BlogUseful tips about editing, writing, and the publishing industry
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 I never dreamed I would be sharing about how I navigate perfectionism on a podcast, but when my fellow editor Lore invited me to speak about how I use my art practice to help me avoid getting bogged down and stuck, I took the leap and did it (my first one!). I hope some of my thoughts will help you, too. Funnily enough, my perfectionism almost did get the better of me, screaming at me to decline the invite, and when I got over that hurdle to please send an email to get out of it before you embarrass yourself… Perfectionism pairs nicely with overwhelm and impostor syndrome, doesn’t it? 😭 Well, I’m happy to report that I didn’t listen to those inner voices and I did the hard thing anyway. As it turns out, that’s one of the key points I touched on: the irony of waiting until you’re ready before you do the thing when it’s in doing it that you become ready. ✅If you like listening more than reading, here’s the full podcast episode: Tolerating Imperfection (51 mins!). I’ll list some highlights below. ✅ P.S. If you’re more overwhelmed than stuck in a rut with perfectionism, check out my top-performing blog post about Dealing with Overwhelm in the Writing Process. 1. Become Aware of Your Particular Flavour of PerfectionismLore and I joked that we have “twin” perfectionisms because so many of our quirks align. But here’s the thing: perfectionistic tendencies can present in so many different ways, and the experience is not the same for everyone. It’s not a monolith. It’s really helpful to discover what your perfectionism looks like in your life. Here are three questions to consider that will help you see where your perfectionism comes into play.
For me, it’s consistently at the end because it’s connected to performance, rejection, being seen… Perhaps you can relate? 😆 Growing up, I did competitive gymnastics. I guess I developed a story about where self-worth comes from: I’m good at things when it’s just for me, but I freeze under pressure when people are watching and evaluating. Because their evaluation means something about my worth. That translated into a form of performance pressure in other areas, where I would dread pressing send on an edit because I wondered how it would be received. Or I would procrastinate on moving forward on my goals/plans out of fear that they wouldn’t work out. That feeling has faded over time as I’ve developed confidence and expertise, but it still shows up in sneaky ways. I highly recommend Lore’s workshop to go deep on this: Creating Through Perfectionism Workshop. These reflective questions and more helped open my eyes to what my tendencies are, and where they might come from. 2. You Won’t “Overcome” Your Perfectionism (and That’s Okay)It’s important to note that perfectionistic tendencies are not something you overcome once and for all, but you can become aware of when they happen, how and why they show up for you, and then find strategies for navigating and tolerating imperfection. Tolerance is a great way to conceive of this, because you’re basically teaching your body how to have tolerance for imperfect things and not freak out. (Thanks to Lore for framing it like that in the podcast!) Since it’s impossible to control everything to the degree that would satisfy your nagging perfectionism, it’s important to learn to tolerate small doses of imperfection. This has been so useful in my life. Here’s how. I started a consistent art practice. Sometimes it’s a daily thing, and then it might swing back to a every few days, maybe once a week. But every collage I make, every 15 mins of making a random abstract pastel swatch, every page in my art journal helps me practice making and sitting with small decisions. The practice helps me slowly build up tolerance. It helps me sit with the discomfort of not knowing what I’m doing (in a safe space) and to let meaning emerge before my very eyes as I’m creating (especially so when creating collages, abstract paintings, and art journaling). The perfectionist in me demands that I have a clearly defined goal, that I establish criteria for excellence, that I know precisely where I’m going and why. I now love the process of letting meaning emerge from my art. Going in, I may have NO clue what I’m doing, but then end up creating something amazing I could have never really planned for. It’s those happy accidents that create the best art. And it’s in this process that I become more flexible, more willing to experiment and lean into iteration. 