How fast do you write? (And how do you deal with perfectionism?)

[seatherny9]

When I started writing and posting stories online, which was 2nyears ago, I used to write one chapter a day. But now it takes me almost a week to finish one chapter.

The reason was: that I became very conscious of my writing. I developed a problem with overthinking and perfectionism. I overanalyze every word I write or am about to write. I know what will happen or what scene to write, but it always takes me long before I find the "right words" to describe or tell it. And I'm constantly doubting my writing, overthinking whether there are better words to use, which leads to me rewriting and rewriting a sentence until I'm satisfied. That's why it takes me months and months, or even a year to finish a novel.

I'm well aware of first drafts, and I know that you can always fix everything in the editing process or revision. But I still can't ignore my perfectionism and the need to mentally polish every scene and dialogue over and over. At this point, it might take me years to finish my current project. It's a fantasy series which is planned to be 3 novels long.

Do you have this problem, too? If so, how do you deal with this?

Anyway, I don't really have plans of getting into publishing (as of now). I just want to write stories on any online writing platform like scribblehub, royal road, and wattpad, etc. I love writing because there are so many stories and characters in my head that I want to share. But sometimes I just don't want to satisfy myself, I also want to write at least decent and readable novels that readers will enjoy.

 

[SailusGebel]

Usually, 2k+ words take me 2-4 hours to write without the editing.

Yes, I have this problem.

I deal with it by understanding that I write a web novel, and it's not a must to be perfect. In fact, the majority of readers don't care about quality; why should I care?

 

[Paul_Tromba]

I usually write between 1k words and 1.5k words over the course of two hours each day. Though I can understand your problem with writing less over time. I struggle with the same problem of not being able to write as much as I used too and I have an issue with perfectionism. What I've done to resolve this is to just write daily whether I want to or not to stay in practice and when I have writer's block or can't get into it I edit the older stuff so it solves that perfectionist problem. Just knowing that it doesn't have to be perfect on the first try as it can always be made better in another draft helps a lot for me. This is just my own personal way of doing things and it doesn't work for everyone so try out some different writing schedules and drafting styles to see what works best for you.

 

[Dudealien]

I write 1k word chapters 1 release every week

 

[Renaxan]

I write whenever I want. And its not perfectionism in my case, It was procrastination.

 

[Gryphon]

I do like 50wpm, and can write nearly 1.5k to 2k every one and a half hours. The only problem is that I'm usually too busy to write that, but once I finish school I'll have much more time on my hands.

 

[Wintertime]

For perfectionism, realize that the more you focus on it at a given moment, the less progress you make toward reaching that goal. The best form of perfection comes in the realization that; no matter how perfect I am at a given work, I will only be able to understand how its flaws when I view it as a whole. You should write everything simultaneously, or even 50% of your novel. (For example: If you are writing a 200k word novel. By the halfway mark, you should realize the points that you want to drive home, the plots you want to forgo, and the writing style that suits it. Then, a rewrite of that scale would benefit you more than perfecting each chapter.)

This is just from personal experience, but several writers in the medium of traditional publishing run into the same problem. In chasing perfection, we oftentimes get stymied by our own work. Writers are often the most critical of their work, you just need to learn when to be critical.

Besides, as you grow older and more experienced, the words that you write; or how elegant your prose may be, is not the deciding factor of whether people would like your novel or not. You can always get an editor, reviewer, or whatever in the future. The most important thing is the plot, which often takes time to realize.

 

[Marunikyu]

I write something almost perfect then I fix the (obvious) typos. Chapters are between 3k and 6k words and rarely 4k.
To fix the perfectionism, git gud. Otherwise you'll hate what you write and stop altogether. If you don't spot anything disgusting in your writing, post it. Then twenty chapters down the line, go back to the first chapter and despair at your past inadequacies.

 

[BlackKnightX]

I don’t know. When I write, I forget about everything; time is no exception. The world blurred, and I’m completely absorbed into the story. Probably because I visualize pretty vividly, it feels like I’m dreaming or in somewhat of a trance state. My chapter is around 2,000 to 4,000 words, depending on the chapter. Dunno about the time it takes to do that. Pretty exhausted once it’s done, though.

 

[KiraMinoru]

Idgaf and just accept my writing’s shit. So what if it’s shit anyway? Far off future me can go back and figure out what’s wrong and fix that crap. I just want to write the story to completion first and editing/proofreading every little thing is a great hindrance to writing the story to completion. It even kills my motivation to finish writing it.

Essentially, just completely throw editing and proofreading out of your mind, accept there will always be something you can improve on no matter how perfectly you think you’ve written it. Allow the desire to complete the story and see what lies at the end to surpass the desire to fix every little tiny mistake.

As for how fast I write, no idea, I stopped caring a long time ago. I only check when my manuscript was created, when I finished writing the volume, and the word count these days. In about 9 and a half months it works out to 980k words.

 

[Toripuru-S]

I don't usually keep track of the word count while writing, typically it'll be the amount of pages . Which is generally, "a couple hours" or less depending on how far I wanna go with a chapter before forcing myself to take a break

Umm, I don't have a problem with perfectionism (as far as I know) because revisions and edits just come with the territory. Professional writers do it too, they just have the added luxury of having a human editor on standby .

