Every writer has his or her set of insecurities
which they find difficult to share with the non-writing people in their lives.
IWSG (Insecure Writers Support Group) started by Ninja Captain Alex Cavanaugh
comes as a huge relief for us insecure writers. IWSG is a support group for
writers, where we talk of our writing insecurities, share ways we can overcome
these insecurities and help and support each other. We post on the first
Wednesday of every month. Click here for the IWSG website.
One of my biggest writing insecurity is: fear of
imperfection. The two writing craft books I own and the innumerable posts I
have read, all talk of how to make the story powerful. There is so much
information everywhere that I feel my own story will never match up to the
techniques mentioned there. And whenever I try to write keeping all the things
I have learnt in mind, my creative juices start disappearing.
Everywhere I turn, I read things like there are a
certain set of plot points which every story should adhere to, a certain number
of scenes should be in every chapter, each chapter should end on a cliff hanger
and so on and so forth.
All this info makes me doubt my story. I feel my
character arc is nothing much to write about. That my story has too many flaws.
Then I worry about the stakes not being high enough to intrigue editors and
agents. Then I have anxious moments worrying about my sub-plots. By the time I
battle all these insecurities I would have wasted precious writing time.
Does anyone else have the same insecurities? Do you
worry about never being good enough? Does the fear of not doing justice to your
story haunt you? Do you worry that you haven’t adhered to the techniques
mentioned in the writing craft books? How do you combat this insecurity?
