The urge to write anything but plot related

Keep all those wanderings! Just keep them in a different file/folder than your story. They help you know and understand your character better and you never know when one of those snippets will come in useful for a story.

If you're talking in terms of a short story, you probably just need to narrow your focus and hone in on more details. Enrich your environment with character interaction with the setting. You anchor them to the setting by placing interesting objects in the scene to keep them there.

If it's a longer story, wander away. Just know that's not the official story.

I like to write with two files. One is scarily organized into chapter 1 act 1 paragraph 1... LOL ok maybe not that bad but it follows my "strict" timeline. My other file is permissible freewriting and it's a complete mess. If I want to find something useful, a lot of times I have to search for keywords to find it.

Also, take comfort in the fact that drawing your simple plot out into a longer story is sometimes easier if there are a few "plot asides." Think of the hero's journey, for example. They have to get lost along the way. It would be a terribly boring story if they just went straight from point A to point B.

And yes, all writers hit that spot. Even the good ones do. My favorite author is David Baldacci. I've heard that when he gets stumped and needs to add 10000 words he will just add in a car chase or something. People are always interested in a good car chase LOL.

Good luck to you! Why don't you try the 200-word forum and get feedback on some small pieces and maybe we can help with keeping your characters anchored.

I actually ran into the opposite question the one time I tried to write a longer form. How much side stuff do we need?

In my case, everything I was writing about was directly related to the plot. It felt like the plot was advancing too quickly or the story was too single-mindedly focused on the plot. But the story is about the plot, after all. And I thought my characters were revealed well enough through their relation to the plot and didn't need separate character-building scenes.

It was partly because of the nature of the plot, partly my usual discomfort with detailing characters' lives — like, who am I as a sheltered and inexperienced person to detail the life histories of more 'normal' characters who are not sheltered and inexperienced like me? — and partly not liking that protagonist, which I've since fixed.