Young Writers Society

i've got this bad habit of coming up with an idea for a story, getting super excited about it and writing the first chapter, then immediately and completely losing interest in writing that story. like, i've got the whole story figured out in my head, but i only get five hundred words in before another idea comes along and i want to write that story instead. i've started writing five short stories altogether, and i've only finished one.

it's as though if i can't tell the story completely in one sitting, it probably won't get written. is there a technique to overcome this short attention span, or is it just a personal quirk i have to work through?

Welcome to the life of a writer, horrendous. (tl;dr at the bottom)
That's a typical ADD behavior some (quite a few, actually) writers experience. Most experience it at least one point in their writing career. The term a friend and I came up with was "Shiny Syndrome": each new story looks better than the previous, so you work on that one...but then you get a new one, and another, and another.
I'm not sure it's something you can overcome, or should even consider a negative.
What it needs is a little self-control and prioritization.
If you have an entire story mapped out in your head and you fear you'll just move on from it and forget what happens, then outline the plot. Little things like "Hero gets caught in Ice Swamp but gets rescued by honey badger" and then any transitions you feel are important will help you map all the ideas pouring into your head. It will also preserve them while they're still fresh. I know it feels like they're so good you'd never forget the overarching structure, and maybe even some of those particularly small details that are especially vivid, but believe me, the more time you put between the concept and the time you actually return to the story, things will go out into the blue yonder, never to be remembered again. And the story will shift a bit. You'll remember something out of order, or find something's changed.
Mapping the story will help you not only preserve what you've already got, but also bring elements that need to be corrected, or areas that need to be supplemented, to light. You'll find you really don't know how Hero gets from a to b, or what they need to get out of x situation, and then you can either fill in the details or leave a blank for future reference.

I highly recommend preserving at least some of the idea for future reference, even if you end up deciding to move on in the next day or two. At some point, you'll get that nostalgic urge to dredge up some of your old ideas, and then you'll get that drive to see it through to the end. It's better to have some notes than no notes at all and trying to recreate the inspiration of an earlier day.

Prioritization will help you figure out what you really want to get done, and what is just a passing fad. Keep a mental, or even written, list of stories you've got that you want to write, and how badly you want to write each of them. The ones that pass are ones you may never write, but will brew in the back of your mind. You'll find that certain elements of older ideas will resurface in your new ones, and eventually you'll stumble across that perfect blend of all the common denominators that embodies exactly what you've been trying to express.
That list will also help keep you focused on actually sticking with a story. The longer you dangle the writing candy in front of your mental eye, the more you'll want to write it and see it through to its completion. And having a #1 story you want to write will give you a mental marker for which story to work on when you get the urge to write but no new inspiration assaulting you.

Biggest piece of advice: pick a story that you really want to write and stick with it, no matter how hard it gets. Trying to write multiple stories at once won't get you anywhere near as far as focusing on one and plowing through it. That's why the list is so important.
However, the list typically is a result of trying to stick with a story. You'll find that you really don't want to put the work into one story, move on to the next, and then decide how much more you want to write the new story than the old.
But at some point you absolutely have to pick a story to work on. If you can't decide which one to work on consistently, then just pick one and stick with it. Even if it turns out not to be the one you really want to work on, writing it to its end will teach you the discipline you need to finish out a story.

tl;dr
That's completely normal.
Pick one story and write about a chapter a day, or for an hour or so. Even if you find that you don't want to write the story anymore, forcing yourself to write will teach you the discipline needed to finish out a story.
Write down a basic sketch or outline of all the new ideas so you don't forget them.

thanks for the excellent post.

i attempted to do the list thing on my previous story. i had the entire plot outlined and every major character's info sheet done. but after i wrote the first chapter, the same thing that always happens happened.

you see, i write in bursts. i'll write for three days, several hours each day, then quit for a week. pick it up again for a week, drop it for two weeks. the problem is, in between my writing bursts the idea i had on the last one loses its urgency, and by the time i get back into the mood, it's passe to me.

i think i just need to write more. like you said, an hour a day would be good. if i just do that, the idea won't have a chance to go stale.

I wish I had something constructive to add but Dragon has pretty much nailed it.

Word sprints are nice. If you haven't tried it, it's where you sit down for a short period of time and write as much as you can. You're not allowed to think, just write. I find this helps because you have to focus so much you can't afford to get bored- and if you do, it's only a few more minutes until you finish anyway.

Food is nice, too. One potato chip for finishing a sentence. A gummy bear for a paragraph. A donut for a chapter.

You could also try a button jar. The idea is you come up with a target. Let's say you get $10 allowance per week. Then you have a button jar, and for every chapter you write you put a button in the jar, and at the end of the week the number of buttons in the jar is how many dollars you get to spend. The rest that's left unclaimed at the end of the week get's put in a bank and you have to earn it back at a button per three pages.

Writers who wait for inspiration never get anywhere. You have to make inspiration if you want to keep going. This is why the idea of writing every day or writing on some sort of consistent basis comes from: by writing away from inspiration, you force yourself to actually get the discipline to make headway on your projects.

What I do is force shiny syndrome to keep going forward. One thing's interesting, so I keep coming up with new interesting things going in the story. Then I'm constantly excited about it and constantly wanting to move forward, simply because there's always stuff going on that I want to write.