Am I Being a Perfectionist With My Writing?
Writing coach and Called to Write founder Jenna Avery responds to a reader about perfectionism in writing.
Welcome to “Ask the Coach.” As a writing coach, I answer questions from writers about making the work of writing happen, tackling craft, business, and personal questions along the way.
Today I’m responding to a reader question about perfectionism:
“How do I know if I’m being a perfectionist with my writing? I’ve got friends pushing me to put my spec script out before it feels ready, and I’m worried I’m just holding back when I shouldn’t be. On the other hand, I’ve seen enough under-finished work out there, I’m hesitant to send out work until I know it’s done. I want it to shine, not go straight into the slush pile.”
Perfectionism, that lovely player in the cycle of paralysis, procrastination, and perfectionism. Each one leads to the next, in an endless loop.
As writers, we hear so many contradictory messages when it comes to sending out work, running the gamut from “you only have one chance to make a good first impression” to “what are you waiting for?” to “you’re holding yourself back.”
Ultimately, I believe each of us has to use our own inner guidance to determine whether we’ve gone off the rails into the perfectionism loop or we’re focused on getting our scripts truly “working” before we send them out.
Let’s explore some ways to discern which is which.
Are You Stuck In Perfectionism?
If you’re wondering if you’re stuck in perfectionism, let’s review some possible clues:
- In general, you tend to have high standards, be hard on yourself, have a lot of negative self-talk, feel anxious about getting it “wrong,” and tend toward black and white, right/wrong, all-or-nothing thinking.
- With writing, you have extreme fantasies of wild success, fame, and fortune OR utter failure and rejection.
- You fear being rejected for your self-expression and never being “good enough.”
- With your current script in progress, you’re rewriting, but you’re mostly tweaking, wordsmithing, and polishing what’s already there and it still doesn’t feel “done.”
- You struggle with procrastination, avoidance, burnout, and apathy (being “bored”) at various times.
- You often binge-write before a deadline rather than pacing yourself.
- You fear your writing will never live up to your own vision for it.
- You tend to hop from script to script, never finishing anything completely enough to the point that it’s ready for submission.
If your response to these items, is, “Well, yeah, Jenna, duh,” I’m right there with you. Many of us, as empathic, intuitive, sensitive, thoughtful creators, have often been subject to various forces of societal, scholastic, and parental conditioning, leading us to develop a host of fears and strategies designed to keep us “safe” — many of which manifest as perfectionism.
In other words, we try to get something into a state of perfection (or avoid working on it at all because we know we can never get it there) as a way of avoiding rejection, ridicule, embarrassment, and failure, among other things.
Ironically, sometimes perfectionism also results in not writing until the last minute, because it gives us an ironclad excuse for not doing our best work. Instead we can say, “oh, I ran out of time, so this was all I could do.” It might seem weird, but this way we can both get out of perfectionism and out of doing great work.
Being Trapped By Perfectionism
The danger of perfectionism is that it can keep us trapped in an endless loop of trying to meet impossible standards, never being willing to take the risk of showing our work to others, not working at all, doing poor work at the last minute, and/or cycling between procrastination, paralysis, and self-rejection.
It’s rough. And common.
I’ve always thought a little streak of perfectionism isn’t all bad — it can help us do that extra proofread, or really push our work to the next level.
But when perfectionism runs amok and we become so paralyzed or trapped that we can’t seem to move in any direction at all, it becomes a significant issue. We tell ourselves our scripts are terrible, and our new ideas are already flawed, and, and … and it becomes far easier to reorganize the entire apartment/house or tackle the taxes or whatever else avoidance looks like for you.
Real Signs Not to Send Your Script Out (That Aren’t Perfectionism)
On the other end of the spectrum are intuitive and practical reasons not to send out a script, no matter what anyone else tells you.
Here’s what that might look like:
- You’ve just finished a first draft. Many newer writers think their first draft being “done” means they’re ready to submit. Nope. Take some time away (ideally a couple of weeks at least) and come back to read your script with fresh eyes so you can address the issues you’ll undoubtedly find through a rewriting process.
- You’ve had proper time away from your script, read it with fresh eyes, and it’s not landing well. You can intuitively sense it’s not quite “working,” and you have some inklings about what that might be, even if you aren’t certain. This could be a time for feedback, reverse outlining, or other methods of studying and analyzing your own work to sort out where to go next.
- You’re aware of specific issues with the script that need work, like character development, story holes you haven’t solved yet, pacing issues, etc. These are specific items you know you need to tackle in a rewrite. And sending it out now isn’t going to solve those problems.
- You’re getting feedback from multiple trusted sources that the script is “good, but not quite there yet.” This is a time to study and analyze the feedback to decide what feels right to implement and what doesn’t.
Try This to Shift Out of Perfectionism
If you’re trapped in perfectionism, begin by shifting your focus toward work that is “excellent,” “working” and “close enough” instead.
Here’s what that looks like:
- “Excellent” means your script is professional, clear, tight, free from frequent typos and mistakes (every script has a few!), reads well and looks good on the page, and is written in a way that is authentic to you as a writer and storyteller, and you feel you’ve given the script everything you can, at this point in your writing career.
- “Working” means the script is fully delivering on your concept, genre, characters, story, and theme you set out to write, to the best of your ability, right now.
- “Close Enough” means you accept the inherent pain of being a visionary creative — that the perfect vision you hold in your mind of your story will never 100% end up on the page in exactly the way you picture it. You are human, not a god, so you accept you’re doing the best you can.
None of these means “perfect.” It might mean “good enough” but in the literal sense, not in the sense of “not good enough,” which is often code for the negative thinking we’ve internalized from parents, teachers, and the wider culture over the years.
If your script doesn’t quite meet these criteria, it’s time to dig in and do the work. Once you’re there, it’ll be time to start querying and sending it out.
That’s a Wrap
Not sending work out can look like and even be perfectionism. But sometimes the same lack of action on putting work out into the world is simple: Your story sense and writing skills are telling you the work isn’t ready.
More advanced writers will know when it’s time, but those of us earlier along the path might need to push ourselves harder to put work out, or learn to trust ourselves to stay with it a little longer before doing so.
At the end of the day, your intuition, and your trusted writing colleagues (probably not your friends and family members) are the best guides to making the determination. If you’re holding back because you’re scared — the true underlying reason for perfectionism — start shifting your mindset toward excellence and scripts that deliver on your vision for your story as best you can. Look for where you can trust your innate story sense, and use that instead of any old, outdated, and impossible standards.
Happy writing! And happy new year!
I’ll be back next year with Script, with a new column taking a behind the scenes look at my writing practice. In the meantime, you can find me on Bluesky, here: @jennaavery.bsky.social
