: 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

@Gloria285

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I'm dealing with the same problem. Short stories would write themselves like you said. But anymore ambitious dies at around page 11. I tried planning, but that seems to dry up the creative juices even quicker leading to a bunch of notes I'm not able to manage or a scene by scene outline I don't have any motivation to expand.

I think I found a solution to this: you need to keep up the momentum of writing a short story, but paint with broader strokes.
Start by taking notes (bullet points or whole sentences). Write anything down that comes to mind about your story idea. Things that could happen. Characters. Places. It hasn't to be perfect. Don't do any detailed description, dialogs other wordy stuff. If things aren't clear in your mind write down the question that's bothering you. The story will flow naturally from your idea. You will have a couple of pages with a rough, but complete sketch of your story. It isn't final or set in stone.

Then take the notes and bring in your planning method of choice. Chop the sentences up into scenes. Start detailing characters. Write a clean outline. Refer back to the notes when you get stuck.

You basically wanna expand on this rough sketch turning it into a whole book.

Keep in mind that your outline will (need to) change, while you do the actual writing. Run with it.

On writers block:
Writers block seems to happen when something is wrong with your story. Take a step back and try to figure out the issues with your story and how to fix them. Try to write notes to identify and fix the issues.

I've taken these two ideas (notes and dealing with writers block) from Richard Laymons A Writers Tale. It isn't the best book about writing, but I tried the notes taking he mentions and ended up with a complete outline in a couple of hours. Writing with a outline is a breeze. Well until I hit road (writers) block ;-)

Hope that helps. Good luck!

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