The Real Reason You Can’t Finish Your Fanfic

0:00 Do you ever write the same paragraph 10 times before posting your fic on AO3? And be honest, is the paragraph actually getting better? Or are you just moving words around? Because even the idea of hitting post makes your nervous system feels like it's about to testify in court. Because at some point, I think we have to admit that a lot of perfectionism isn't really about the writing. It's about being perceived. It's about knowing that once you post that chapter, people can react to it. They can judge your dialogue, your characterization, your tropes, your taste, your emotional instinct, and the very specific ship dynamic that has apparently taken over your entire life. So instead of posting, you keep editing. Not because the chapter is unreadable, but because it feels safer than posting right now. And that's what I want to

0:45 talk about today. That the real reason you can't finish your fic might actually be the fear of being seen online. Hi, I'm April and welcome back to my archives. On this channel, we talk about fanfiction, writing, fandom culture, creativity, and the emotional chaos that comes with creating stories online. And today, we're talking about fanfiction perfectionism, but not in the cute, "Oh, I'm just a perfectionist way." I mean, the kind of perfectionism when the chapter is basically done, but then you go back to read it and suddenly everything about it looks suspicious. You start rereading that same scene until it doesn't even sound like your language anymore. You changed the word look to glanced to stared. And then back to the word look like you actually accomplished something major. You convinced yourself that this is editing. You're editing, but really you're trying

1:31 to make the chapter feel safe enough to post. So, let's discuss what's actually happening there. I don't know if you know this, but there is a difference between editing your work and trying to erase any sign that a human being made it. Because whether you like it or not, a human being did make it. So, it's going to look pretty real and may be far from perfect. Editing is normal. Editing is useful because sometimes the scene does need another pass. Sometimes the pacing is off. Sometimes the dialogue is a little confusing and stiff. Sometimes you will read a paragraph and be like, "Uh, actually, I cannot post this yet." And that's fine. That's like a normal process to go through. But then there comes another kind of editing that doesn't really improve the story. It just makes the writer feel like they're less exposed. And I think because we're

2:18 like basically all chronically online all the time, it makes your work that you're posting feel a lot worse and unprepared. Because when you come online, everything looks finished. Everything looks damn near perfect. Videos are edited. Photos are heavily filtered. Captions have been rewritten and opinions that you see are polished into something clever and digestible. Even the most casual post you see can feel like they went through a little tiny PR department before they actually posted it. So, when we're wanting to post our creative work, we start to feel like it has to appear effortless, not just good, effortless, perfect, like the chapter didn't go through any ugly stages, like the first draft wasn't clunky, like we didn't just stare at one sentence for 20 minutes straight wondering if it had bad vibes. And that's actually when perfectionism

3:04 starts sneaking in. Because you're probably done editing. You've done all you could at this point, but there's just something in the back of your head that's like, "Nah, it ain't ready. Just look at it. It's far from ready. Even though you already put a lot of work and effort into this. And don't get me wrong, there is no issue with looking at a scene, with looking at a sentence, with looking at dialogue and be like, hm, it's not hitting correctly. It's not hitting the way I want to. How can I make this stronger? That's a normal thing to go through. It's a normal thing to think as a writer. But then somewhere down the line when you've already thought about that, when you've already did the best you could, it goes from how can I make this stronger to how can I make this look like I did not struggle to write this. I don't want people to know that this part was difficult for me to write. We don't want to look like

3:49 amateurs, right? Even though like a lot of us are. So that thing in your head that's trying to get you to make it look perfect, to make it look like you didn't struggle, that it was just super easy for you to write it, that has very little to do with your craft, and more to do with like reputation management. You're trying to make the final product look super clean. So clean that no one sees the awkwardness behind it, the amateur writing, that they don't see the uncertainty you had or the parts you were figuring out as you went, the awkward transitions. But let me tell you, writing is not clean. Writing is literally figuring it out as you go. I can't think of anyone in the world that I know or even anyone who existed who just like wrote and every word, sentence, scene they created was perfect. Didn't need to be changed. They

4:36 didn't struggle with it. They didn't think about it a billion times. Even the best writers in the world, the best thick writers that you love, just because they're not sharing their struggles with you and you're not seeing the behind the scenes doesn't mean that their talent was effortless. So even when the final chapter is done and it reads smoothly, the process behind getting that smooth chapter written was usually very weird, messy, repetitive, frustrating, and probably very embarrassing at times. And that's not a flaw at all. It's the job. So the problem is that when you post online the process disappears because you're done with that chapter with that one shot and only the final version remains and because we all know that that's why writers tend to put a lot of pressure on themselves to write that perfect final

