How can I get myself to finish a story?

Create a long time line from start to finish. It's okay if some of the parts are a little rough around the edges. Figure out which parts you have already written and which parts you haven't. Usually the parts you haven't written are "bridge" segments, as I like to call them, and tend to be the tedious, not action filled parts of the story.

For the stories that end randomly in the middle, figure out why you stopped. Do you have an ending in mind? Write the ending, then work your way from both ends to build a bridge from the middle to the end.

Aside from drawing out a story map, sort your word documents (or what ever.....[I generally write each 'scene' in a different word document first, but that's just me] ) into a chronological list of how your story will go. Read them all 'in order' and figure out which scenes you need to write to make each existing segment flow together naturally.

Lastly, copy and paste everything into one, huge document, read it, fill in the gaps, hit save, print it, read the hard copy, party because you might possibly be done, go to sleep.

hope this helped!

best of luck :D

Have you tried getting yourself motivated by planning a story from start to end?

I did this with a story which didn't seem to go anywhere.

You just write a brief summary of what you want to happen in each chapter. This will include characters who are introduced and what goes on. This will help you see how far your story can go, help you weed out those boring/filler chapters, and help you see which characters could be deleted altogether. It is great for getting yourself motivated. You get involved with you story more when you plan, and it might make you more "excited" to write it.

Good luck.

Try thinking about each chapter as its own story. If that doesnt help, attack the chapters that interest you the most and start writing them. Fill in the spaces and when your down, edit any discrepancies and make it one complete story.

i am exactly the same and it is so annoying! I have been doing a lot of thinking about how to fix this and i believe (for me) I don't finish them because either i don't know enough about what i decide to write about so i don't have enough content or i don't have a clear plot in my head when i start so when i write i don't know how to progress the story and i usually ramble then give up. so my solution is to plan the plot before you start and understand your character journey before you start. hope this helps :)