so many mistakes while I'm writing and I feel the need to fix it then and there.  The thing I tell myself then is that "I am not a professional writer and I am still improving so it doesn't have to be perfect". It's also a good thing to remember that published authors have editors that go through and help them on their grammar and etc so it's alright if you're not perfect at writing.

I also self edit a lot even though I hate rereading my own works because I feel embarrassed going back and rereading, I don't know why I do, I just do. My tip is to write everything in one go,  and then go back and brush things up to make them better.  Also after you finish writing, maybe wait a couple hours a day before going back and rereading. This way you can look at your work with fresh eyes and although at the moment you were writing it, it seemed bad, afterwards it may not seem as bad as you thought it did. This has happened to me, not saying that my work is great, it's just I didn't think it was as good as it was in the moment that I was writing it.

When I'm writing I also listen to instrumentals to help calm down my nerves. The music also help inspires me to write better. If anything, just try your best. I hate the feeling of being pressured, but I hate the feeling of not getting anywhere more than I do with the pressure. Good luck with your writing and happy writing! :)

Perfectionism is paralysis.

It's why I don't even try. Just check out my stuff: the descriptions are shortened to only what is essential to understand the plot, figures of speech are used to illustrate abstract emotions or rarely when they can abridge the description of an object or event; sometimes I forget to close my quotation marks and sometimes feel like I have the vocabulary of a 12 years old.

What I think that you must understand is that everything in a creative project (movie, book, comics...) is a tool for storytelling. Storytelling is defined by the passing of narrative information to the reader. Don't worry about writing a perfect text or avoiding word repetition: your writing's quality is measured by the ease that other people have in understanding what you wrote.

As I've written in a novel before, writing is a service for who reads, not for the ego of who writes.

(Also, published novels are also far from perfect. They go through three editors before arriving at your table. First drafts look atrocious)

The mentality I take into it is that not everybody is going to like my writing. I can spend hours editing and re-editing to make sure it’s perfect to MY standards, but no matter what, there will ALWAYS be that one person who gripes about one little flaw I left in there. You will only drive yourself crazy if you try writing something that appeases everybody. So just don’t try it. Write and edit until YOU are happy with your work and then let everyone else decide if they like it or not.

If they like it, awesome!

If not, oh well. They can go find something else to read. :)

Get this perfectionism out of your system!

Firstmost, there is no shame trying to improve yourself, but perfectionism is something to strive for, nothing to be attained. So don't try to fight that urge, try to implement it in your daily life and keep saying to yourself "I'll become better!"

Though you should also understand, that what you always need is feedback. Unlike some top authors, you might have not professional aid, a bunch of acquaintances to ask, or something else. Even if you have (like joining a writing group), you will always show an "incomplete" draft, which can only improve at a fast pace by having some people criticising it.
So there is no harm showing it to your readers. In my experience, most of the readers are nice people, so they'll point out your errors, your hard to understand sentences, your wrong choices in life... ... ...

Even then, you might come back to your story a year after publishing it in any way, you'll still find things you'd like to change. Maybe, because your writing style changed, or because you think, that you made a bad decision, that's normal. The editing will never stop... never... ever...

... ...now I'll sit in the corner and be depressed... -_-'

Btw, there are a bunch of free web series with writing quality that makes half of the top-sellers cry. ;)

I definitely understand that pressure; however, I think a lot of it stems from the fact that we are comparing our raw first draft writing to authors that have a great deal more experience than us and they have polished their draft repeatedly until it shines.

One of the best suggestions out there is to think of your first draft as a practice swing (like before you hit the ball in golf). You are getting the bad swing/idea out of the way before trying to take it seriously. I find that this mentality takes the pressure off and allows me to get into a flow. Some of my first drafts are pretty rubbish but occasionally I surprise myself. And the best part is I can always go back and revise my first draft without anyone knowing about it but me :P

'Venior' pid='828667' dateline='1508362801' Wrote: I'm new to the writing scene, but I've immediately noticed how I've started to feel pressured (not by anyone but myself) to write perfectly, without any grammatical or functional errors. 

I feel like my paragraphs aren't good enough, and I tend to rewrite my stuff often. 



I guess it's because I'm mentally holding myself to the standards of top selling works, and not free web series like I should. 


Anyone else? Thoughts?  

Penguin for your thoughts? 

-.-keu-.-

Hello there,

I have never felt pressured because of grammatical errors because i know that my english is poor.

As for the paragraphs, i think you are talking about the descriptions, the conversation between the characters, informations, etc in your novel. And in this case, i did feel some pressures when i started to write because i thought that everything i wrote (before) was stupid, it feels quite stupid; so i stopped writting it and started a new one after 2 weeks of pressures and stress.

I had more reasons to stop that webnovel (I didn't publish it; I wanted to finish it, then publish it), won't say it.

Currently, in my new novel, i still have some similar paragraphs structures, but i really like my writing style because this is what determines my webnovel between the famous novels that has a lot of information to ensures that there's not plothole or anything that is necessary to explain.

Although, my webnovel has quite informations that is necessary to explain, it's not a lot compares to most webnovels i had read.

My writing style is like one of the most famous Wuxia writer called Gu Long. It feels quite bored when someone read it; but when someone writes it, it feels like magnificient, every sentence is like a poem that has some meaning with the plot or scene.

So, i think, the paragraphs is nothing to bother if you like your writing style. (Of course, if you mean that the paragraphs has repetitive words or something similar, then i think, you should change something in it to makes it feels like a masterpiece)

I write BTVS stories on another site, I use it as a LEARNING experience.,I have had readers point out mistakes(I always thank them). and try to learn from them, even much better authors will sometimes rewrite one of their novels years later .

I feel your anxiety. I am nervous about sending my story out into the world. What if it just flat out stinks. Compared to the authors I read the most, it's not great.

I think that I need to just go with it. I'm not a full time writer. Do the best job I can and let's see what happens, yes?

'tjtf' pid='829148' dateline='1509487865' Wrote: I feel your anxiety. I am nervous about sending my story out into the world.  What if it just flat out stinks.  Compared to the authors I read the most, it's not great.

I think that I need to just go with it.  I'm not a full time writer.   Do the best job I can and let's see what happens, yes?

Don't even worry about it, man.

If it stinks, better let it out than keep it inside you.

You won't get better unless you know what is not good.

I also doubt that it is as bad as you describe. It's probably pretty good.