3. Start Small to Build Your Tolerance (12:22)Making art every day has slowly helped me release my stranglehold of wanting to know everything before I start. I wanted to make art more regularly (instead of the one Commonplace Zine that would take me all year to make any progress on…). And so I started doing small things, in all sorts of mediums, just to make it part of my routine. Tacking my favourites to my wall helps me remember what I’ve done, showcasing to myself my accumulated efforts when I feel like I’m spiraling into doubts. Developing a consistent creative writing routine has a similar effect—accumulating scenes, characters, random bits of poetry, one page at a time. Lore and I both had the experience of prolonged ‘creative droughts.’ As kids, we were both really creative, but at some point we put away our creative supplies (in both cases paint) and just stopped. It was easier to not feel the anguish of not doing perfect work immediately and every time. This happens with a lot of creatives when they come up against rejection. And in my case, it shut me down for over a decade, so much so that I even forgot I was a creative person at all! Decouple Self-Worth from Your Output If that’s you, know that you’re not alone and there are ways to navigate the fear of rejection (which is a skill writers especially need to hone). Rejection is just part of the process, and it’s important that you develop your own way of decoupling your self-worth from your output and reception. The prospect of a one-star review (because let’s be real, even the most famous writers get bad reviews) should not keep you from publishing your work. This can be especially tough for sensitive, introverted folks, and I’m absolutely in that category too. With my art I’m collecting evidence that I’m slowly tolerating more and more imperfection. And you can too. Whatever you can do to inject more ‘process over product’ into your life, it’ll help. Why not give it a try. 4. Show the Messy Middle of ThingsOh boy, do I struggle with this! Who wants to be vulnerable and show that they’re not perfect at something? Me, that’s who. 😂 It’s important for people to see your processes, how you do things. As an author, this could be talking about your writing process, what tools you use, what you’re struggling with, and sharing those experiences in a newsletter or blog. The perfectionistic tendency is to go into a writing or editing cave and only show the end result once you’ve tweaked and ‘perfected’ it to oblivion. And talk about it exactly one time and move on to the next shiny object. I’ve learned over the past year that it’s okay (and even good!) to show people how you do things and what you struggle with. I’m not the best at this, but I’ve come a loooong way. Just this month I restarted my newsletter, business blog, and creative blog. The more I do these somewhat painful, vulnerable-to-me scary things, the easier it gets. You probably just rolled your eyes so hard at that. And I get it; it’s cliché, it’s obvious, it’s what everyone says. It also happens to be true, and you can harness it in a way that works for you. What small things can you try that will help you build up that tolerance? Here are a few practical ideas:
Are you a perfectionist? Did something in particular resonate with you? Let me know in the comments! 👇
And tips on how to keep them reading!  Has this ever happened to you? You sneak away to your favourite reading nook or coffee shop to finally start reading that new book. Finally, a few hours to yourself! You get through a few chapters, but you’re not feeling it. You start to get bored and barely feel involved in the story. You decide to give it a chance… but by the fifth chapter you really start to lose interest, and so you close the book and head back home, annoyed because you’d been looking forward to this. Now it’s back to real life… Guess what? You’re probably not going to pick that book up again. Even if the plot does ignite on p. 75, you didn’t get there. You set it down and moved on. As an author, you’re trying to avoid the dreaded DNF (did not finish). Yes, it’s inevitable that your book won’t appeal to everyone, and that’s okay. But I’m talking about those avid readers who devour books in your genre. In my case, science fiction stories about cyborgs and AI and dystopian futures 👽🤖. It’s those ideal readers that you want to make sure keep reading. Here are four tips on how to avoid common pitfalls that keep readers on the surface of your story instead of immersed in it. 1. Start Scenes in the Middle of the ActionInstead of telling the whole backstory before you can get to what’s happening now, just start now. Plop your reader in the middle of something, and let the flow of storytelling slowly reveal details and aspects of the world. Do this through the scene, where characters are doing things and interacting. This is a feature of solid world-building. Too much exposition and getting readers up to speed can make the story lag. I’m not saying don’t use exposition, but know when to use it, and when it can help with pacing. By starting in the middle of the action, you naturally avoid initial info dumps. You need to trust your readers to glean from the details what they need to know about your world and characters. No need to tell all the details upfront all at once—the world is built slowly. Eliminating too much exposition and info dumping will help you tell a more engaging story and help readers not feel overwhelmed by too much being revealed all at once. Trust your reader! Work at not revealing too much but also not keeping too much secret (stuff that’s obvious the characters know). 