Last month saw a major book release, at least if you’re following Fantasy news and are familiar with the big name that is Brandon Sanderson. He finally finished the 5th book of his massive Stormlight Archive series. The end of the “first arc” (there will be 10 books in total) and he frankly stated he was tired and would take a long break.
I can understand that completely. I might not think his stories or prose are all that great, but I deeply respect the man’s work ethic and accomplishments. I just finished book 4 when this book dropped. But when I wanted to check it out, I saw the reviews were … very mixed.
Many people claimed that it felt like the book had been “rushed”. Like there’d been a clear downgrade in terms of prose, using more modern words and juvenile language to perhaps appeal to younger readers. The plot was far from efficient—many claimed that 20% of the book could just be cut—and went to some really odd places to stitch it together. Many fans were calling for the book to be put back into the oven, or already accusing Sanderson of being so successful now that he “doesn’t care” about quality or edits anymore.
Brandon Sanderson is the type of author to take a deep breath and then honestly respond to that. Which I also admire. And he said something that divided the fans even more.
In summary, he said that giving a project more time or effort does NOT automatically mean it’s of higher quality.
Half the writers to whom I spoke agreed—which includes myself. The other half was baffled, even offended, and said it was the biggest bullshit they ever heard.
Of course things get better when you give them more time! And effort! And attention! How could something get worse when you work harder on it? Don’t your muscles get bigger when you train more?
This is utter nonsense! I am flabbergasted!
The stages of a project
Let me first state that, of course, these are no arguments. Saying something is “unbelievable” or “nonsense”, saying “well OBVIOUSLY it works like X”, doesn’t mean anything. You might as well have said “because I feel it in my toes” or “I know I’m right because aliens whispered it in my ear while I slept”.
In my experience, every (creative) project goes through a few stages.
- STAGE 1: You’ve just started. You progress with leaps and bounds. You’re excited, getting those first 10,000 words down, yeah.
- STAGE 2: Ai, we’re in the middle. We’re a bit tired from doing so much—but also overwhelmed by how much there’s still left to go. The only way through is to keep momentum and keep going, though it might feel like a grind.
- STAGE 3: Oh no, it’s diminishing returns! We have to put in a lot of effort to clean things up, to tie all loose threads together, to polish the final product. There are so many things to consider that we just do not know what to fix and what to leave untouched. Some feedback says part A of the project needs work, while another says A is perfect and part B needs work.
- STAGE 4: We’re well past the point of having energy and fresh inspiration for this project, or even caring about it anymore. Any change we make is more based on our mood in the moment than any arguments. The changes, in any case, are tiny. If we spontaneously decide to make a big change anyway, it will likely ruin more good things than fixing perceived issues.
Humans don’t have an endless well of energy, inspiration, creativity, time or money. We can give a project our all for a bit, but at some point we’re just depleted. Sometimes this happens after finishing it. More often than not, it happens before 100% finishing it, which means we now need to rush or risk never finishing it at all.
This isn’t a rare case. This is the default. This is the expected curve of any project. Being creative is hard, finishing stuff is hard, and a book with over 500 pages is a challenge of the next level.
And what happens when someone is tired? What happens when someone stops caring, or loses their focus and attention to detail? What happens when a book is so large that an author can’t possible keep all of it in their head at once?
They make mistakes. They don’t see things clearly anymore. Something is an issue purely because they’re hungry and in a bad mood, while they convince themselves that something else is not an issue because they just don’t want to deal with it anymore.
When you’re struggling to reach the finish line, you start moving the finish to be closer to you. Even if that means rushing the final parts of that project. Even if that means deciding to overlook some mistakes and not rewrite a slow section of the book to be faster paced.
At some point in STAGE 3, you reach the “peak” of the project. After that moment, any change is more likely to ruin something that was working. Or, as they often say in software development, you’re just making “equivalent” changes: swapping one thing for something else of roughly equal quality. In your exhaustion, in your distracted state, you fix the wrong things and overlook the actual mistakes.
Giving it more time can fix that, sure. You might, after a really long break, and with some luck, come back with fresh eyes and energy. And then, in that moment, make all the right decisions and elevate your story above its previous peak. Because yes, simple “exhaustion” plays a role here, and you can refill your energy tank with time. A lack of “inspiration” or “fresh mind” plays a role, and you can similarly only refill that with time.
In practice, however, this rarely happens. You need to be quite lucky. And quite determined: most artists stop caring about a project once it’s (nearly) finished, as they want to move on to the next thing. If they’ve been away for even longer, making even more “next things”, it’s even less likely they’ll find any passion for that old project.
More importantly, most don’t have the luxury to do this. People have limited time and resources as it is. If you need the income from your next book to survive, you’re not going to take a loooong break before returning.
Thus, the actual choice here is “do I finish this work now OR NOT FINISH IT AT ALL?” Do I allow the work to be imperfect but done, or risk taking longer and never finishing it at all? Do I tell myself “enough is enough”, or introduce the chance that further edits will actually make the story worse?
