Can’t stick to one idea

[Coco1789]

would love some advice. Love writing, have always had lots of ideas for stories, often I plan them out in a lot of detail on paper or in my head. I think some of them are quite good ideas. However whenever I sit down to actually write I get to about chapter three and think ‘this isn’t the best idea. Idea X is actually the better idea’ so then I’ll spend a few months thinking about that and writing but then decide idea Y is better etc etc. so I never get anywhere but have genuinely about 20 x beginnings of stories.
when I’m trying to write I’ll worry that if I don’t write XYZ story now, then somebody else will come along and write that idea and will
have loads of success and I’ll kick myself for not writing it and will have wasted my time writing the wrong story.
I know none of this is rational but it has genuinely been stopping me from writing for years, and spoiling something I used to love doing.
would really appreciate some advice!

I suffer from this too. I think it's partly perfectionism for me.

One thing I think it's really important to remember is that you only get better at writing by writing. So you only get better at writing middles by writing middles, and at endings by writing endings. What you're doing right now is getting really good at writing beginnings, but you will still have to learn the rest of it no matter how long you put it off by writing beginnings. So may as well get to it!

One thing that can help is writing shorter fiction. You get used to writing a complete arc and the more you do it the more painless it becomes, even though longer stories are obviously different in some ways. It's good practise.

I think a lot of this is about anxiety. It is for me anyway. I don't think this -- "when I’m trying to write I’ll worry that if I don’t write XYZ story now, then somebody else will come along and write that idea and will
have loads of success and I’ll kick myself for not writing it and will have wasted my time writing the wrong story."
is actually where the real fear is, I think that's your subconscious trying to get you to stop doing something that feels uncomfortable.
As you write and the story turns into something concrete, words on a page rather than a vision in the head, you do lose something. Possibilities get eliminated and the project becomes one, real, version of itself instead of a mental vision of a million possibilities. That causes discomfort and your brain starts floating worries like this to change your tack.
"As long as you never write the story, you can still write the perfect story." But you end up with a perfect nothing instead of a flawed (but maybe still awesome) something.

Just my two cents, maybe I'm way off-base. There are creativity coaches who can help with some of these mental blocks.

I'm exactly the same. Following this for tips!!

Have the same issue - I did read/hear some advice once that said the 'idea' is always great but as you start writing and get a few chapters in you are faced with your limitations and it's no longer perfect and needs a lot of work. Easier to blame the idea than to push through the limitations - very little of great writing hangs on a great idea. Found it good advice at the time. Caveat - there are of course times that it is not a great idea or has some major logistical issues.

Sorry see the same advice (but captured much more eloquently) has already been given above

Yes, it's seldom about a 'brilliant idea' alone. Harry Potter was just a boarding school story with magic -- nothing wildly original in its conception. Unsurprisingly, there are no new ideas.

I think you're self-sabotaging, OP, as others have said, because writing through a whole novel-length project is tough, and takes commitment, time, effort, and moments of despair when you realise that the 60k words you spent the last three months writing need to be dumped. It's like dropping out of marathon training in week five.

Agree. The middle is ‘the work’ - writing as well as reading.

As pps have advised, consider this as the next learning stage of writing development.

(goes off to take own advice 🤭)

As someone who is a published author this is what happens every time! The main part of writing book is a hard slog however many times you do it and the only thing to do is to sit and carry on writing and ignore all the lovely shiny new ideas! Just carry on writing until you get to the end and you have a first draft of a whole book. It doesn't get easier with time there is always a sluggish middle!

The brilliant late playwright and writing teacher Stephen Jeffreys called this "the ennui of the first idea". It's a common thing for writers but we have to get past it and (the most vital piece of writing advice) "get it finished". Beginnings are relatively easy when you're all fired up and motivated, middles are much harder when you're swimming in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight, and endings are very hard to do well. Of course you're daunted to go on, we all are, but you need to have a proper plan for the whole thing and see it through because that early momentum does not sustain and it becomes hard graft, craft and managing the perpetual self-doubt and distractions. Tell yourself you can (and must) always come back and redraft it later to get it right, but you have to get to the end first or it's all for nothing and 'your' ideas will be done better by someone with more stamina and arse-to-chair application. Or write short stories, if you genuinely don't have the constitution for long-form, nothing wrong with that.

I also struggle with this. I have got to chapter 5 and am resisting the overwhelming urge to delete it all and start again with a totally different idea. What I have noticed is that it's not necessarily the idea that I am bored of, it's around chapter five that I hit a wall. This is the same with any idea. I would say stick with your idea...keep persevering because if you find it's normally the same place that you start to have these thoughts it might be a certain point in the structure that you get stopped at. I recently bought a novel planner on Amazon and a load of post-it notes which is really helping me push past that point and into the next phase of the story. Keep us posted!

I think a lot of novelists started out writing short stories. Maybe setting yourself a target of completing a few of those would help

Thank you so much for this. I really like the idea of an imperfect something than a perfect nothing. That really rings true with me! and yes when you start writing it stops being perfect so you move to the other ideas which are still ‘perfect’.

Thank you everyone these are all really useful points! Maybe I am slightly kidding myself and essentially my main problem is a lack of discipline!!

I started my novel nine years ago....and have almost written another two since then (I am a serial unfinisher!), and started various other things. Last year I decided I was going to finish it, then life got messy as I left my husband but now this year I really am going to!!

I've always wanted to write this story and the ending has been really clear in my mind, but I get bored writing the middle. I know the story after all! I forced myself to write out a chapter plan and decide exactly what needed to go into each...there were a lot of 'X decided to do Y' vague parts that I forced myself to put more effort into.

Now I've got a document for each chapter and whilst I'm mostly writing them in order, I am tacking each section as it's own challenge, creating an arc within that chapter and really thinking about what the purpose of it is in relaiton to the story. It feels a little less overwhelming than tackling the whole thing. I've added about 30,000 words in the last two months (it was stuck at 45k for ages).

I have also paid for an initial editor/mentor on the first 30,000 and just having some conversations about it with her and getting some guidance has helped. That being said, it did take me a year to read her feedback as I was too scared!!

I am using ChatGPT a lot at the moment to 'discuss' my writing with...I like running my ideas through it and getting it's take on the pace of my chapters and ideas for some of the nuance, as well as research (mine is partly historical fiction so I used to get bogged down in Googling, now I have answers in an instant!). Give it a good...tell it your ideas and ask its opinion on which one to go with and how you can move forward with it!

Also, the '30,000 word doldrums' is a recognised thing in writing -- most people hit a wall then. The enthusiasm of a new project has worn off, and it feels more of a slog.

Emma Darwin's advice is always practical and helpful, and has links to ways other people have managed it. You'll see that her advice is to listen to the discomfort, see what has changed in what you've written, whether your original plan is no longer working etc -- and what she does herself is to move ahead as though she's already changed the things she thinks need to change, rather than going back and doing them. Then goes back and tinkers with the beginning.

https://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2011/07/the-30k-doldrums.html