On one hand, it can be really overwhelming to absorb so much information, and sometimes it's even harder to know what to do, when or in which order to do things but also because everyone's process or method is different, right? So sometimes the more content you consume, the harder it is to parse through everything, and what ends up happening to a lot of writers is that they start comparing all the different methods to each other. Welcome to the Fiction Writing Made Easy podcast. My name is Savannah Gilbo and I'm here to help you write a story that works. I want to prove to you that writing a novel doesn't have to be overwhelming, so each week, I'll bring you a brand new episode with simple, actionable and step-by-step strategies that you can implement in your writing right away. So whether you're brand new to writing or more of a seasoned author looking to improve your craft, this podcast is for you. So pick up a pen and let's get started.

In today's episode, we're going behind the scenes of five writers' journeys to see what it was like for them as they brainstormed, outlined and wrote their first draft inside the Notes to Novel course. I reached out to some of my Notes to Novel Season 5 students and I asked them to share the number one thing they learned about writing a first draft while actually working on their first draft. So in this episode, you're going to hear from real writers who are in the trenches actively working on their novels, and in many cases, these writers have finished an entire outline or they've written to the end of their first drafts. So I think it will be very fun for you to hear how they did it, plus some of their biggest takeaways from their experience and how the Notes to Novel course helped them get to the end. So, without further ado, let's dive right into the first tip from Katherine Varley.

Hi, I'm Katherine Varley. I write speculative fiction that explores what it means to be human in technologically advanced worlds. My stories are inspired by societal issues and scientific progress Think Black Mirror for optimists. Before I get into my big light bulb moments, I need to explain my writing process. I'm a discovery writer through and through. I have wasted years attempting to be a plotter or someone who outlines before I write. It just isn't how my brain works. I need to build the story as I write it, and I'm sharing that because I feel my experience with notes to novel will differ from others who can see their story before writing it, and I want to offer some insight to those like me who might wonder how a course like notes to novel could help them. I'm a quick drafter. I can write a zero draft in three weeks without a problem. What I can't do is edit that zero draft into what I call my functional first draft that has no story level issues or plot holes.

I signed up for Nosta Novel specifically for help at the story level editing stage. Spoiler, the course did help me with editing, but it wasn't in the way I thought it would be. Before Nosta Novel, I gave up on seven manuscripts, all in the developmental editing stage. I would sprint to the end of my zero draft and then stall out while editing. But after going through the course, I made one change to my drafting process. It isn't exciting, but it was oh so effective for me. I checked in with my scenes.

Savannah urged us to write a few scenes and then go back and check our outlines to see what needed to be tweaked. Because I didn't have an outline already, I had to create one. As I wrote, I printed off the flexible outline worksheet that she provided and after every writing session I would write two to three sentences about the scenes I had just drafted One sentence about the external plot and one to two sentences about the internal arc of change. If you were like me and don't write chronologically, don't worry, scenes tend to move around in editing. Just put the scene where you feel it might belong and keep moving forward.

After filling in my outline worksheet for the day, I would ask myself a couple questions. Were my scenes moving the plot forward while providing an internal arc of change through the classic goal motivation and conflict? And was it a key scene or leading to one? And was it a key scene or leading to one. I would also check my genre cheat sheets, also provided by Savannah, to keep it clear in my mind what readers were expecting of my story. I didn't write down the answers to these questions, I just thought about them. If I felt that the scene wasn't doing what I wanted it to do, I made a color-coded note at the start of the scene of what I would improve and then moved on. But because I was considering these questions daily, they began to subconsciously change how I wrote.

My drafting speech slowed to what felt like a crawl and while I was frustrated that it was taking longer, I knew personally and through feedback from critique partners that the story I was writing was much stronger than it would have been otherwise.

