I’ve done brainstorming exercises for generating ideas for writing. Now the problem is that my list is so long, I can’t choose which idea on it to write next. I researched what other writers do, and the only one I found useful was the “Red Dress Theory:” only write the ideas that stand out from the others on the list as much as a woman in a red dress stands out in a crowd of women in black dresses. How do you all solve this problem?
I follow the idea that has the most meat to it. Generally, i have a ton of ideas. I jot them down. If it goes beyond just jotting them down (lets say i write down the premise... but then i also have a character in mind. and now i have that characters description. and NOW i have a possible scene of that character in a situation that may or may not contribute to the plot i just jotted down, etc.). It may just be a list of bullet point under that idea or paragraphs. either way, that idea is looking a bit heftier than the others. so thats the one i will focus on. If i have various ideas with "heft," I will pick the one i am most inspired by at that moment and jump around. usually after jumping around, i ended up on 2 or 3 ideas that have evolved into projects and have substantial wordcounts attached to them and those will be the ones i focus my efforts on
Maybe choose a few that you like and start doing some basic development on them. I mean just the first stages, and see if any of them grab you more than others.You could keep doing that, each time choosing one that stands out, until there's only one contender.
