User blog comment:Rhyveee/Long Pastas/@comment-26475800-20161214171500

Things to watch out for:

Make sure you have enough to fill a long story. Fluff and filler will get a negative response, so keep the story moving. Don't focus on what everyone is wearing just to get the word count up. It will cause people to lose interest in the story and readers will leave it.

That kind of leads into the next one, let the story write itself. If you're goal is to write a long story, it won't work well. You'll be adding fluff and filler. Tell the story as it unfolds and you should be good. Sometimes stories seem like a great idea and seem like you can turn it into a novel, but then you realize it's not really enough to fill that much space. Other times you may want to write a short, but it ends up being a novel.

Develop your characters. For a longer story you have to have people that are believable. Also, you'll want to get the world built up. No fun in having a long story when you have no idea what the area is like.

Keep the pacing fluid. Let the story roll smoothly when it needs to. Speed up through slower parts, slow down for tension or you can swap those. It's good to play around with them and make the reader get invested at the right moments.