My scenes deepened and my characters became more vivid, all while the story remained complex without becoming confusing. By slowing down to check in with my scenes and the outline I was creating, to check in with my scenes and the outline I was creating, I ended up with the cleanest zero draft I've ever written Not only the cleanest, but the longest. I'm an underwriter, so this was a big win for me. Instead of three weeks to draft 50,000 words, it took me three months to draft 72,000. Instead of one year to edit those 50,000 words and then abandoning it out of frustration, it took me only two months to do a developmental edit on the 72,000 words. For anyone who likes math, this means I went from around 2,300 words per daily writing session to 800. I eliminated nine months of painful developmental edits, while also writing less each day. I slowed down to speed up and, for someone who loves efficiency, that was my biggest and happiest aha moment of the entire course aha moment of the entire course.

I feel like Catherine just spoke to my soul when she said that she's a fan of efficiency because I am too. But how cool is what she said about having to slow down to speed up later. I find this to be so true, regardless of whether you're a planner or a pantser or maybe you fall somewhere in the middle of that spectrum Because more often than not, slowing down and spending time on those foundational elements of your story like plot, character, theme etc. And then kind of mapping out how all of those foundational elements play together and affect each other it can save you so much time later on. Just like Catherine said, she went from writing about 50,000 words in three weeks that didn't necessarily work from a big picture standpoint to writing 72,000 words over three months. And then not only did she actually go through and edit that draft, which is something she had never done before she edited those 72,000 words in just two months, which is a major improvement, right. So I just love that Catherine shared this as her biggest aha or takeaway from the course, because I think this is what so many writers want we're willing to put in the work, but we want to see results from our work too. So we want to stop gathering drafts on our hard drives that never see the light of day, right. So, yeah, very cool. Very well said, catherine.

I also love hearing how pantsers approach different things like outlining and keeping in mind plot structure and things like that, because the thing is, no matter where you fall on that plotter-pantser spectrum, you do have to pay attention to that stuff at some point. Plotters do it up front, pansers typically do it after the draft is written. But I love what Catherine said about kind of keeping the different principles or you know, the key scenes of her genre in mind as she wrote. So she didn't let the structure or the frameworks stifle her creativity. Instead, she used it to keep herself on track and look at the results she got. So, again, very cool, and I'm so thankful to Catherine for sharing her experience with us. If you want to get in touch with Catherine or follow along on her writing journey, I will post the link to her website and social media in the show notes Next up. You're going to hear from Kea Priya, so let's dive into her clip and see what she said about outlining and writing her first draft.

Hi, I'm Kea Priya. I live in New Jersey and I'm currently working on a buddy love worldview story. One of my key takeaways from the Notes to Novels course was the six key scenes for each genre. These are the scenes that readers of a particular genre expect to see when they pick up your book. Without these scenes, your story can leave the reader feeling unsatisfied and experience. No writer wants so. For example, in a love story, the lovers must meet, fall in love, break up or have a major obstacle stand in the way of their relationship and then have a happy ending. This is what readers of love stories want. It's why they read love stories to experience falling in love and to see love conquer all. And in some way I think I already knew this, that there were certain expectations that readers have, but for some reason the six key scenes laid it out in a way that made everything so clear that everything all of a sudden clicked into place and I knew where I was going in my story. And the great thing about the six scenes is they provide a framework for you to hang your story on. They provide structural support for you to build your story from in whatever way you want to do it.

Before I learned about the six key scenes, I was struggling to make progress with my story's outline. I was getting to the middle of the story, and then I would come up with a thousand and one different ways for the story to move forward. But I had no real way of deciding which path my story should take, and so I just kept wandering around thinking, oh, what if this happened? Or oh, what if that happened? Or, or what if we went here? Or what if she said this? But with the six key scenes, I have these guideposts to walk towards, and that helped me sort through the thousand and one different ways my story could unfold. All I had to do was ask if a particular idea helped me move closer to the next guidepost, and if it did not, then it might be perfect for another story, but it did not belong in this story.

