Fiction Writing Made Easy with Savannah Gilbo | How to Write a Novel & Writing Advice

Afleveringen

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  #259. How to Finish a Novel With Kids at Home & Limited Writing Time 04.08.2026 25min

  Struggling to make forward progress in your novel? This free guide will help you identify what's really slowing you down and find a clearer path forward. Click here to grab yours for free! FREE QUIZ: Take this 30-second quiz to get a custom action plan that'll help you move from stuck writer to published author! Support the show
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  #258. 5 Myths Keeping You From Finishing Your First Draft 28.07.2026 23min

  If you keep working on your novel but never seem to get closer to “The End,” these five novel writing myths may explain why—and show you what to do differently. If you've been working on the same novel for months (or years), you've probably wondered why you still can't seem to finish it. Maybe you've blamed your schedule, your motivation, or your talent. Or maybe you've started to wonder if you're just not cut out for this. But what if the real reason you're stuck is none of those things? In ...
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  #257. Stuck in Chapter One or the Messy Middle? What Your Stuck Point Reveals 21.07.2026 17min

  Stuck writing your novel? Wherever your draft stalls out—chapter one, 20,000 words, the messy middle—that spot isn't random. It's a clue that tells you exactly what your story is missing. Almost every writer who gets stuck while drafting a novel assumes the same thing: that hitting a wall means something about them. That they're not disciplined enough, they're not a "real" writer, or they simply don't have what it takes to finish a book. But getting stuck isn't a verdict on you as a writer. I...
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  #256. Why “Just Start Writing” Can Be Terrible Advice for New Writers 14.07.2026 16min

  Everyone tells you to just start writing. Nobody tells you when. And if you keep starting your novel and stalling out a few chapters in, that missing piece might be exactly why. “Just start writing” is one of the most common pieces of writing advice out there, and for some writers, it's exactly what they need to hear. But if you're a brand-new writer who's still figuring out your story, following this advice too soon can leave you stuck, overwhelmed, and wondering why your first draft keeps f...
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  #255. Student Spotlight: How Grace Draven Learned to Write Faster (Without Sacrificing Quality) 07.07.2026 41min

  Can a lifelong discovery writer write faster and embrace structure without losing the magic? Bestselling author Grace Draven wrote 62,000 words in 21 days and says absolutely. In this episode, Grace shares how the tools and mindset shifts she picked up from The Fiction Writing Made Easy podcast helped her write faster, avoid massive rewrites, and finish one of her strongest books, The Moon Raven—drafting 62,000 words in just 21 days to hit a tight preorder deadline—and why that experience con...
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  #254. How to Outline Your Novel With the Hero’s Journey 30.06.2026 26min

  Learn how to outline your novel using the Hero’s Journey—without mistaking this classic framework for a complete story blueprint. The Hero’s Journey is one of the most widely recognized story frameworks out there. But knowing the twelve stages—like the Ordinary World, the Call to Adventure, the Ordeal, and the Return with the Elixir—isn’t the same as knowing where those stages belong in a full-length novel. In this episode, I’m walking you through how to outline your novel with the Hero’s Jou...
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  #253. 5 Common Mistakes That Make Your Character Feel Flat 23.06.2026 25min

  If your protagonist feels vivid in your head but flat on the page, this episode will help you diagnose what’s missing—and fix the specific piece of character development that will make readers care. You know your main character. Their backstory, their childhood, the exact way they take their coffee. You could talk about them for an hour. So why do they still feel flat on the page? When this happens, most writers assume they need to know more—a deeper backstory, more personality details, anoth...
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  #252. Value Shifts: How to Tell if a Scene Is Working (or Falling Flat) 16.06.2026 24min

  If you’ve got a scene that feels flat and you can’t figure out why, this episode will help you diagnose what’s really going on—so you know whether the scene is working, needs strengthening, or may not belong in your story at all. You know that feeling when a scene just isn’t quite working, but you can’t put your finger on why? The sentences are clean. The dialogue sounds right. Line by line, it reads fine… and yet the scene just sits there. Here’s the thing: a lot of the time, the problem isn...
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  #251. Student Spotlight: 5 Lessons Learned from Notes to Novel (Season 8) 09.06.2026 35min

  What does it look like to go from feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or unsure about your novel…to finally making real progress? In this episode, I'm sharing five clips from past Notes to Novel students who all came into the program stuck in different ways—overwhelmed by story structure, trapped in research rabbit holes, or sitting on drafts that existed on paper, but still weren't clicking. And underneath it all was the same frustrating feeling: each writer knew they had a story worth telling...
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  #250. Why Your First Draft Doesn't Match the Book in Your Head (with Gala Russ) 02.06.2026 48min

  A book coach who's written 15 novels pulls back the curtain on what's really happening when your messy first draft disappoints you. Ever finished a chapter, read it back, and realized the words on the page don't match the story in your head? There's a name for that. It's called the “taste gap,” and it often shows up among serious, lifelong readers. In this episode, I sit down with book coach and publishing strategist Gala Russ (who's written 15 novels) to talk about the taste gap,...
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  #249. 5 POV Mistakes That Pull Readers Out of Your Story 26.05.2026 32min

