I constantly get bored of my ideas...

It might be your way of determining which ideas are worth pursuing. Whenever I'm writing a section of my novel and I realize I'm bored, I stop and delete it. For me, that's a sign that something isn't working. As the writer, you should be invested in your story more than anymore. If you aren't excited about writing it, then why would anyone else be excited to read it?

That's not to say that you aren't coming up with good ideas and that boredom doesn't mean something else to you. It could just be that you're wearing out your enthusiasm too quickly by obsessing over the idea until it's no longer shiny and new.

Are you bringing themes to your ideas? It might be that you're sticking too closely to the surface.

My suggestion would be stop making notes and don't plan.

Sit down and write while everything about it is fresh and exciting -- let the idea take shape within the course of writing, let the character come to life and introduce themselves to you as they are introduced to the world. Rather than work these ideas out in the pre-writing stage, let them bloom organically. Use the momentum from the excitement to throw yourself into the actual writing, rather than exhausting that energy on the pre-writing.

I like to jump right into the writing and get at least a chapter or a significant chunk of writing (the length varies depending on the estimated length of the story) and then if so inclined write an outline. When I go to write the next chapter or part of the story from the outline, I use the first chapter that had captured my excitement and all that energy of the initial idea as motivation because I've already started to create something I'm passionate about rather than just having a bunch of notes and plans to go off.

Alternatively...

If you feel strongly that you have to have notes and plans beforehand, it becomes about learning discipline and initiative to complete a task regardless of your feelings towards it, because everyone has peeks and valleys regarding how they feel about their work, excitement and boredom, confidence and doubt but triumphing over these to produce a finished work results in satisfaction of its own stronger than those feelings that would derail you.

It's about finding passion not just in the idea, which like infatuation can wane, but a passion for the actual work of writing, of storytelling.

If this is the way you go... I would suggest starting with small ideas that will produce short work-- flash fiction and short stories (say, 2000 words). Writing the notes, the plans, and the story as quickly as possible, and then repeat, gradually working towards longer pieces. Pretty much working it like a muscle until the series of actions becomes like muscle memory, an automatic progression of notes, plan, write, completion.

Another course of action to take would be to see if your ideas can get strung together somehow as part of a larger story? Form what I've read a good story has sub plots that wend their way into the larger storyline. Is there a way to tie them together?

Maybe don't make notes?
When you're making French bread, you want to knead and knead it to develop the gluten that give it the springy texture we associate with a good baguette. If you throw it in the oven too soon, you get a horrible result
On the other hand, when you're making banana bread, the best way to do it to stir 8-10 times with a spoon, or just until all the dry ingredients are wet. If you over-mix until it's perfectly smooth, you get chewy, tough banana bread that no one wants to eat.

Both are good breads, and neither is inherently better than the other. They're just different techniques to bring something good to the party.

If your pre-writing is killing your ideas, that might be a sign that your stories are more like banana bread than a baguette. You may be overworking them. Try taking one of these ideas that excites you and dive right in. See what happens? There are plenty of successful writers who do no, or very little work before putting the story on the page. Give it a shot. What have you got to lose?

Brechin Frost said:

My suggestion would be stop making notes and don't plan.

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^
ditto, for all the reasons

My ideas tend to stay exciting for me most of the time, but my drive to actually WRITE them isn't always so exciting. I'll think about them a lot, write a lot of notes like you said, but then when it comes to writing it, my interest sometimes wanes. I'm not sure if it's a discipline thing, or maybe in my head the idea is too "good" for my writing, so actually doing it justice with words is intimidating.

I mean, it's not so much boredom as reluctance, I guess. But maybe writing the ideas before they get boring instead of just jotting notes would help.

You've been given lots of good ideas in this thread. Let me bring in another with potential, or at least expand on McCardey's comments on theme.

A plot is in some ways the heart of your story. To expand the metaphor, a theme is its soul.

In other words, how does your story pass the "so what?" test? What is it really about? For instance, I just wrote a story about a kelpie. She rescues her part-siren friend from execution. That's plot stuff.

But what the story was really about was my distaste for stereotyping. No one else wanted to give the kelpie any benefit of the doubt for even enough time to converse with her. She was rescuing her only friend. The only one who bothered to look beneath the surface to find out if there was a person beneath the tales.

In a lot of ways, it was my commentary on the last election.

I need some sort of emotional connection to write any kind of gripping tale. Otherwise, it's just clever. Now, an occasional short story that's merely clever is okay in SFF. That genre has a history of clever being enough at times. But a steady diet of it is lacking, IMO. A story without an emotional connection is forgettable. It needs an emotional hook, even if you don't make it explicit (and I didn't much--you might not be able to find it unless you're looking for it). The opener's in SFF SYW if an example will help, although it's also there because I believe it can be improved, so don't think I always nail this stuff myself, especially not on the first attempt. It's already been established that I need to expand on the kelpie's background (just a couple sentences will probably do it) to engage the reader better.

