: Re: Why can't I write something longer than a few pages? I write short stories, a lot of short-shorts. I would say the longest thing I've actually finished writing is "Lord of Snakes", which was

@YK4692630

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Aim for an ambitious plan, something that simply won't fit in several pages.

Methods to get there?

Multiple conflicts. Your protagonist faces simultaneously at least three different foes, who choose to stay in the shadows and act completely independently and for different reasons. Add a slice-of-life style struggle, a non-trivial romantic thread, and at least two red herrings (subplots that appear important only to be revealed to be trivial at the end). I guarantee something like this will be fairly long.
Try a nesting exercise story. Nesting is when a character inside the story tells another story. And then characters of that story in turn tell their stories. Try to get at least 3-4 nesting levels deep with at least 2 sub-stories on each nesting level. Read "Tale of the three storytelling machines of King Genius" from The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem for an example of that.
A road story. Someone travels from one end of the country to another and things happen along the way; they leave impact and influence later events but generally the road is at least a month long and not a single day goes without some trouble. Example: Damnation Alley.
A diary style story. A year out of life of X, each day detailed. See "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾" for an example of that.

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