Separation of long requests for readability / maintainability

I have inherited an Access database that has a query that SELECTs more than 50 columns. Even the MS Access graphical query design tool has too much information to handle IMO.

Quick disclaimer - I have programming experience, but practically no experience with databases.

For this specific task, I need data from 50+ columns. Is there a better way to get this information than one huge query?

I do not understand a little how to do this. The consensus on the Internet seems to be that SQL queries should be relatively small and well-formed. I just don’t see how to apply this principle when you need so many fields. Can I use many simple queries with UNION or INSERT INTO in a temporary table? Any suggestion or RTFM?

EDIT: Additional information about the application. Data spreads over 14 tables. I am collecting data to write it to an external file with 50 + fields per line (think about the CSV version for the spreadsheet).

EDIT: Managing and debugging SQL queries in MS Access seems to contain relevant recommendations.