5:21 version that will accurately represent them. And that my friends is very exhausting. I feel like that tiny little post button, whether it's on A3 or Watt Pad or Tumblr or whatever site you're on, it's just so small and simple for something that can feel so dramatic to do. Because before you hit post, the fic is still private enough to be controlled. You can edit it, you can delete it, you can ignore it, hide it in your drafts, or pretend you're still working on it when you've just literally been making eye contact with the same paragraph for like a week straight. But once you post it, the story then enters other people's minds. It's on other people's screens. And that's when things can get a little bit weird, you know, because people can read it however they want. They bring their own tastes, characterization, and fandom opinions,

6:08 favorite tropes, pet peeves, moods, expectations, and all of the above. And you don't get to just stand over their shoulder and explain every little detail to them. You don't get to talk to them in person and explain what this part meant just in case they didn't understand the first time around. I mean, somebody will probably love that scene that you were very insecure about. Others will miss details that you thought were pretty obvious. People will misunderstand a line that you thought was very clear. And unfortunately, someone may click away after reading two paragraphs and you will never know why. That lack of control is the part that makes posting feel so vulnerable. And because the internet makes everything feel so permanent, all of these small struggles start turning into identity threats. One typo will make you think that people will think you're careless.

6:54 A sentence that was flatter than you wanted it to be will have you imagining people thinking you as not being talented. A chapter you don't get a lot of comments on will make you think that people are disappointed or bored. And somebody's different interpretation of something will have you believing that they think you don't understand the character. That is like a ridiculous amount of weight to put on one chapter. Writers do it all the time. We treat one post like it's evidence that you are or are not good enough, that you belong in the fandom, that your interpretation was valid, that you do or do not deserve readers. So, of course, the chapter never feels ready because instead of relating that one chapter to the story and let it carry the story, you start to believe that that one chapter that you

7:39 wrote, good or bad, is carrying your entire self-image as a writer. That is not realistic or fun to think. And that is exactly why perfectionism is so addictive because it feels productive. It feels like you're doing something for a reason. But perfectionism comes from fear and fear is very vague. So like what are you actually doing to help with your writing when it's based off of fear? Editing is more specific. editing is I think I can pass through this scene maybe one or two times and see what comes out of it and make it I don't know 10% better than it was before instead of 100% better and perfect editing is like let's do this once or twice and then move on. So when you go from the editing phase to the perfectionism phase, you start to just go downhill because

8:26 regardless of if you think something is perfect or not, everyone else may have different interpretations of it. Just like I can't control the amount of people who click on this video, who like the video, who understands the video, who wants to come back. I can't control that. That's all up to you guys. But all I have to do is keep showing up, right? Keep showing up. Keep getting better. So you can't control that. But when perfectionism kicks in, maybe you feel like you can control that paragraph. You can't control if somebody thinks that your character is out of character, but you can control their dialogue tag. You know, you can't control the amount of comments that you get. We all know this, but maybe when you're on like the 10th edit, you can control whether the sentence sounds 3% less awkward than it

9:11 did 15 minutes ago. So, because you can't control all of these things, the editing phase can become a place where you put all of your anxiety, energy, and time. And I mean, sometimes it could be useful. Again, I'm not saying that we never should edit, that we shouldn't care about editing. Please edit. All of us need to edit. All of us. But like I said, there's a point when editing stops becoming useful and just is a way to delay you posting that story. The point where you're not fixing the chapter anymore. You're just hiding behind the work. And I think fanfiction can make that feel a lot more complicated because a fit can reveal a lot about you without actually being about you. It shows what dynamics interest you. Your humor, your emotional instincts, your favorite tropes, your favorite and least favorite

9:57 characters, your version of romance, angst comfort longing grief chaos and whatever that brain of yours keeps returning to, keeps thinking about, wants to discuss and get out. That's a lot. That's very vulnerable. You know, it's exposing and not because it's wrong, but because it's like very sincere. And we all know that being sincere and being vulnerable is a scary thing, especially when you're like taking it and putting it online because we all know the internet is an interesting place. It is not for the weak at all. For a lot of people on the internet, it's easier for them to be ironic. It's easier for them to be and feel detached. It's easier to act like you don't care that much. But fanfiction is like built on caring a lot. Caring

