First Projects vs. your Magnum Opus

These two things should be sworn enemies. You should NEVER try to create your dream project right out of the gate, and here's why...

As a consumer of media, I’m sure we’ve all sat down and thought, man, I really wish a book / game existed like this… and dreamed up our perfect product, the thing we really want to read or play. I have that kind of thought at least once a month, personally; I’m constantly dreaming up new ideas for projects I’d love to start and don’t know when I’ll ever have time to complete — the curse of a creative mind. A lot of times, this exact thought is why people pick up a creative hobby in the first place: they recognize a hole in their experience that nothing currently available is able to fill, so they set out to fill the hole themselves.

That’s a great reason to pick up a creative hobby — but you should avoid working on the aforementioned “dream project” as you’re just getting started, however. If you don’t, and you jump in head first into your magnum opus, the likelihood that your dream project will ever exist in the manner you initially imagined it to be is so small that it’s nigh impossible, thus leaving you unsatisfied forever because the hole you set out to fill is still a hole, and your idea has been spent.

But that’s the only reason I’m creating… so, why not?

Both creative writing and game development are skills — in fact, I would argue that neither is a singular skill, but rather a higher level category of several skills coming together to combine into their respective, much larger, umbrella skill. And as with any skill, when you first start developing it, you’re going to suck. It’s a hard pill to swallow, I know, but it’s the harsh reality. Even the people with a natural inclination for said skill will never be as bad at it as they are when they first start working on it. Therefore, it’s reasonable to conclude that whatever the first finished product to come from the development of this skill is, is going to objectively be the worst thing you ever make.

With that reasoning and self-awareness, why then would you consider “wasting” your dream project on that first (or sometimes even second or third), inevitably not great, thing?

Some people believe that they’ve done enough research to avoid all of those pitfalls, to be the one person whose first game / book comes out flawlessly without any of the problems of a new creative. Unfortunately, no matter how much you learn and research beforehand, no one can fully escape the pitfalls and errors that a beginner will make. Sure, maybe you’ll avoid some of the big ones, but then you make room for some of the less common, but still very beginner-level, problems to creep in and make a mess out of what could otherwise be a really great piece of work.

While there are some pretty easy pitfalls to jump into by creating your dream project first (maybe you make fourteen different events on the same map instead of using switches / self-switches and utilizing the same event, or maybe you release a novel with a muddy middle and a few subplots that never quite resolve), there are some less-obvious ones that can hurt even the best made first project. For example, maybe you do manage to put together a brilliant product, but between scope creep, self-imposed deadlines, and burn out, you fail to focus on what actually goes into the release. You struggle with getting it posted to retail outlets, the sales pages are subpar or don’t fit the intended genre at all, and then when you finally do manage to have your product go live, no one sees it because you forgot to figure out what comes next. It’s easy to do for your first project because you’ve never finished and released one before to understand the process.

Additionally, if you ask any creative person to dig back through their own personal archive and take a look at some of their early work, I can almost guarantee you that one of the first things out of every single one of their mouths will be something to the effect of, “wow, this is garbage.” But I would also venture a guess that at the time they made it originally, they were pretty happy — or at least happy enough — with the outcome. Unless you eventually want to look back at your dream project through that same lens, that is yet another important reason to avoid making it your first project.

So what keeps driving people to do it?

I think for all of us creative types, time and committment play a big part in this. You have big dreams and want to see them actualized. The idea that gets you into the hobby — be it writing or game dev alike — is cool and innovative and it’s the product that’s missing in the world. Why wouldn’t you set out to make the thing you think everyone needs? Especially since these projects often take years to come to fruition. If you only have the time to commit to a single project, it makes perfect sense that you’d want it to be THE project.

And then there’s the self-assured, well-researched person. The one who knows their project isn’t going to suffer from “first project syndrome,” no matter what. Throughout the creation of their project, they somehow manage to talk themselves up so much in their own head that they genuinely become blind to the problems their work has, oftentimes even to the point of ignoring feedback that proves their game or book really is going to be lumped into this same category. By the time they accept that they should have listened, the damage has been done. Either mediocre reviews are piling in, or they consider themselves too far into a project for it to be worth their time to redo the now-glaring errors, causing them to push through despite the less-than-great outcome, and leaving their dream project to rot, forgotten by consumers who would have loved it had it been done correctly.

So, what should you do instead?

It’s important to remember that when you’re creating, you’re doing the best you can with the skills you have in the moment you’re doing said creating. And, like muscles, skills get stronger the more you develop them. If you come out of the gate swinging, ready to drop the first thing you write “the end” on, you’re showcasing skills that aren’t yet fully developed. What you should do instead is practice and refine those skills on something smaller, something with less stakes — in terms of size, time, and finances — something that if it doesn’t take off and become an instant cult classic isn’t going to break your spirits.

Write some short stories or novellas to shop around or share online. Join game jams or communities where you can play around with a tiny project or two and share it within that circle. Whatever process feels best for you, do it. The key aspect here is to choose something small, develop it fully, release it, and receive feedback. Completing the full cycle is the most important part in terms of refining your skills and growing so that when you’re ready to start that dream project, you really are ready.

What’s been a project that you’ve started before you should have and regretted? What did you do to fix things, once you realized what was happening — if anything? What did you learn from the situation?