Post by forlornjackalope on Jun 29, 2024 14:08:29 GMT
Here's some advice I received from the screenwriting community on IMDb before the boards were shut down a super long time ago about dealing with perfectionism and being stuck in editor mode.
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There’s a strong and understandable impulse to fixate on a final product. The final product is easy. It’s already done. It can be watched, looked at, listened to. It can just go off and win its accolades and praise and awards. Because it’s done and lots of time and effort has been put into it and it’s now a unique and perfect thing.
You’ve gotta let that go.
Refocus your energy onto the process. You’re hitting a road block because you’re arriving at the real work. You don’t have all the answers for your story. That can be scary, and that’s okay. The road block is that you’re putting pressure on yourself to be able to produce a finished product from the moment you have an idea.
Allow yourself to be messy. Do yourself the courtesy to have drafts. Don’t write a script. Write a story. Write it in crayon. Sounds silly? Crayon is ridiculous. Try writing your story in purple crayon and you will trick yourself into understanding that this is not the final draft. This is part of the process.
Finish your outline in your ridiculous purple crayon. There are going to be problems with it. Crayons are hard to write with, they’re illegible sometimes. You’re probably not going to want to write a lot with purple crayon. Maybe just a page or two. That’s a really rough outline that probably only hits the major beats. That’s a good thing. There are also going to be problems with your story. Rewrite the whole thing. This time do it with a blue colored pencil. You’ll have gone through it once before, and you will have ideas on how to make it better.
Eventually, this thing that is in your head that gets so stuck because of your desire for them to be perfect will be articulated. Reward yourself. Write it on your computer, in that clear and clean black text over white.
You’ll know your story. You’ll know the issues with your story. You’ll have done some real work. You’ll end up with something on paper that other people can decode, critique, engage with and collaborate on. It takes a lot of steps to take one step.