2. Avoid Overusing Filter WordsAnother way to keep readers immersed is by reducing filter words. These are words that filter the action through the character’s viewpoint. They add narrative distance between the reader and the action, which means readers don’t feel like they’re in the story but being told what the viewpoint character is experiencing. This isn’t usually necessary because we’re already in the story. No need to keep telling the reader who’s experiencing it. Here are a few examples: “A flock of crows flew across the night sky, their wings beating as one. Something ominous was on its way…” But if you were to heavily filter it through the main character, it would become “She noticed as the flock of crows flew across the night sky. She could hear their wings beating and watched as they moved across the sky, realizing something ominous was on its way.” A few well-positioned filter words is fine, but too many and the writing becomes clunky. As Louise Harnby says, the writing is of “doing being done.” Here’s a published example I added filter words to (from Robert Silverberg’s Kingdoms of the Wall): I realized that of all my four years as a candidate, nothing was worse than First Winnowing. I trembled like a leaf in the wind as I noticed the Masters of the House of the Wall start to move silently among us. I stared helplessly as they paused here and there in the rows to tap candidates on the shoulder and it suddenly occurred to me that it meant that they were dismissing us from the competition. Here’s the original passage from that book: Of all my four years as a candidate, nothing was worse than First Winnowing. I trembled like a leaf in the wind as the Masters of the House of the Wall moved silently among us, pausing here and there in the rows to tap candidates on the shoulder and thus to tell them that they were dismissed from the competition. Look through your manuscript for the following filter words and see where you can eliminate them (or keep if they’re very intentional). They often crop up as verbs after “I.”
Your writing will feel more immediate and immersive when the scene is not constantly filtered through the viewpoint character. By closing that distance, readers will feel more in the flow of the story. If you’re writing in limited third person, we’re already in their head, so it’s not necessary to keep telling the reader that it’s the viewpoint character who is seeing, hearing, and thinking. 3. Write Snappy Dialogue Without All the FillerIn one of my creative writing classes in college the instructor asked us to listen to actual dialogue. She basically assigned us the task of eavesdropping on a conversation (in a public place) and taking notes on how people talk to each other. The thing to note is that characters in stories don’t actually talk like people having real conversations. It’s an imitation. The back-and-forth banter—unless it makes sense for the scene and has a definite purpose—can mostly be left out. The key is to be really intentional with your dialogue. Dialogue should reveal emotion or information or even be part of world-building. Every piece of dialogue has to have a purpose. So go ahead and cut out all that filler that doesn’t add much to your scene. This will help readers stay immersed in your story, with your characters, and not get bored by too much small talk that doesn’t need to be there. 4. Make Sure Your Sentences Don't All Sound the SameThis is something you don’t notice… until you do. When sentences start feeling the same, readers will get bored. This happens mainly when sentences are the same length and have the same sentence structure. By changing up the length and structure of your sentences, you’ll keep readers deeply immersed in the story. You don’t want anything that reminds people that they’re reading or that draws too much attention to itself. By playing with shorter sentences you can create emphasis and highlight a particular point or idea. Even one-sentence paragraphs or strategically placed sentence fragments can help emphasize tone or pace. Longer sentences can do this too, but in a different way: by building up to a climax or revealing a key piece of information. If you’re not careful, you will subconsciously repeat words, phrases, and sentence structure. Don’t worry though. This is the sort of thing you look for much later in your self-editing (and a line editor will definitely be watching for). I like to think of editors as conductors; we are trained to hear