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

You’ve finished the first draft of your thriller, and it has plenty of action. But when you read it back, it’s not as gripping as you’d hoped, and it’s hard to say why. Usually, the problem isn’t a lack of danger or objectively high stakes. It’s often a mistake (or two) that drains the suspense, and those are really hard to spot from inside your own draft.

In this episode, I’m going to walk you through the five most common thriller mistakes I’ve seen in first drafts, why each one weakens susp...

How do you fix a plot hole in your novel? What if your beta readers figure out your big plot twist too early? And how are you supposed to find time to write when life keeps getting in the way?

In today's episode, I'm doing something a little different! Five listeners sent in questions about challenges they're facing with their novels, and I'm answering each one as if we were working together in a coaching session.

Here's what we cover:

[02:07] How to fix plot holes in your novel by...

If you’ve stepped away from your novel for a few weeks, or even a few months, getting back into writing can feel a lot harder than it should.

Maybe you open your draft, scroll through a few pages, and wonder where you were even going with the story. Maybe you feel like you need to reread your entire manuscript before you can write a single new word. Or maybe you keep doing the math on all the writing time you missed, and now you feel pressured to catch up.

Here’s what I wa...

Learn what makes cozy fiction work—and how to balance warmth, tension, character growth, and community to create the hopeful reading experience cozy readers expect.

You know the feeling a cozy book gives you—warm, safe, like a world you don't want to leave. But when you sit down to write one, "just make it cozy" can be maddeningly hard to pin down. Is it the setting? The pacing? The lower stakes?

In this episode, I'm breaking down the 10 characteristics of cozy fiction and how each one contributes to the reader's experience—because cozy i...

What are the most common first-draft mistakes writers make—and which ones actually need your attention while you’re drafting?

In this episode, I’m joined by Jessica Brody, author of Save the Cat! Writes a Novel and Page One to Done, to compare the mistakes we see writers make when writing a first draft. The fun part? We each brought our own list and didn’t compare notes before hitting record.

From underdeveloped antagonists and vague character goals to revision spirals and focusing on chapters too early, we’re breaking down what can make a...

Your first chapter needs to hook the reader—but that doesn’t mean you need a huge plot twist, dramatic action, or a flashy meet-cute on page one.

The first chapter of Emily Henry’s Book Lovers is mostly two sisters walking through New York and talking. There’s plenty of banter, interiority, description, and backstory—but the big plot development doesn’t arrive until fairly late in the chapter.

So how does Emily Henry make an opening chapter like this feel so engaging and full of momentum—and what can writers learn from the scene...

If you’ve read the craft books, listened to hundreds of podcast episodes, and studied all kinds of writing advice—but still sit down at your desk wondering, okay, what am I actually supposed to work on today?—this episode is for you.

Because at some point, learning more about writing stops being the missing piece. You need a process that helps you figure out what your specific story needs, what to work on next, and how all the pieces fit together.

In this bonus episode, you’ll hear from thr...

If you're writing an enemies to lovers romance, getting your characters from “I can't stand you” to “I love you” takes more than chemistry. Here’s how to write enemies to lovers in a way that makes that turn feel convincing.

The enemies to lovers trope is popular for a reason. The tension, banter, forced proximity, and slow shift from conflict to attraction can make for an incredibly satisfying romance. 

But it's harder to pull off than it looks, because readers have to believe two things at once: that these two characters genuinely are enemies...

If you’re using the Save the Cat! beat sheet to outline your novel but your story still feels flat, disconnected, or hard to draft, one of these five common mistakes may be the reason why.

The Save the Cat! beat sheet is a popular story structure framework because it gives fiction writers fifteen clear landmarks to plot toward. But filling in all fifteen beats doesn’t automatically give you a story that works.

In this episode, I’m breaking down five mistakes writers make when using the Save the Cat! beat sheet—and what...

After stalling out on a draft she'd already outlined chapter by chapter, Lindsay Sfara discovered the story development work that has to come before an outline—and turned that stuck manuscript into a published debut novel.

Today I'm chatting with Lindsay Sfara, superhero fantasy author of Aero Knights: Origins and a Notes to Novel graduate, about how developing her story before outlining it finally helped her finish the book she'd been trying to write for years.

In this episode, you'll hear us talk about things like:

You don't need a perfect writing schedule (or a quiet house) to finish your novel. Here are five ways to keep making real progress on your book with kids at home and barely any free time.

If you've been telling yourself you'll write the book "when things settle down," I've got some news: when you're raising kids, things rarely settle down on command. 

And if finishing your novel depends on reaching a season when no one needs you, it could stay unwritten for years. The good news is you don't actually need more t...

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 this episod...

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. In fact, it's valuable information you can use...

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 falling apart.

In this episode, I'm breaking down why...

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 convinced her to join Notes to Novel. 

After publishing more than 20 books and hitting the USA T...

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 Journey framework, including how to divide your word...

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, another character questionnaire. So they add more. Or the...

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...

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; they just couldn't figure out how to get it out of th...

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, what a first draft is supposed to look like, and wh...

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...

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 Writing Romance, for a masterclass on the lead-up and reaction s...

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...

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 process. And now she helps other writers do...

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 usually what breaks immersion, not what protects it.

In this ep...

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 kind of love doesn't come from li...

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...

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 most...