10:42 way too much. That's kind of this whole operation. People are out here writing 80,000 words because two characters made eye contact and Canon did absolutely nothing with it and that was hella disappointing. So we see that and we go what the hell? I can imagine like so much more for them and we go and create it and then we share it with people. So you do care and that level of care is amazing but it also makes writers feel a bit vulnerable. So then you have little missperfectionism stepping in taking control of your work and your mind and trying to make something feel untouchable. But if it becomes untouchable the problem with that is it'll become dead. It'll become unreachable. Nobody's going to feel

11:29 anything. So some of those very parts that you try to sand down are the parts that can actually make your fig feel alive. that weirdly specific line when you're like, "Nobody talks like that, you know, but maybe that person does talk like that and it's a really funny thing throughout your story." That silly little cringy trope that you're almost embarrassed to love. That scene that feels a little bit too honest, a little bit too vulnerable. You're like, "Should I scale that back? Maybe that's just too much at this point." No, don't scale it back. Keep it. I promise you that'll make your story stand out because you're not trying to hide yourself. You're not trying to hide things that a lot of other people feel and want to experience but don't. You're giving it to yourself

12:15 and you're also giving it to them. And that is exactly how readers connect with your story. I think something that a lot of people don't really say out loud is that fanfiction has this built-in pressure, right? It's a kind of specific pressure that we have when we're writing it because we're not just writing into an empty room, something that doesn't exist already. You're writing inside of a fandom. And a fandom already has canon and it has a lot of opinions. People will have opinions about the ship and the characters, the tags and the power dynamics, the pacing of the story, who should confess first, who should forgive whom for what? Who is really secretly soft even though they have a hard exterior? Who is just emotionally constipated till the end of time? So,

13:00 no, we're not just dealing with the fear of what if they don't like my writing, but it's also the fear of what if I write this character and they don't understand it or think they're accurate enough. And that one is really hard to deal with because characterization is very personal in fanfiction. 90% of the time we're not just making up new people, new characters. Some of our characters may actually be original and random, but majority of them are actual known characters. So, we end up having to show how we understand someone the audience is already familiar with because we all saw them. We all know them. You're saying, "This is what I think they would do. This is what I think they would say. This is what Canon left unsaid. This is how I interpret their feelings and this is the version that makes the most sense to me. And

13:47 yeah, people can disagree with that and it's not necessarily right or wrong, but it's scary. But also literally how fanfiction works. Fanfiction exists because people interpret stories differently. If there was only one correct way to understand a character, then fandom would be very boring and AO3 would be a damn desert because nobody would want to be writing the same thing. And a lot of great fix comes from someone saying here's how I see it and someone else going hm I never actually thought about it that way but now unfortunately I am emotionally invested. Your interpretation will not be for everyone but that does not mean it is wrong. It means that you made a choice and making choices as extremely difficult as it can be is a part of the writing process. We have to decide. We

14:33 have to make a choice and we have to move on with it and be happy and proud of it. Because perfectionism will try to convince you that there's some magical version of the fick no one can disagree with. No one that no one can criticize, that no one will find cringe and no one can misread, but that version just does not exist because you can literally copy and paste something that happened in canonto without changing anything. you could just copy the script, copy the book and somebody's going to be like, hm, I wish they did that. I mean, because that's how fanfiction works because that's what we did. We saw something and we were like, let's change that. Let's explore that. So, people are going to do the same thing to your work. And then we hope that they just get their own ideas and they just make their

15:18 own fic instead of trying to tell you what to do. But, you know, sometimes that still happens and you still got to be proud of your take in the direction that you went into and continue on because the perfect version just does not exist. And honestly, if it did, it would probably be hella boring. So, here is the annoying contradiction of posting online. Writers want engagement. We want comments kudos bookmarks someone quoting a line that we wrote back to us. But we also don't want to feel exposed. We want connection without the risk. And that's just not going to happen. Like I I'm sorry. You can't connect and avoid being seen. You're going to be seen somehow someway. But because of that, that's when perfectionism sneaks in and starts lying to us. It tells you if you

