Why Writing Feels Overwhelming

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And what I see all the time is that writers will try to do all three of those things at once and they end up completely overwhelmed, which makes it really hard to use the small pockets of time and operate within your natural fluctuating energy levels. It's really hard to write a book in that scenario. All right, so first give yourself some grace and then make sure that you're not trying to tackle all the different layers of your story at the same time. So foundation first, then roadmap, then start writing. 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.

Listener Voice Notes And Questions

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In today's episode, we're doing something a little different. A few weeks ago, I told my newsletter subscribers that they could submit a question via VoiceNote for me to answer on an upcoming episode of the podcast. And oh boy, did they send in some really great questions. So today I'm going to answer five of them. First, I'm going to play the clip so you can hear their question, and then I'm going to answer it as if I were coaching them in real time. And we have questions that run the gambit. We have one about fixing plot holes, another about balancing action and emotion, another about feeling stuck even though you want to write. We have a question on how to keep a plot twist more of a secret, and a question on how to know when you've included too much in a chapter. So this is going to be a really juicy episode. And if you like this kind of episode, let me know so that we can do more of them. You can also send me a voice note with your question by clicking into the show notes for this episode and finding the link that says send Savannah your question. All right, so without further ado, let's go ahead and get into the first question, which comes from Mika.

Fixing Plot Holes After Draft One

SPEAKER_04 2:07

Hi, Savannah. My name is Mika, and I'm writing a fantasy romance novel currently. And I was just wondering if you had any tips and tricks for solving plot holes within our stories.

SPEAKER_05 2:17

Hi, Mika. Thank you so much for this question. It is a super common question, and I know that others listening will have it as well. So I'm really glad you asked. Now, I want to say two things. First, if you are working on your first draft, there will always be plot holes. No one in the history of time has ever written a perfect first draft. So if that's where you are, I would say first have a little compassion for yourself and know that unfortunately most first drafts have plot holes or gaps of logic of some kind. Now, the second thing I want to say is that at some point you will need to figure out what to do about that plot hole, right? So let's say that you've gotten to the end of your draft, you've wrapped things up as best as you could, and you still have that plot hole to contend with. So what do you do? Well, as with anyone approaching revisions, what I would have you do is A, make sure you're clear on your global story. So who is your protagonist? What do they want and why? Who is the antagonist that's getting in their way and providing conflict? And what's at stake should your protagonist fail to accomplish their goal? So answer those three questions first because, you know, in theory, you've gotten to the end of your draft. You now know a lot more about your story. And it would also help to make sure you're clear on what your genre is and what your theme is, because both of those will impact your global story and then how you ultimately decide to fix the plot hole. So first get clear on the story you're telling, especially now that you're at the end of the draft. And then B, or the second thing, I want you to think about and determine what caused the plot hole in the first place. So let's say that, for example, you realize that a character did something and you don't really know why they did it, and so now you have this plot hole. Or maybe you solved a plot problem with magic that you haven't fleshed out yet. Either way, whatever it is, figure out what caused the plot hole to happen and then work on clarifying that element. So if a character at some point took an action and you're not sure why they did it, but you know that you want to keep that action. So you want to keep it as you wrote it, but you kind of don't know why they did it and that's what's causing the plot hole, then go back and flesh out that character more and think about what do they want? Why do they want it? What's at stake for them, right? Just flesh them out and kind of uncover the reason why they took that action and that should help you solve that plot hole. Or let's say that your plot hole was caused by magic solving a plot problem, and then maybe you hadn't set up the magic to do that in the first place. So if the plot hole was caused by something like that, then go back and figure out how magic works, and then go back and look at previous scenes or sections of your story to see if you can thread through whatever you would need to set up in terms of the magic system to make that plot hole go away. Now, I don't have specifics on your story, but I hope those two examples have helped. And essentially what I'm saying is A, make sure you're clear on the foundational elements of your story or the story you're trying to tell. And then B, figure out what caused the plot hole and troubleshoot from there. All right, so I hope that helps, Mika. Thank you so much for asking that question and for being a listener of the show. Keep me posted on how your writing goes and let me know when you publish your book someday.

Too Much Backstory Or Not Enough

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All right, now next up we have a question from Heaven. So here's what she said.

SPEAKER_03 5:41

Hi, Savannah. My name is Heaven, and I'm writing a lot of different genres at the moment, but my main one is this coming of age story about this girl who has to get used to moving across the whole country. Anywho, my question for you is how do you know when you've written too much in a paragraph or in a chapter? And what can you do to make it not so much? Or vice versa. I love watching your podcast and thank you so much. Bye.