And some people may find this a little limiting, but I find it incredibly freeing because I can be as creative as I want, getting between the different guideposts, and since I have a framework to work with, it just makes it so much easier to get the words down on paper, whether it's in an outline or the eventual draft, and since incorporating the six key scenes into my outline, I've been able to make so much progress. I know where I'm going and that has made getting there fun again. I know I can finish my outline and that my initial draft, and then I'm really looking forward to applying the other tools I learned in notes to novels as I revise and refine my draft. I can't thank Savannah enough for all of her help. Because of the six key scenes, I'm no longer wandering around aimlessly, feeling frustrated and stuck. I'm well on my way to getting my story down on paper in a way that works.

I love doing these type of episodes because we just heard from Catherine, who is more of a pantser and kind of kept those key scenes in mind as she wrote her draft. And then we heard from Catherine, who is more of a pantser and kind of kept those key scenes in mind as she wrote her draft. And then we heard from Kay, who used them more as guideposts to flesh out her outline and write her first draft. I think it's really fascinating to hear how different writers use different tools to get the job done, and I think this is important for all of us to hear right. It just proves that there's no one right way to do things and that the tools and frameworks are there to help you accomplish your goals, no matter how or when you decide to use them, and different writers gravitate towards different tools as well. So for Catherine, who we heard from a minute ago, she talked about adding in a new layer to her thought process while writing. So she wrote down a short summary at the end of each scene she had written and then asked herself does this contribute to the bigger story or do I need to make a note and change something later? So for Catherine, just that one new way of looking at her story helped her a lot. And then for Kay, it's like she said she intuitively knew how a love story was supposed to unfold.

But then, once you get in the weeds of your idea and start outlining and writing, it's kind of like we all get amnesia about those things that we intuitively know. Right, it happens to me too. Believe it or not, I think it's just super hard for our brains to hold on to two different ways of thinking at one time. So if you relate to this, you're definitely not alone. But yeah, I really love doing these type of episodes because I love a good look behind the scenes at how other people do things. So, kay, thank you so much for sharing your experience with us. For everyone listening, I'm going to put the link to Kay's website and social media in the show notes if you want to say hello or follow along with her journey. Next up we're going to hear from Danielle Nicole, so let's dive into her clip and see what she said about outlining and writing her first draft in the Notes to Novel course.

Hi there, I'm Danielle Nicole and I'm in the first year of my novel writing journey. A year ago I put action to my dream of writing a fiction novel and started the process of outlining it. I love reading commercial fiction novels in the worldview, thriller and romance genres, so I'm pretty sure that's where my book will sit when it's done. The very first idea for my book was to create a story with. The very first idea for my book was to create a story with a female character that other women could relate to and have a few laughs with, because they see some of their own anxieties or insecurities in my main character as well. The stories morph quite a bit, but making sure others can relate to my character with her insecurities and her mother's intuition is important to me. Early in the process I started plotting out my scenes on a wall in my house with butcher paper, post-it notes, markers in every color. For my day job I facilitate design thinking workshops and do experience journey mapping, so naturally I went to the wall and post-its to figure out my story. But then I soon found out that there was a lot to be learned between plotting out my story and sitting down to write it. So I started reading books and following podcasts like Savannah's to learn about story structure and I became hooked Like really really hooked on learning how to craft a story that will resonate with readers, on learning how to craft a story that will resonate with readers. I took Savannah's Notes to Novel course because I love how she breaks down story structure in a way that just totally makes sense, and having access to her thoughts and feedback in the class on any questions and inquiries about our own stories is amazing. It was also great being in a class with other writers who were at different parts of their own writing journeys. I'm all about connecting with other writers so we can cheer each other on and learn from each other.