16:04 polish this paragraph good enough, you can get the good part of being seen without the scary part. That's not how it works. If people connect with your writing, it's usually because something in there is real. Not necessarily personal in like a diary entry way, but in the real sense that your voice, your taste, your humor, and your emotional instincts are present. That means that some people may respond strongly. Some will get it, some won't. Some will love the exact same thing that somebody else dislikes, but that's not an issue. It's not an error. That is your art, your work, meeting an audience of a very diverse group of individuals you do not know. So, the real danger here is not messing up and having people hate your stuff. It's when you start holding yourself back, start making everything

16:51 feel safer, flatter, easier to defend just to avoid the risk of people not seeing you how you want to be seen. You cut that intense moment because it just feels too much. You soften the dialogue until it loses the bite it had. you avoid the trope and the romance and the emotional scenes because you're worried that somebody may think it's cringe. So, you can end up turning the fic into a version of itself that is technically cleaner but much less interesting. That is the cost of perfectionism. That is the cost of trying to take less risk, trying to go the less risky route. Perfectionism doesn't just slow you down. It can make you a more cautious, more boring writer. And while caution is

17:36 useful at times, you don't want it to be making decisions and driving for you because then even your own writing will eventually stop surprising you and it won't be motivating and you won't be able to create these scenes that existed in your head because you're too scared. I think another thing that keeps writers stuck is this idea that everything that they write, everything that they post has to represent them forever. You know, one thing that I hate, not really hate, but one thing that is so ironic when I'm talking about these things to you guys is because this also applies to my YouTube videos. Not every one of them is going to be a banger. Most of them won't actually. But then I have those ones that break out because people really connected with what I said. And so that's why I keep showing up every time

18:23 because I'm like, "Yeah, I think I have things to say." But this is like the same feeling with like writing and being on A3 and posting your fix. It's like maybe I made a video that I was like that idea could have been stronger, that script could have been stronger, but now it's posted and maybe it didn't do as well as I wanted to. And then I'm sit there and I'm like, oh, does that mean that I'm just not good at YouTube? It's that fear of perfectionism, right? It's trying to protect me because it's trying to give me proof that I need to be perfect in order to be successful. And that is not true. That is why I continue to show up and get better. Better at writing my scripts, better at changing my thumbnails, better at talking to the camera, better at planning, whatever it is. This all also applies to my writing life on A3 and all of you guys who are

19:10 struggling with posting and dealing with perfectionism. You don't have to feel like your archive of your fanfiction, all of your individual works has to be a museum of your best hits. only your cleanest, most defensible work. You do not have to feel like that because that will actually not happen. It's not realistic and it's also not how creative growth looks. Creative history is a bit messy. If you go back into like your favorite fanfic, author's work archive, you can see that not all of their fixs were hits. Not all of them got the attention that they wanted to or that you read and you thought was amazing and was like, "Why did only 500 people read this?" Imagine if they saw that. If they saw only 500 people were reading their

19:56 earlier works and they just stopped, you would not have gotten the bangers you got afterwards. So when it comes to your work, your writing, you should be able to look back and see what you were obsessed with, what you were practicing, what risks actually did work, what bad or annoying habits you eventually grew out of, what tropes had you in a complete chokeold, and what you would do differently now. That is not embarrassing at all. That is evidence that you kept making things. You persevered. You kept showing up. So the goal is not to have every single chapter or every single oneshot in your long series to look like it was perfectly polished and ran through a computer to be as perfect as possible. That would look very weird. Okay? You you probably

20:41 will start getting some AI accusations unfortunately. And also it is impossible. Your work is allowed to show growth. It's allowed to show movement. It's allowed to show that you have changed. Because if you just sit there and be like, I have to be an expert at writing, at fanfiction in order to post something, then you will never be an expert and you will never get better because you don't do it in the first place. There are lessons you have to learn from, I guess, quote unquote, failures. We have to fail. We're afraid to be seen, and we're afraid to fail. I know that. It took me years to get to the point to start posting and sharing my stuff online, even with criticism, even with people who don't agree with me or people who are just tropes who will come to my channel or come to my fanfic and say something very rude. I've had

21:27 people leave racist comments on here. Can you believe it? You probably can in this day and age, actually. Yet, I'm still here. You can have the worst people try to stop you because they don't know what they're doing with their life and they see you show up and they are offended because how dare you if I can't even show up. How dare you who I think is below me show up and be better. If you want to do it, you got to do it and you got to do it now. And let me tell you, fanfiction is one of the best spaces for that kind of creative experimentation when we let it be. Fix don't need to be sanitized content because part of what makes fandom interesting is that people are writing from their own like specific life experiences, their obsessions, their

