data storage strategies

I have been making a website based on the concept of 'no html' which means everything is stored either as a file or as a db entry accessed through the admin section. there are 2 types of pages - a list page and an normal page. normal pages are basically a unique page, such as 'about', list pages contain lists of items such as a description + name of a story - linked by a hyperlink to a normal page with the story or whatever on it. my problems arise when it comes to storing both large entries and entries with html. I have tried storing them in individual entries in a mysql database, but it seems to fall over after a certain amount - about 3k characters (i think!) - its not that it gives a db invalid entry, but that it doesnt appear to do anything. I also tried storing each one as a text file linked with the name + entry id number stored on the server - again this works fine, but any html gets parsed into html friendly style - such as <a href="default.php"></a> will end up as <a href=\"default.php\"></a> which isnt exactly ideal. has anyone got any pre tried solid methods of editing, storing and presenting large blocks of data? thx.