the cadence and flow of words. Readers DNF books for lots of reasons, and it’s not always because of the writing itself. I know for me it’s sometimes my mood, how much bandwidth I have, how much time I can dedicate to reading that particular day—all sorts of reasons that have nothing really to do with how the book is written. It’s on me. But if you implement these tips, you’ll be well on your way to writing a tighter and more engaging story, I promise. And that can never hurt your chances of becoming someone’s new favourite author. That engaged reader will devour your series in record time and leave great reviews and promote your books all over the internet. That’s the hope! Which one of these will you tackle first? Let me know in the comments. Read more:
First off, feeling overwhelmed is actually part of the process! 🙄  ✨👉Get on my waitlist for first dibs on new editing spots. I'm currently booking out three months in advance; I'll send a reminder out every month, and when you're ready, just reply to grab one. Being overwhelmed is not something to fight and get over and THEN start your writing. It’s a natural part of the writing process. Seeing the scope of your life or your expertise or whatever topic you feel called to write about may feel like a towering mountain stopping you in your tracks. That stream of internal chatter builds layer upon layer of limiting thoughts. Oh my god, what have I gotten myself into? I can’t do this. Who am I to write about anything? It’s all been done before, who wants to read another memoir, another business or productivity guide, another mommy blog, another story of overcoming challenges . . . The truth is, it has all been done before. And that’s been the case forever. In The Hero with a Thousand Faces Joseph Campbell writes about the Hero’s Journey and how it’s essentially a universal process told again and again in every great story. The underlying structure may be the same—venturing out into the unknown, undergoing a series of personal transformations, then returning as a new person—but the actual story itself has infinite variety. Nobody will tell the story of dealing with a divorce the same way you will. Nobody will tell the story of dealing with depression the same way you will. No one will write about your work or your expertise quite like you will. Your life, its insights, and how you express yourself will infuse the story in a way that’s never quite been done before. Feeling Like an Impostor Rest assured that every writer feels that heavy sense of being an impostor or the terror of possibly never being able to write another word again after a creative drought. This is part of the process. The dual demons of impostor syndrome and writer’s block are stone gargoyles that frame the entrance to your unconscious, the deep recesses of your imagination. It’s not that successful people never feel fear or anxiety; it’s that they do what they do in spite of it. They push through those feelings and do it anyway. Amy Cuddy, a social psychologist out of Harvard, gave a viral TED Talk called “Fake It Until You Become It.” The idea is that body language can change how you think and feel about yourself (what she calls “postural feedback” or “a body-mind nudge”). So even though you may feel like an impostor or “not enough,” or “not really a writer,” if you adopt powerful poses, ones that expand rather than contract, for just 2 minutes you will feel and act more confidently. Try adopting some of these high-power poses before your next writing session. Make Stress Your Friend Again, being overwhelmed is not something to deal with and vanquish before becoming a creative person. It is in fact putting your feet to the fire and giving you a springboard to launch yourself into the unknown. Kelly McGonigal explains in her amazing TED Talk “How to Make Stress Your Friend” that reframing stress as the body’s way of helping you deal with a challenge (instead of something bad that will eventually kill you) actually changes how your body responds to it. It’s only bad if you believe it is. The same thing can be said for feeling overwhelmed. When you feel that knot in your stomach, the fog emanating from the top of your head and blurring your thoughts, the dread of not seeing a path to begin . . . just sit with it. Actually feel it. Feel each separate aspect of your overwhelm as it shows up in your body and mind. Sit and let it exist. Feeling buried in material or suffocated by your loss of words, it’s all good. Say thanks, knowing that the key to unlocking your blocked energy is available to you and part of the writing process, too. Often going for a walk or doing something else allows your creative energy to simmer on the back-burner. All in good time. Here are four ways I’ve found help me move through these moments. 1. Stop Focusing on the Content |
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Hi! I'm Erika.
