Overcoming "Possibility Paralysis"?

Question

I don't often experience writer's block these days. Instead I struggle with a different sort of impediment in my writing: I call it Possibility Paralysis.I have to quickly acknowledge that this is not strictly a writing issue but more of a personality or character flaw of mine. For instance (pardon the cliche) I still don't know what I want to be I grow up.But my writing process suffers dearly for it. I have so many stories I want to tell, so many perspectives I'd like to tell them from, that I find I scarcely settle myself on one plot, thread or idea before another, sometimes completely contradictory one pops up, screaming for attention.I suppose the root of all this indecision is likely fear -- the fear of going the "wrong" way, and being unable to back out again. The fear of sticking with it -- of determining that I will slog down the chosen path no matter what, even if another, totally amazing idea comes along. Even if the idea I've chosen leads me down a road to flavorless characters or a hopelessly broken plot. Even if it "ruins" the work, and I never get to tell the story I really *wanted* to tell in the first place, because it's not engaging enough for anyone to want to read it.That said, there is also a sense of wanting to "slow" the creative funnel at the broad end, and let only the useful ideas filter through. It's sort of like a firehose some days, and I just can't deal with the scattered volume. I need *focus*.Has anyone else dealt with this? How do I break out of the endless cycles of false starts and self-doubt of possibility paralysis? How do I 'slow the flow' and focus on the ideas that matter?

Answer 1

That's so unbelievably relatable. Something that helped me was joining an intensive creative writing class where I had deadlines to write the story, so I had to submit something even if it was garbage. Though the submission might be garbage, it was at least a complete story, so I could begin working that piece of trash into something better.

If you're made of time and money, I'd recommend a live web-conference course with Harvard. They have limited enrollment, which means that you get 1-1 care from professors. But it also means that the classes fill up the week that sign ups become available, so sign up fast. https://www.extension.harvard.edu/course-catalog/courses/introduction-to-fiction-writing/13774?subjects=Creative%20Writing&format=Online%20%28live%29%20web%20conference

Probably, your side ideas are amazing and you should try them out even though they are different from your main plot. What I personally do is start with an entire outline of my story-- which is subject to change-- but I follow that outline as closely as makes sense when I sit down to write the story. Then, I have a document called "scraps." In my scraps document for each story, I write out those side ideas. They might be complete or incomplete, but I write them out to the fullness of what's in my brain. Then, I let the scraps lay in that document. After working on the main story, if a scrap is sticking out in my mind, I'll go and find it and add it to the actual story.