When you write a story, no matter how good, some people will like it, some people won’t. Some people will find it dull, and some may find it fascinating. Some people will grossly misinterpret it, and some will really get it.
In other words (in a strained paraphrase), you can please all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot please all the people all the time.
Once your work is out of your hands, anything can happen. That means, it can fail on your terms — you may miss your target. And, if you’re a sensitive person who cares about your reputation, this possibility may make you hesitate to put the work into the world or even take up your pen. Let’s look at a few possibilities for failure.
A failure in craft. If you’re simply sloppy, this is all on you. It is better not to subject other people to a work that you know is not grammatical or clear or worth someone’s time. It is best to revise your work until it is as good as you can make it (though that is not always possible).
It’s okay to abandon first drafts that are a mess if you conclude they hold no promise. That’s not giving into fear. It’s admirable to write something that stretches you in terms of style or subject area or structure, revise it until it’s as good as you want it to be, and set it aside because it did for you what you needed it to. (I shudder to write that, remembering the request by Kafka that his unpublished works be destroyed. But it’s a legitimate choice.)
So walk away if the craft is lousy, but improving it won’t matter. But consider revising if there’s a chance that it will be a good investment in time. Don’t worry about the work’s failing in someone else’s eyes. Don’t miss a chance to learn.
A failure of perspective. One writer I knew didn’t have any stories published from the point of view of another gender and withheld everything he wrote from the viewpoint of a person of a different race for decades. I don’t know if he ever tried writing from the point of view of a character other than cis male. I know writing a protagonist of another race was something he tried, tested with people of that race, and eventually published successfully. It took courage for him to try. It took respect and wisdom for him to have his worked checked. It took courage to let that work out into the world.
Similarly, you may discover he true insights a story problem implies are beyond you. It’s easier to recognize a rich story situation than it is to develop an angle that makes you the one who can write it. This could be because the time in your life isn’t right (for instance, too young to inhabit an older character) or the subtleties of a culture outside yourself aren’t really accessible or the central experience is still too close and personal. I wrote one novel three times over decades before I both understood what the most promising point of view was and had the experience to realize my ambition. If either of the first two attempts (each of which had solid stories and good story problems) had found their ways to publication, I would have cheated myself. However, there is a lesson here: returning to a story later may make one that has set off alarm bells earlier perfect for later, making fear of it unworthy.
Fear of being typecast. Eugene O’Neill’s father was famously cast as The Count of Monte Cristo, a role that brought him wealth, fame, and despair. But it's not something that's just a risk for actors. I know a lot of genre writers who are managed into sub-genres, like romantic suspense and cozy mysteries because agents and editors can sell those books. And it can happen to literary writers, too. I was reading Charles Johnson’s The Way of the Writer, in which he stated he withheld his first novels because he felt the expectations they’d create would move him away from the kind of writer he wanted to be.
This fear-inducing concern actually has a simple, mostly effective solution. Publish under a pseudonym. Sure, if you are a gigantic writer like Stephen King and you publish under the name Richard Bachman, you might get outed but that's not a bad problem to have.
Sophomore jinx. If you have had some success, fear of failure takes on a different quality. Whatever you write will be judged, based on the work that was well-received. “Not bad, Mr. Heller, but it’s not Catch-22.” I always wondered if Harper Lee and Ralph Ellison were haunted by having written To Kill a Mockingbird and Invisible Man.
Dealing with success isn’t limited to fear of how the next book is received. Apparently, J.D. Salinger never stopped writing even as he fought to maintain his privacy. His solution to society’s reception was not to publish what he wrote. I would not recommend not publishing as the solution for this kind of fear. However, pretending you’re not going to publish (and avoiding signing a contract) might be a good choice.
Fear of success. This flips the titular fear on its head. For many people (myself included), success implies new responsibilities. For instance, because I can explain scientific and technical material into speeches and articles that reach broad audiences, it has been hard for me to say “no” to some opportunities. That takes time away from what I want to do best, storytelling. I suspect other people are gnawed at the the possibility they might win the writing lottery and bring dramatic change to there lives. When I worked in construction, a co-worker did win a big prize. And he was aware of the sad stories of winners. (Among other dismal outcomes, 70 percent of lottery winners go bankrupt.) He paid off his house, gave the rest away, and came back to work, hammer in hand, the same week his good fortune was announced. I’m guessing he had a plan, just in case he won.
Beyond quitting, using pseudonyms, hiding your work, and making a plan, you might consider doing short works. These stretch you as a writer and are of very low risk. If you write a few hundred short stories, it is the large body of work that matters. A few failures represent little investment in time for the writer, editors, and (if published) readers. Occasional clinkers are forgiven and forgotten.
So… for drafts, this fear should be irrelevant. No one needs to read them, so they don’t reflect on you. For public failures consider the words of Theodore Roosevelt:
“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
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