22:12 curiosity, their frustration, their love, desire, grief, and also Canon didn't do it so I guess I got to be the one to do it. You know, all that energy is valuable because you take everything inside of you and you translate it and put it on a page and you share it with people. There are so many people in this world. You can only imagine how many people that will hit with, it will connect with. So if you try to wait until your work is perfectly polished or safe or impossible to criticize, because it never will be. A lot of that creative energy just never gets released. It never lets out. And it's not because you ran out of ideas. It's because you just talked yourself out of sharing them. So maybe before you write that same paragraph or edit your entire chapter for the 11th time, ask yourself a better

23:00 question. Not is this good? Because that question is way too vague and can ruin your entire day and make you frustrated. Instead, ask yourself, am I making this clearer or am I making this safer? Am I actually improving the story or am I delaying the moment that people will react to it? Is there an actual problem here? Or am I uncomfortable because the chapter is actually done? Those are more useful questions. Sometimes you just got to talk to yourself like you're your own therapist, psychologist. Just be like, "What are you doing here?" Like, "What's the point? Is there a fear?" If there is, say it out loud because a lot of times you realize it sounds crazy or stupid, but then you can acknowledge it and then be like, "Okay, what will actually help me?" Even if it's uncomfortable in the moment. Maybe it's

23:46 like only read your chapter once more. And if you edit a paragraph, you can only edit one one or two words in it. And then after that, you're done. Don't look back at it. Post it. Okay? You're getting on track. You're making progress and ignoring that perfection. If the scene genuinely needs work, work on it. If the pacing is confusing, fix it. If the dialogue does not sound like the character, revise it. I have to revise my dialogue all the time when it comes to Loki because I go from like people who talk very modernly to a century old Norse god who is like morally great. Switching from those two types of dialogues and then to people who are like more humorous and more stern, they can kind of get mixed up a little, right? Oo, I should like create a video about dialogue. That's actually probably

24:32 a talent I have. why people like my characters. Godamn. I always just underestimate the stuff that I know anyway. If it needs fixing, fix it. But do not overcorrect it. Do not go back and forth. Stick with something and move on. Unfortunately, you cannot edit your way out of vulnerability. And at some point, posting will still feel a little bit weird. It just it just will. But that does not automatically mean the chapter is bad. We need to stop relating something that we feel nervous about and uncomfortable about internally to equaling this is just like objectively bad. That's not true. It might just means you care a ton about it and that is okay. So if you're stuck on the chapter and keep saying that it's just

25:17 not ready, ask yourself what does ready actually mean? Like actually give yourself rules. What does ready mean? If you say I don't know, you have to come up with those parameters of ready. Does it need one more pass of editing? Do you want to send it to a couple beta readers? Because that's okay. But if it's because you're waiting for the magical moment where posting feels no longer vulnerable and you don't feel discomfort or fear, that moment may never come. Not if the story matters to you. The goal is not to become fearless. Okay? I don't think most writers are fearless. I think they just learned the difference between fear that's giving useful feedback and fear that's trying to keep them invisible, hold them back. Because sometimes you'll have that voice in your head like, "Okay, this scene

26:02 needs a bit more attention." And then there's the fear that says, "Do not post this." Because one person may have such a negative opinion about it. Those are different things. One is just normal thing to want to get better at and then the other it's trying to keep you a scaredy-cat. So yes, edit your work, care about your craft, and try to make the story strong to the best of your ability with the skills that you have now, but please do not confuse endless polishing, endless editing, endless rewriting with creative integrity because sometimes that's just avoidance with better branding. And at some point, the chapter will have to leave the drafts even before it can do what you wrote it to do. So, Inquiring Minds me wants to know, have you ever convinced

26:48 yourself that a chapter wasn't ready when really you were just scared to post it? If so, what eventually made you hit that post button? Cuz I think a lot of people who are in this situation would appreciate your feedback and your experience with all of this. Let us know in the comments. And if you enjoy talking about fanfiction, creativity, writing, fandom culture, and all that good stuff, please feel free to like this video, share it if you can, and subscribe. That all helps more fandom writers and readers be a part of this community that we are building here. And if you've been enjoying these conversations and want to support the channel, you are always welcome to join the support the archive membership on my channel. And as always, I have some helpful links and writing resources in the description below, so check that

27:33 out, too. Thank you guys and I'll see you in the next