: Re: I keep rewriting the same section of my story. How do I move forward? I have a story I want to write and I have the scenes in my head. Because of this, I keep judging and rewriting the

@Kimberly114

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There's nothing inherently wrong with perfectionism, but you can try to channel it in a more effective way. Consider that each element of a story depends on the rest—you need your early parts to effectively set up your later parts, but you need to have those later parts at least partially written in order to see how to do that most effectively. Pacing is essential to the flow of a story, but a single section can't do much to vary the pace and keep the reader interested, and the preceding and following sections can have a significant influence on how quickly you want to move. Problems with consistency of theme and character won't be noticeable without a larger body of text.

In short, you can't get that first section perfect until you write the rest of the story. Instead of rereading and thinking of how it could be better, remind yourself that you don't have all the tools yet. You know it's not done—it's just a first draft. Set the revising process as a reward to yourself for finishing, and use that impulse to go back and fix things as motivation to continue forward so you can reach that point.

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