From the very beginning, I always saw my book being written with two very strong points of view One as my main character and her journey to find her college-age daughter who's missing, and the second as the daughter who is actually missing. That's how I came up with the concept of the story and what excited me about writing it. But it wasn't until I went through Savannah's course on story point of view that I realized I wasn't approaching point of view in the best way. I'd say. My biggest aha moment was when I asked Savannah how to balance the two points of view throughout the story and she came up with some feedback that blew my mind Like I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Savannah suggested I consider writing with just one point of view and from the protagonist's viewpoint, to help leave the readers more mystery around what's happening to the daughter, like if she'll be found or if something terrible has happened. And after considering that approach I realized that would actually solve a lot of the issues I was coming up against in my writing and it got me excited to be able to lean into my main character's journey more to find her daughter, and hopefully that will keep readers wanting to keep turning the pages to find out what happens at the end. So this suggestion from Savannah rocked my world for a little bit, all in a good way, and I had to literally go back to the drawing board, but it really helped open up other threads of interactions between my key characters and it got me super excited to get back to writing scenes. When I look back, it was necessary for me to think about the two different points of view to help build out what the missing daughter is going through, what she's thinking, so that I could visualize what's actually happening to her.

But that didn't mean I needed to write the story from both points of view. I have a plan to reveal those details that I've already written about later in the story and that gets me so excited to get to the finish line. If Savannah hadn't lightly suggested I reconsider my point of view structure, I probably would have kept going down the path of two points of view and my story would have probably fallen off the rails or definitely would have been more complicated than it needed to be. A great piece of advice Savannah provided on point of view is that it's harder for readers to establish a deep emotional connection when there's multiple point of view characters that have less page time, versus if you were focusing more on them throughout the story. So that advice, that change in how I was structuring my point of view across the story, really set me in the right direction and for that I'm so thankful to Savannah and her Notes to Novel class.

I love that Danielle chose to share this detail about changing her point of view plans, because I remember this exact Q&A call and I remember thinking, oh my gosh, danielle is not going to like what I have to say. She is not going to want to eliminate one of her points of view, but of course she was so lovely and open to feedback and we talked through her options, which ultimately led her to focus on one point of view character. And what's really cool about these Q&A calls is it's not just about getting my feedback. I remember, in this particular situation, we opened up the question to the other writers in the group who were on that live call and we got their opinions on what kind of story they'd be most interested to read as well. So either one with a single point of view or one with dual point of view, like Danielle had originally planned, and it's not like Danielle had to take my advice or what the other writers said as kind of like our word is law or anything.

I'm a really big advocate that whoever's writing the story gets to make the decisions. And just because I'm an editor and a book coach, that doesn't mean you have to agree with me or take every single piece of my advice, but it's always super helpful to hear different opinions, whether that be my opinion or the opinions of other students in the course. This is actually one of my favorite things about running the Notes to Novel program live, because we get that kind of real-time feedback and interaction from other writers and readers as well. So anyway, danielle, I'm so glad you shared this takeaway and if anybody wants to follow along with Danielle's writing journey, I will link to her website and social media and stuff like that. In the show notes Next up we're going to hear from Harlow Black, so let's go ahead and dive into their clip and hear about their experience inside the Notes to Novel course novel course.

Hi, I'm Harlow Black and I use they, them and she her pronouns. I love to read queer, romantic fantasy novels and, more recently, I like to write them too. I really debated if I should sign up for Notes to Novel and I hesitated because I was already such a fan of Savannah's work that I had listened to almost every podcast episode. I had read her book and I had even bought some of her one-off trainings. Savannah puts out so much content for free and I wasn't sure if there would be enough new content in Notes to Novel for it to be worth it for a Savannah superfan like me. However, I was struggling with overwhelm Basically every time I sat down to write my novel, and I really wanted some structure. My brain does well when I have a framework to follow, especially when I'm doing something new, like writing my first full-length book. So I signed up, and I am very glad I did.

This course delivered the structure and frameworks that I was wanting, plus so much more that I didn't even know that I needed. I learned what I really had were the seeds of a story, but I needed more content. I needed more subplots. I needed more characters to actually fill out a full-length novel, and then I learned how to create these things.