Personally, I am a very small author. I need to publish many books every year, because every single one (on its own) doesn’t generate much income. I can’t let projects marinate for ages, waiting for the perfect sentences to arrive and for every single issue I see to have a perfect solution. I do what I can—enough is enough.
And guess what? It made me a far better writer, more quickly. Because I actually got more work done, and I got more experience with many different books and releases. As they say in game development: “fail faster”. Sticking with a project after you’ve crested the peak will not only make the project itself worse (likely), it will also hamper your ability to make your next project better and faster. It’s not just a matter of improving your current project, but also shaping your future to prevent making the same mistakes in the first place.
So, yes, every project has its expiry date. Every project has a point after which it likely gets worse because you put in more time and effort. The changes you make are either equivalent or harmful. Because you’ve been with the project for so long, you’re not objective anymore; perfectionism takes over and sees issues where there are none. While, often, completely ignoring outside feedback about actual issues because of your tunnel vision. Because of the “sunk cost fallacy”: you’ve spent so much time on this project, now you have to make it perfect and flawless otherwise it was all for nothing.
No. Set a reasonable deadline. Finish the project by then, whatever means necessary, release and move on. More time =/= better quality by default.
Over time, on average, this approach leads to better books (not worse), faster development (in terms of your skill), and simply more sustainable (mental) health.
Even if all those advantages weren’t enough for you, there’s always the simple case of “I need to finish this book before Wednesday or I don’t have food on the table”. A very strong incentive. Also very useful for lighting a fire under your ass and prevent the perfectionism that plagues so many creatives.
A specific example
All of this talk has been quite abstract. I think many people understand when I say mistakes slip in when you’re tired, that you don’t make changes for the good when you’re beyond caring about a project. Still, I wanted to end on a concrete example. One of many times when I learned this lesson myself.
I was developing a board game. The rules were quite simple, the art was coming together quickly, and really there ain’t no cloud in sight ;) It followed all the stages of a project. It started fast and smooth, I had some issues to untangle in the middle, and then I just slowly polished it as we reached the final state. By the time the game is “(nearly) done”, though, I’ve worked on it long enough—and thought about all possible mistakes or tasks so much—that I want to move on.
Then I talked about it with someone. And we planned a date for playtesting it.
And my mind started worrying. My mind was still obsessed with this one game I’d been pouring all my energy into for the past weeks. And so I worried it would be too simplistic. I imagined teaching it, and asked myself if it wasn’t too boring. I looked at the art and thought hmm, only three colors, we really need five for a solid first impression right?
All the files were open on my computer now. It was only a few days until the playtest. Hmm, why not drop what I had actually planned (on my to-do list), and instead put a little extra sauce on this one?
I worked longer on the game. I put more effort into it, thought about it more, and added one or two wrinkles to the rules that I felt added more interest and variety. By all accounts, you’d think I had made the game at least a tiny bit better in doing so.
I had not.
Those extra rules? Despite being tiny, despite not being that much, they were the breaking point. I felt my players slipping away as I taught those final rules. And some didn’t understand them for a long time, because they were so “tacked on” and didn’t mesh with the rest. The game was not better. Teaching was harder, play was slower, and the extra rules and colors had ramifications I could never have predicted. Bad ones, undoing all my good work with the other rules and art.
Then, some time later, we tested the game again. This was more spontaneous, and that game was all I had on hand.
I had forgotten these extra rules. On auto-pilot, I taught the game was I imagined it at first. The very first version, which was the version for the first 95% of development. You know what’s coming. The teach was easy, all players understood, and the game was much much better.
More time and effort =/= a higher quality end product for sure.
Conclusion
I gave this game example, instead of one from writing fiction, because I think it illustrates the point best. Working longer on a game is bound to add more rules, or more material, or more exceptions for bad situations you’re worried about. And we can all understand that more rules is not necessarily better! We all know that feeling when a board game takes ages to teach, and you’ve forgotten half the rules again before you start. In almost all cases, simpler is better, more efficient is better, less is more.
Working longer on a project, putting in effort past the point of progress, is likely to ruin the simplicity and efficiency of a first or second attempt at something.
Even when you understand this deeply—like I have for some years now—you are still bound to make this mistake, because that’s just how human psychology works. Because we know exactly what happens on every page of our book, we assume the reader does too, so it’s really not asking too much to add five more chapters from new viewpoints, right? Right?
Brandon Sanderson is completely right, if you ask me. Right to release the book despite knowing its flaws—“before it’s perfect”. Right to explain this when called out on a drop in quality. Right to (probably) continue doing what he does, favoring finishing projects before they get stale over getting stuck on the same project for five years, only to realize all those hundred edits and iterations never actually improved it.
As Game Maker’s Toolkit said when he struggled to develop his first video game: “Then realized my mistake. I was making the game longer, not better.”
Because, let me say it one final time: More time =/= more quality for sure!
Those were my thoughts, keep reading and writing,
Tiamo