I help sci-fi and fantasy authors publish unputdownable series. I specialize in copyediting and proofreading, and also provide custom story databases to help you keep track of all your world-building details. How to connect with me:
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Feeling unmotivated? Here are some books that have helped me out of a writing slump.
Reading + Writing = #writerslife
When you’re not writing—perhaps you’re procrastinating or avoiding the important work you’ve set for yourself (we all do it!)—take the opportunity to read about writing. Study the craft, pay attention to how your favourite novels are structured, figure out why certain non-fiction books keep you hooked. Reading is the other part of the essential helix of your writing life, so here are my favourite books on writing!
1. Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, by Anne Lamott
This was my textbook for a creative writing class in college. I keep coming back to it because of the idea of taking things one step at a time, that writing does not tumble out of you fully formed and perfect. This is the “fantasy of the uninitiated,” a fantasy that has a long shelf life…
The two single most helpful ideas I invoke on a daily basis are “short assignments” and “shitty first drafts.” (Shitty as in rough and unpolished, not intended to be an assault on your self-worth!) Both these tools help keep perfectionism, the main obstacle between you and the first draft, at bay.
To do a short assignment, write only as much as you can see through a one-inch picture frame. This might be your opening scene. It might be a setting you saw in a dream. Whatever it is, the task becomes manageable because you’re not sitting down to write your entire magnum opus; you’re “taking this bird by bird.” The shitty first draft is like a Polaroid developing, where you’re allowing yourself to stitch together your short assignments in some semblance of a story or narrative.
I come back to this book every time I forget that writing is iterative and first drafts are not only necessary but the foundation of the writing process. This book will help ease your cramped psychic muscles and give you permission to write, and to continue to write even after you’ve convinced yourself out of it.
2. Do the Work! Overcome Resistance and Get Out of Your Own Way, by Steven Pressfield
Steven Pressfield is the guy to turn to if you want a word for that thing that keeps you from doing your work. The procrastination, the perfectionism, the so-called writer’s block. “Resistance” is the enemy and will stop at nothing to keep you from writing. Do the Work! will coach you through any creative project and arm you with the principles to keep you moving through the unavoidable highs and lows of the creative process.
My main takeaways are the idea of “covering the canvas,” i.e., getting your full working draft done ASAP because momentum is everything. Just act. Revisions come later. (Whether you’re a pantser or a plotter is up to you, but the key is to not get bogged down in quality at this point.) Another important reminder is that “any project can be broken into the beginning, middle and end. Fill in the gaps; then fill in the gaps between the gaps.” It seems obvious, and it is. The hard part is the actual work, which this book motivates you to do. A perfect complement to this manifesto against resistance is Pressfield’s The War of Art. Highly recommended as well.
3. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, by Stephen King
This is a classic book from one of the most prolific novelists of our time. Stephen King weaves his experiences as a fledgling writer with the tools and techniques he’s learned that can help other writers hone their craft and keep at it. King is straightforward when he says that motivation is not the key to writing. The key is showing up and keeping your butt in your chair and making a habit of doing the work consistently, whether you’re inspired or not. It’s just part of your day.
Another interesting tidbit (that goes against the grain in some ways of the more structuralist books that prioritize outlining) is that King believes “stories are found things, like fossils in the ground” and that the “writer’s job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground intact as possible” (p. 163-64). The process of writing reveals the story to us, and in some ways it’s not up to us where it ultimately leads.
This is not to downplay the need for plot and structure, but King’s approach is that often the structure emerges as you go and is not something required before you begin. Once you get your draft down, you begin to see underlying patterns (like symbolism and theme, perhaps) and can work them in a second “more fully realized” draft of the story. The Prime Rule, which I’ve adopted as my life philosophy, is “write a lot and read a lot.” It’s about as simple as that.