One of the parts of Notes to Novel that was most helpful for me was getting the genre cheat sheets. So these cheat sheets tell you exactly which key scenes you need to include in your book, based on your external and internal genres, and they give examples of how other successful books have implemented these key scenes. These were a total game changer for me. Instead of looking at a blank outline and knowing that I need to fill in 40 scenes but not knowing which ideas to put where, I can now use these key scenes as milestones throughout the outline to help guide me. And seeing how the key scenes move the story along is very helpful for me, and it made my outline more approachable. Instead of having to figure out a sequence of 40 scenes, I just had to figure out which scenes made sense to build up to a key scene and which scenes made sense to follow a key scene, and then I could just repeat that process with all of the key scenes until I had a rough outline.

I am very excited to say that I was able to finish my outline a few weeks after Notes to Novel wrapped up, and I am now working my way through my messy rough draft, and I am now working my way through my messy rough draft. On top of everything that I learned about writing, I was struck by the thought that many of the entrepreneurial and coaching skills that I already have from my current job would lend themselves well to being a writing coach. I had never considered this career path, but in doing this program I realized that I really want to be a writing coach myself. So I actually just started the Author Accelerator book coaching program and I hope to someday soon help writers like Savannah does. I'm really excited about this shift in my career and I credit this new path to my great experience with Savannah and with her teachings in Notes to Novel. So thank you so much, savannah. I really appreciate you.

I love this so much. This is the first time I'm hearing that Harlow is going to pursue book coaching, which I think is amazing. I always say it's the best job in the world, especially if you're a writer and a book lover. So Harlow, that is so cool. But something Harlow said really stood out to me, which is that they had already consumed a lot of free content between books on the craft of writing, podcasts on writing, you know. Whatever it might be, but like many other writers, harlow still couldn't get to the end of a first draft.

And I think this is very, very common, because, on one hand, it can be really overwhelming to absorb so much information and sometimes it's even harder to know what to do, when or in which order to do things, but also because everyone's process or method is different, right? So sometimes the more content you consume, the harder it is to parse through everything. And what ends up happening to a lot of writers is that they start comparing all the different methods to each other so, for example, comparing the save the cat plotting method with the hero's journey or the snowflake method or whatever it is. And not only do each of these methods come with different terminology, they might explain things in a way that's seemingly contradictory or confusing when you start comparing them. So, for example, in Save the Cat they call the inciting incident, the catalyst, and in the hero's journey it's called the call to adventure. And then one method might say that this key plot point, this inciting incident, needs to happen at the 10% mark, while others say it happens more towards the 12 or 15% mark, and it all starts to get really confusing really fast.

So, anyway, the point is, I think what Harlow mentioned is very common, and I'm so glad to hear that the notes, the novel course, helped them cut through the noise and make so much progress on their messy first draft. So, harlow, thank you so much for sharing that, and if you're listening and you want to follow along with Harlow's journey, I will link to their website and social media in the show notes. Okay, so last up we're going to hear from Maddie Unruh and I'm just going to go ahead and play her clip. I don't want to spoil anything for you, but make sure you stay to the end. I saved hers till the end for a very special reason, so let's dive right in.

Hi everyone. My name is Maddie Unruh, I am 29 years old, I live in California and I'm currently writing romance. I am actually a professional writer. I'm a copywriter for many different businesses, so writing has always been a big part of my life, but this is the first time I've ever attempted to write a novel. I always knew I wanted to do it someday. I always felt called to do it, but I had never taken that step until I started listening to Savannah's podcast and eventually joined the Notes to Novel course.

