hi beloved anon i'm sorry it took me like over a day to answer this but i haven't been at my pc and i wanted to give as helpful(?) an answer as i possibly could lol, firstly thank you sosososo much for reading i am so glad you liked it <33 as you can probably tell i also struggle with longform writing but in the sense that i can't ever SHUT THE FUCK UP. so honestly i think my default when it comes to creating anything is that it's always gonna be kinda long, so it's more sort of natural for me to write longform. which means it's kinda difficult to offer tips, HOWEVER. i will say some of my longest fics have been born from literally one singular scene, like king nothing only came about because i wanted retired rockstar chan to take to the stage again for the first time in decades, so that was like, my seed and then i let as many roots spring from that seed as possible. not all of those roots were useful, not all of them relevant to the story, not all of them were included. but it DID help his character, and therefore his character arc, grow in my head. you know what i mean? so it can be quite a fun exercise to like, go ALL the way back, give your characters fully fleshed out back stories, and experiences, and motivations, and that will then naturally influence how they go about things in the present day where we are with them. it also really, really helps yapping with your friends about these kind of things, no matter how granular they are. obviously this might not help everyone, but having those fully fleshed out experiences and back stories really really helps your characters feel real in the story you're trying to tell, and that then opens up so many avenues to where your story could go. it's always better to have more ideas and scenes in your head than less, because then you can edit. in this vein, do not stop yourself from writing the scenes you wanna write. like ch3 of king nothing didn't have to start with however many thousands of words describing a metallica concert, the story itself didn't actually NEED it, but i really really wanted to write it. idfk i'm rambling now but the upshot is WRITE WHATEVER YOU WANT and don't think about the rules of it, or ah it's not useful to the plot, or ah it's just gonna drag it out, if there's a scene, or an interaction, or a memory that you wanna write about, then absolutely write it. this is absolutely no help at all i'm so sorry lmfao I WISH YOU LUCK AND PROSPERITY IN ALL YOUR WRITING ENDEAVOURS, I BELIEVE IN YOU!!! <3