  Most fiction writers are making at least one of these point of view mistakes. Find out which one could be hiding in your draft. You know that feeling when a scene isn't quite working, but you can't put your finger on why? Your pacing, dialogue, and structure all seem fine. And yet something is still off. Nine times out of ten, the culprit is POV. In this episode, I'm walking you through the five most common point of view mistakes, what each one looks like on the page, why it pulls readers out...
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  #248. From Meet-Cute to HEA: How to Connect the Key Scenes of Your Romance Novel 19.05.2026 47min

  Learn how to write the lead-up and reaction scenes between your key romance plot points so your story flows naturally from meet-cute to HEA without stalling in the middle. You know what your meet-cute looks like. You know there's a breakup coming. You can already feel the happily ever after. So why does everything in between feel impossible to write? That's exactly what we're digging into today. I'm joined by Kristina Stanley, CEO of Fictionary and author of the brand new Secrets to Wri...
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  #247. 5 Secrets to Writing YA Fiction (That Actually Feels Like YA) 12.05.2026 23min

  Learn the five craft secrets to writing young adult fiction that actually feels like YA—so when you sit down to write your own, you know exactly what to aim for. You know what YA feels like when a book is doing it right. The voice pulls you in. The protagonist's world feels enormous and immediate. You finish the book before you remember to put it down. The hard part is being able to do that yourself—on the page, on purpose. In this episode, I'm walking you through the five secrets that make Y...
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  #246. Story Mapping: How to Map Your Novel With Sticky Notes (With Danyel Nicole) 05.05.2026 22min

  What if getting stuck on your novel has nothing to do with your story and everything to do with HOW you're seeing it? Story mapping coach Danyel Nicole found that out firsthand. When Danyel's first draft started to feel off, she got up from her desk one night, grabbed butcher paper and sticky notes, and mapped out her entire story on the wall in her hallway. Within an hour, she could finally see what was working—and what wasn't. This discovery changed everything about her novel-writing proces...
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  #245. 5 Ways to Show Worldbuilding in Your Novel Without Info-Dumping 28.04.2026 20min

  Master these 5 worldbuilding techniques to immerse readers in your fictional world without infodumping or overwhelming them. If you've ever sat down to write a scene and ended up with three paragraphs of explanation before anything actually happens, you're not alone. Most writers don't info dump because they're bad at worldbuilding—they do it because they love the world they've built and want readers to experience every detail of it. But here's the thing: too much explanation too soon is usua...
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  #244. How to Create Characters Readers Will Love (5 Essential Elements) 21.04.2026 23min

  Readers don't fall in love with likable characters. They fall in love with characters who want something specific, stand to lose something personal, and can't quite get out of their own way. Here's how to build one. Think about the last time you truly fell in love with a fictional character. Not just related to them—but actually stayed up past midnight because you needed to know they'd be okay. And then felt that strange grief when the story ended, because it meant leaving them behind. That k...
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  #243. What to Expect When Working with a Line Editor (With Two Birds Author Services) 14.04.2026 34min

  What does line editing actually involve, and is your manuscript ready for it? Here's everything you need to know. Line editing is a stage in the revision process that can feel really confusing, especially if you're not sure how it's different from developmental editing, copy editing, or proofreading. So in today's episode, I brought in two people who know this topic inside and out. Andrea and Michelle are the managing partners of Two Birds Author Services, and they've been editing fiction tog...
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  #242. 5 Revision Mistakes That Keep Writers Stuck in Editing Hell 07.04.2026 21min

  You finished your first draft. And for a minute, it felt amazing. But then you open your manuscript to revise, and suddenly everything feels unclear. Where do you start? What do you fix first? And how do you know if anything you're changing is actually making your story better? And at a certain point, it starts to feel like the problem might be your draft. But most of the time, it's not. It's the way you're approaching revision. That's why in this episode, I'm walking you through the five mos...
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  #241. Do You Really Need to Hire a Book Editor Before You Query? 31.03.2026 13min

  Discover why the answer to hiring a book editor before querying isn’t a simple yes or no—and how to make the right call for your manuscript. If you've finished your draft and you're thinking about querying literary agents, you've probably seen this advice: don't hire an editor before you query. And while that's not wrong, it's also not the full picture. Because the real issue isn't whether you hire an editor. It's whether you're solving the right problem in your manuscript. In this episode, I...
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  #240. 10 Writing Mistakes That Make Readers Put Down Your Novel 24.03.2026 24min

  Are you revising the same chapters over and over, but nothing you change is actually fixing the problem? Most writers go straight to the prose when their story isn't working. They tighten sentences, swap out words, and reread the same chapter over and over. And still, something feels off. But most first-draft problems don't occur at the sentence level. They occur at the story level. In this episode, I share the 10 writing mistakes I see most often in manuscripts. Plus, I’ll give you the diagn...