One of the biggest things that Notes to Novel gave me was really just the ability to take myself seriously as a novelist. I feel like signing up for that course was me putting a stake in the ground and saying that I believed in that call in my life and was willing to invest in it and take it seriously. So for me that was a really big step and it led to me completing my first draft, which is so exciting. Another big thing I got out of the notes novel course was the ability to outline. I had attempted a little bit of novel writing before, but I'd always attempted to pants, and it turns out that outlining was really a key to me being successful in writing a story that worked. So going through those modules in the notes to novel course was so helpful just learning how to outline with key scenes and conventions, how to pressure test that outline. It really gave me a roadmap for my writing, which was super helpful because I have four little kids aged one to six, and so my writing time is very limited, so it was so helpful to know exactly what I needed to sit down and write at every one of my writing sessions. It helped me make really quick progress and in fact I ended up soon after taking the course, finding out that I was pregnant with my fourth and last baby and I had to take a long break for my novel about a year from the end of my pregnancy, through the newborn phase, until I was ready to come back to it. But thanks to my outline that was just pressure tested and waiting for me, I was able to pick right back up and write the next scene as though I hadn't taken that break, which was so helpful. So even though I took a long break in the middle, thanks to everything I learned in Notes to Novel, I was able to write my first draft in six months of actual writing time, which felt like a huge accomplishment to me. And then the last thing that I really got out of Notes to Novel that I would just is.

The biggest reason probably that I would recommend it to any aspiring novelist is how positive and fun Savannah is and just her presence and her ability to believe in you and your story so much that you believe in yourself and your story too. I really feel like she is so gifted at being a book coach and joining notes novel was just like having my own little cheerleader, not just empowering me with the tools that I needed and just so much incredible things that we needed to know to write the novel, but also the encouragement that you inevitably need along the way when you hit all those kind of rough spots in novel writing. So I loved the notes novel course. I loved it so much I ended up joining the story lab afterwards and I would highly recommend it to anybody on the fence to just go for it. Take the chance, take your call on your life as a novelist seriously and join Notes to Novel.

This is so awesome and there are so many things I want to talk about here. Maddie had to put everything on pause to have her last baby, but then, when she was ready, she was able to come back and pick it right up once they all hit the newborn phase and overall, it took her about six months to finish her first draft. All of that is amazing. So way to go, maddie. I love all of that so much, but I wanted to end with Maddie's tip for a reason, and it's exactly what she said at the end there. She said take the chance, answer the call and start taking yourself seriously as a novelist, and I want to echo that statement because, although it sounds simple, it can be anything but simple to claim your space as a capital, a author. But I hope, if you're listening and if this clip in particular, resonated with you, I hope you take inspiration from Maddie's story and the other stories shared today, and I hope you feel empowered and encouraged to stake your claim, call yourself a writer and take your story seriously, because you can and you deserve to. So, with that being said, I want to extend a big thank you to Catherine Kay, danielle Harlow and Maddie for sharing their stories and their experience inside the Notes to Novel course. I truly appreciate each one of you. A big thank you to Catherine, kay, danielle, harlow and Maddie for sharing their stories and their experience inside the Notes to Novel course. I truly appreciate each one of you so very much and for my listeners, if you enjoyed this episode, go check out the social media or the websites of all the different writers we had on the show today. Say hello, give them a high five for sharing their stories, struggles and aha moments with us and let them know how this episode has affected you. I'm sure they would absolutely love to hear from you and if you're interested in signing up for my Notes to Novel course, enrollment for the next live cohort opens from January 21st through January 30th. I would be so thrilled to have you join us so you can learn more and enroll at savannagilbocom forward slash yes. One more time that's savannagilbocom, forward, slash yes. And hopefully I will see you inside the course.

So that's it for today's episode. As always, thank you so much for tuning in and for showing your support. If you want to check out any of the links I mentioned in this episode, you can find them in the show notes listed in the description of each episode inside your podcast player or at savannahgilbocom forward slash podcast. If you're an Apple user, I'd really appreciate it if you took a few seconds to leave a rating and a review. Your ratings and reviews tell Apple that this is a podcast that's worth listening to and, in turn, your reviews will help this podcast get in front of more fiction writers just like you. And while you're there, go ahead and hit that follow button, because there's going to be another brand new episode next week, full of actionable tips, tools and strategies to help you become a better writer. So I'll see you next week and until then, happy writing.