But that idea, of people being people no matter what labels we attach to them, suffused my writing and gave it life while I was drafting it. It gave me a reason to finish the tale--to put something out there other than, "Hey, check out this idea. Isn't it neat?"

Anyway, this sort of thing helps me. I offer it here in case it helps you as well.

+1 to the suggestion of trying flash. I get in these ruts all the time, where my story peters out and I abandon it. There's usually some combination of "it wasn't really a viable idea," "this plot has more holes than Swiss cheese," or "my main character is a jerk." I tend to listen to my subconscious on those things rather than work-work-work the idea, but it *can* go too far and tip into over-perfectionism (or boredom, if that's more what you're feeling). To remind myself I *can* finish a thing, I go looking for calls for shorts--be they flash or a short story or a novelette. The story is written before the initial excitement can wear off and voilà! I didn't get bored. I can recommend the December Countdown to Flash Fiction Challenge here on AW. (Link from last year's thread, but it gives you an idea of what the challenge is. PW: flashed) It's fun and no pressure, but still a challenge to hone story-writing skills.

Myrealana's baking analogy is a great one. Story ideas can and do get overcooked. Finding your personal, best way of avoiding that just might take you some trial and error. You know what isn't working, so maybe try something different.

Tons of planning can be great, or it can be a mask for another problem. You mention you took a long break from writing. Is it possible you've lost confidence? Planning can be a way to put off doing the actual writing altogether. Too much planning can certainly cut excitement for a project. I felt that way before NaNo started. I did more planning than usual, and became frustrated. Once I started writing, the frustration melted away.

My best advice, pick an idea and write something. Try a short story. Write anything just to get back in the saddle, and don't worry too much about whether it's good enough.

I'm having the same problem too so I'm going to try a short novel and put it up on wattpad. Maybe that will get me more motivated.

SaveitForaRainyDay said:

I've just started writing again after a long period away from it, and I've had quite a lot of ideas. However, I get bored of them really quickly.

By this I mean that I get really excited about an idea, I take a lot of notes, constantly think about it, but after a few days I'm bored of it. So I move on to another idea, then the same thing happens. I've had about five ideas these past few weeks, though none of them have stuck with me. I can't even make it to the early planning stages.

I have an idea now that I'm partially enthusiastic about. I'm still making notes, but I feel the sense of boredom coming on. Again, I feel I've hit a brick wall, even though I'm still really into this idea. I actually want to write it, but I don't feel I can since I'm semi bored of it already.

Does this sound confusing? Anyone have any advice?

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Maybe force yourself to focus on why you want to write down the story ideas you come up with?

Personally: I love showing off how clever and creative I am (Ravenclaw-Slytherin), meaning that every story I don't finish is a brilliant idea that I can't show off to everybody else; and I love proving other people wrong about how the world does and/or should work (INTP), meaning every story I don't finish is an opposing argument that I have not provided a rebuttal to. Especially when it pertains to rules being made out to be more important than humans' lives, as I am also Chaotic Neutral who loves outsmarting rule-makers in particular.

Once you've put your motivation into words, it's harder to unmotivate yourself. Shouldn't be too hard, you are a writer, right

I agree that you should start with something small. Writing is work, and takes discipline. Taking some shorter pieces from planning through to completion should help create both the discipline and the confidence needed for longer stories. Best of luck with it!

Great ideas all round.

A new one for you: Have you tried recording your story? Out loud. Just talk into a recorder (your smartphone should have one) and blaze through the story that way. Or you could try speech-to-text programmes. Otherwise, dictate to someone?

If you go the recorder route, you'd need to transcribe, and it's horribly awkward listening to your own voice initially, but, recorder or speech-to-text programmes or dictation might get you passed this obstacle.

OP Here's a thought. Embrace the problem and make it work for you.
Some people seek novelty and once they have become too familiar with something. the novelty ends. Like you I tend to swap between projects a lot. Sometimes I'm not in the mood to write a certain type nof story so I write or nplot out another kind. Eventually I come back to that initial piece (when I'm trying to procrastinate about working on something else) and bam. It's all fresh again.

If you want to avoid the problem.. ALlow a good amount of time between your planning and your drafting. By that i mean after a point. You stop researching, , you stop making notes, simply put your notes away ina drawer.

I find that one month is enough time for this. Read your notes when you come back and see what sticks with you. That will tell you the real heart of your story.

Brechin Frost said:

My suggestion would be stop making notes and don't plan.

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This. Just dive in.