Welcome to Possibility Paralysis Anonymous! My name is Henry and I suffer from having too many ideas...

You are correct in identifying that this is more than a writing issue but perhaps a little too tough on yourself in calling it a personality flaw. ( ...and since integrity is of highest value, definitely too tough when you call it a character flaw. )

You have been gifted with a creative mind, which for a writer is a treasure of unparalleled value. Nothing good ever got written without first being seeded by a great idea. Since you can come up with great ideas, you are already half way home to writing great stories.

All that is missing is discipline.

Unfortunately, discipline is pretty scarce among us shaved monkeys. I opened with the Anonymous analogy because just as with other addictions, new idea addiction cannot be cured through discipline alone. If we could just decide not to let new ideas intrude, there wouldn't be a problem. But human minds lack on/off switches, so an absolute solutions to these kinds of problems are not easy to find.

Here is how my partial solution works...

Despite loving the feel of new ideas pouring out on to page in real time, I have found that I cannot be productive writing freestyle.

First, in the most free-form portion of my writing process, I put on the personality of each of my characters and allow them to drive the pen for a while, telling their life stories, giving their opinions on the world and each other, and sharing their plans for the coming adventure. None of what I write at this phase is meant for publication. It is just my way of getting to know my characters so that they are real and flavorful to me, right from the start.

Then I design the story with several layers of increasingly detailed outlines. I only consider the story design complete when I have at least a few sentences on every scene in the story. It is at this point that I set the transition points between the various story threads and work out any pre-resolution interactions and conflicts between them. Along the way, I identify the scenes which are going to be fun to write and mark them with a star. These are my candy bars, which will be important later in the process.

Finally, I start the writing, one scene at a time, with absolute obedience to the notes I created for each scene during the outlining process. If I get the urge to change something in the middle of the scene, I scribble a few notes about the change onto a notepad that I keep near by. Then I get back to writing the scene as I originally planned it.

When an change idea just won't shut up, no matter how many notes I scribble down about it, I pull out the heavy artillery. Remember those candy bars I mentioned earlier, the scenes which will be most fun to write. Under normal circumstances, I would only get to write those scenes after I had written everything which precedes them in the story. But if I have a really nasty change idea that needs to be squashed, I stop scribbling down notes and promise myself... "Finish this current scene, and I will let you write a candy bar scene next." That is usually enough to help me escape the allure of the new idea.

Another thing that helps is that scribbling down the new ideas is not just a token appeasement to my overly-creative mind. Everything that gets scribbled down will be read and considered during the editing/revising step in my writing process. If a change idea is really worth it, I am happy to go back and change everything necessary to integrate it into the story. But none of that begins until the last page of the first draft is completely written. Every idea gets its chance to be a part of the story, but those which arrive late to the party need to overcome the weight of all of the finished writing, to be considered for inclusion.

Despite my best efforts during the design phase, there is always one or two new ideas which manage to justify making significant changes to the finished manuscript. But only the best of the new ideas cause such changes, and those changes, being surgically made to an otherwise finished work, are much easier and are completed much quicker than they would be if they were allowed to disturb the first draft process.

Keep Writing!

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