I also embraced the fact that it can take me a really long time to notice an issue(s) that needs fixing or could be improved with old/already published chapters, but again, I don't get upset over stuff like that. Just fix what is fixable, and move on.

 

[lambenttyto]

Do you have this problem, too? If so, how do you deal with this?

What do you even consider to be a chapter? I write a lot of different stuff, so sometimes my chapters are as short as 300 words on a project while other times they're 6,000 words.

Writing fiction is a creative process, not a critical one--though you can certainly make it a critical one. That's why your brain is tightening up and making things slow way down. It can be argued that your creativity is going down as well in this state. When I don't worry, and just write, not only do I write way faster, but I tend to write better.

"Stop, you're trying too hard." We all know instinctively, that when you try too hard, you do it worse.

You care too much about the project you're working on, that's why you won't just relax and write for fun. You gotta make it gud, so you knit your brows and work really hard to make it perfect. No such thing as perfect. In fact, the more "perfect" you make it, the flatter and duller your author voice is probably becoming.

My suggestion is this, start a side project. The one you don't care about, and write purely for fun. Set a timer for 15 minutes and write as fast as you can, then fix typos only. Do not edit for language, and see if what you produce isn't something decent.

If you're really bad about perfectionism, get a journal and write longhand. Ha! Now you can't fix it!

But also remember, imperfection is a mark of being human, it's a mark of the artist behind the art, so you should actually value the imperfections. You really should. I know it sounds weird to read that, but it's true. That doesn't mean "write crap," lol.

You should see what George RR Martin wrote about horses in A Song of Ice and Fire. At one point in the story one of his characters picks up his horse, folds it, and puts it in his satchel. No joke. Martin didn't know what a horse was when he wrote about them. Imperfection, but a hilarious one that makes the writing really unique. It's a mark of the artist, and it's funny and it has a story behind it. How that got past the "editors" tells you something about editors...

 

[Ilikewaterkusa]

When I started writing and posting stories online, which was 2nyears ago, I used to write one chapter a day. But now it takes me almost a week to finish one chapter.

The reason was: that I became very conscious of my writing. I developed a problem with overthinking and perfectionism. I overanalyze every word I write or am about to write. I know what will happen or what scene to write, but it always takes me long before I find the "right words" to describe or tell it. And I'm constantly doubting my writing, overthinking whether there are better words to use, which leads to me rewriting and rewriting a sentence until I'm satisfied. That's why it takes me months and months, or even a year to finish a novel.

I'm well aware of first drafts, and I know that you can always fix everything in the editing process or revision. But I still can't ignore my perfectionism and the need to mentally polish every scene and dialogue over and over. At this point, it might take me years to finish my current project. It's a fantasy series which is planned to be 3 novels long.

Do you have this problem, too? If so, how do you deal with this?

Anyway, I don't really have plans of getting into publishing (as of now). I just want to write stories on any online writing platform like scribblehub, royal road, and wattpad, etc. I love writing because there are so many stories and characters in my head that I want to share. But sometimes I just don't want to satisfy myself, I also want to write at least decent and readable novels that readers will enjoy.

Takes me an hour to write like 1500 words. I don’t have perfection because I have mental retardation which blocks it off

 

[Anon2024]

It depends on the scene, if I'm writing regular scenes I speed through them. That’s one of the reasons I picked up writing smut to slow myself down. When I'm describing certain things in the genre I'm publishing here I feel a lot more embarrassed and start thinking more about the words.

As for perfectionism, I’m learning how to let go of my obsessive compulsion in writing by posting here on SH. Since I won’t be profiting (no patreon or paywalls) the only thing left to deal with is ego.

 

[Deleted member 57675]

When I started writing and posting stories online, which was 2nyears ago, I used to write one chapter a day. But now it takes me almost a week to finish one chapter.

The reason was: that I became very conscious of my writing. I developed a problem with overthinking and perfectionism. I overanalyze every word I write or am about to write. I know what will happen or what scene to write, but it always takes me long before I find the "right words" to describe or tell it. And I'm constantly doubting my writing, overthinking whether there are better words to use, which leads to me rewriting and rewriting a sentence until I'm satisfied. That's why it takes me months and months, or even a year to finish a novel.

I'm well aware of first drafts, and I know that you can always fix everything in the editing process or revision. But I still can't ignore my perfectionism and the need to mentally polish every scene and dialogue over and over. At this point, it might take me years to finish my current project. It's a fantasy series which is planned to be 3 novels long.

Do you have this problem, too? If so, how do you deal with this?

Anyway, I don't really have plans of getting into publishing (as of now). I just want to write stories on any online writing platform like scribblehub, royal road, and wattpad, etc. I love writing because there are so many stories and characters in my head that I want to share. But sometimes I just don't want to satisfy myself, I also want to write at least decent and readable novels that readers will enjoy.

Perfectionism has gotten to me. Aside from a recent contest, I sorta stopped writing pretty much.
It doesn't help that my notes from looking up stuff for the stories and quotes/scenes notes I thought of are all over the place when I need to find it.