4. The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know, by Shawn Coyne
Any writing books that delve into the structure of good stories are often seen as prescriptive or advocating formulas. The Story Grid, rather, is a tool for improving your story, writing scenes that work, and ordering them in a way that keeps readers engaged and turning the page. It’s a tool that ensures your story has the basic DNA of a good story: a flawed hero (status quo), who goes on a journey, and emerges in some way transformed. There are umpteen ways to accomplish this transformational arc.
The Story Grid teaches you the internal structure of great stories and why they work. It’s like lifting up the hood of a car and looking at the engine. You’ll learn about the obligatory scenes of different genres of fiction; the basic three-part structure of all stories: opening hook, middle build, and ending payoff; and how the external (A) and internal (B) stories function together.
Overall, this book is excellent for learning the units of story (the beat, scene, sequence, act, subplot, and global story) and how to think of your story on a macro, global level.
Check out these excellent resources on the story grid for non-fiction books as well.
5. Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, by Jessica Brody
This is another excellent book for honing your writing craft. It’s based on the Save the Cat! methodology used to write screenplays, laying out the essential “beats” of the novel. It’s like a glorified outline that guides the writing process, a process that arguably goes quicker if you know where your scenes are leading.
The 15 beats the author lays out are divided into Acts 1, 2, and 3; it’s the global journey of the hero, starting in the status quo world of Act 1, breaking into the upside-down world of Act 2, and then the finale after the All Is Lost moment. This is a simplified trajectory, but it helps visualize the psychology behind where you put certain elements of a story.
The book also describes 10 story genres that basically codify types of stories and their essential ingredients. Here are a few examples to get a feel for them:
- Whydunit: These are mysteries or stories led by some sort of secret that include some kind of 1) detective, 2) secret, and 3) dark turn.
- Institutionalized: These stories centre around a unifying issue or event, where the hero either joins the group, leaves the group, or takes them down. There’s always 1) a group, 2) a choice, and 3) a sacrifice.
- Golden Fleece: These are road trips, heists, and epic quests. Ingredients include 1) a “road” (journey’s setting), 2) a team (if the hero has buddies who tag along), and 3) the prize.
6. Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, by Joseph Williams
This book is amazing for sentence-level editing. It will help untangle unclear and long-winded sentences. What distinguishes it from the hordes of other writing guides is its actionable principles. First off, all sentences tell stories: they have characters (subjects) and actions (verbs). All you have to do to write a clear sentence is, 1) Make main characters the subjects of your verbs, and 2) Make those characters’ important actions your verbs. The crux of clear style is to know when your subjects are not characters, where to look for them, and how to find buried actions.
A fun example to illustrate the point:
“Once upon a time, as a walk through the woods [subject, hidden action] was taking place on the part of Little Red Riding Hood [main character], the Wolf’s jump out from behind a tree [subject, with hidden character and important action] occurred, causing her fright [important action].”
BECOMES
“Once upon a time, Little Red Riding Hood [subject and main character] was walking [important action] through the woods, when the Wolf [subject and main character] jumped [important action] out from behind a tree and frightened [important action] her.”
You can have a lot of fun excavating characters and actions from dense and unclear sentences!
But that finessing comes later—your job for now is to just keep writing!
Onw[o]rds!
Further Reading
- The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. This book popularized a practice called “Morning Pages” and will help you develop a regular practice of journaling in the morning. It has some serious knock-on effects that turbocharge creativity, as I have recently experienced firsthand!
- Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within
- The Creative Writer’s Style Guide: Rules and Advice for Writing Fiction and Creative Non-Fiction
- It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences
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Hi! I'm Erika.
I help sci-fi and fantasy authors publish unputdownable series. I specialize in copyediting and proofreading, and also provide custom story databases to help you keep track of all your world-building details. How to connect with me:
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ABOUT THE EDITOR
Hi, I'm Erika, a speculative fiction editor obsessed with the nitty-gritty of editing and self-publishing.
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