SPEAKER_05 6:15

This is a great question, Heaven, and my advice is actually pretty similar to what I said to Mika in the previous question. So if you're still working on your first draft, you kind of almost have to let the words come out how they come out. Sometimes that means you might be light on things like description or interiority or whatever it is. And other times that might mean that you've included too much. So too much backstory, too much world building, or too much whatever. So to an extent, having too much or too little is pretty normal of a first draft. But putting that aside for a second, I want to talk about writing your story in scenes and not chapters. And I'm gonna link this back to what you asked in the first place. So just hang in there with me for a second. Now, what I tell my students in my notes to novel course is that I do recommend writing and editing your story in scenes, not chapters. And the reason I say this is because scenes are a very specific thing. They're like mini stories with their own beginning, middle, and end that link together to create your bigger story. And you might have one scene per chapter, or three scenes per chapter, or five scenes per chapter. There isn't one hard and fast rule, although there are guidelines and best practices, which I'll come back to in a second. But why am I saying to write and edit in scenes? Well, like I said, scenes are a very specific thing. I have a whole episode about how to write scenes. It's episode number 235, which I will link to in the show notes for you, Heaven. But go listen to that and then aim for about 2,000 words per scene. This is not a hard and fast rule either, but it is a general guideline that I give my students. And it's a guideline I use a lot because it's long enough to have meaningful action happen and it's short enough to hold the reader's attention. So aim for about 2,000 words. Now, with that being said, of course you will have scenes that are longer and shorter than that, but I'm just giving you an average guideline. All right, now back to what I was saying about chapters. If you're writing something like a thriller, you might have less scenes per chapter as a way to control the pace of your story or how it feels to readers. So for example, one scene per chapter is going to feel a lot quicker, a lot faster to a reader than having five scenes per chapter. But if you're writing something like an epic fantasy, then five scenes per chapter might truly work and be the best decision for that story. Again, there is no hard and fast rule, but genre can give you some guidance on this. All right, so I do definitely recommend thinking in terms of scenes and then creating your chapters later. Now, the second thing I want to say without going too overboard on my answer here is that you asked, how do I know if I'm writing too much in my paragraphs? And I am not a line editor, that is not my specialty, but I will say that usually writers ask this when it comes to including backstory or world-building details. And what I tell my students is that you only want to include information that is relevant to what's happening in the scene. So, for example, let's say that your character sees a car driving down the road that reminds her of her mother and the car that her mother drove when she was growing up. Now, your character might think about her mom and maybe even remember how mom's car always smelled like citrus, and we might see this pang of longing within the character that her mother is no longer around, right? Something like that. And that feels like a natural amount of thought that any one of us could have when we see something like a car that our mom used to drive in our day-to-day life. But let's imagine that this character thinks everything I just said. So they think about their mom and the scent of citrus and all this stuff. And then there's this whole chunk of text saying something like, My mom grew up on a farm and she was one of seven kids, and her father worked sunup to sundown and was never there for them. And my mom's older brother, who is now a lawyer in the city, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Right? Like none of that would necessarily be relevant to what's happening in the scene where your character is walking down the street and sees that car. It's kind of like one layer too much, right? So I would also think about that. Like, how does the present moment act as a trigger for whatever you're including? And how much does the reader actually need at any given moment to understand what's happening in the scene? So not in the whole story, but in this one particular scene. All right, so Heaven, I hope that that helps and is what you were asking about. Thank you for asking this question because I know this is also on a lot of writers' minds all the time. We are always so conscious of how much to include. And you know, we don't want to put too much into our stories because we always hear about drafts that are too long and things like that. So thank you for asking this because I'm sure it will help others as well. All right, now

Hiding A Mystery Twist In Plain Sight

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the next question we have is from Tom. So here is what Tom had to say.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

Hi, Savannah. I'm Tom. Thanks for doing this. I wrote down my question so I don't ramble. I'm writing a cozy mystery where a retired librarian solves a murder at her book club. And um, I have a great twist ending planned, but my beta readers guessed the killer by chapter 10. How can I fix this?

SPEAKER_05 11:31

This is a great question, Tom, and it's one of the trickiest parts about writing a mystery because you do have to play fair with readers by giving them all the clues they need, but you also don't want them to solve the puzzle too early. And what I have found is that the solution is often not about giving readers less information. So we don't want to take out anything just because your beta readers said that they guessed who the killer was by chapter 10. Instead, what we want to do is control where the reader's attention goes. Okay, so the first question I would ask is do you have any kind of red herring or a character that you want readers to assume committed the murder? And if so, maybe all you need to do is draw more attention to the clues that point to that person while also kind of letting the true clues that point to the real killer let those still be present in a scene. So don't get rid of them, but let them kind of fade into the background as you put attention onto the clues that point to the red herring. I would also check if all your suspects have the motive, means, and opportunity to commit the crime. So I'm not saying that they all need all three, but sometimes when each suspect has two or three, so maybe the motive and the means, but not the opportunity, or the opportunity and the means, but not the motive or whatever, it can help the reader feel more suspicious about each one of those characters and less certain about who the killer is. All right, so check that. And then third, I would look at what's happening when you plant each of the true clues that point to your killer, especially before chapter 10, which is like you said, when your beta readers figured it out. So what you might need to do is up the conflict in those scenes and then put your character's attention and the reader's attention on that conflict instead of putting too much emphasis or attention on the clue, if that makes sense. So three quick things for you to check out, and hopefully that will help you kind of triage what might be going on. But great question, Tom, and thank you for sending that one in.

Action Scenes With Real Emotional Weight

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All right, now next up we have a question from Braden, and here's what he said.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Hi, Savannah. My name is Braden. I'm currently driving a historical pulp New War novel set in 1940s, France. My protagonist is a former secret operative struggling with grief and her Catholic faith while seeking vengeance against the crime boss who killed her husband. My question is when writing an action heavy high-stakes plant, how do you weave in a protagonist's quiet internal emotional arc like grief and moral struggle without killing these stories fast pacing?

SPEAKER_05 14:12

I love that you asked this question, Braden, because it is such a delicate balance, right? You want to keep the reader engaged with your high-stakes plot and your fast pacing, but you also know the internal arc is important and meaningful. So how do you balance both? And the first thing I want you to know is that the internal arc doesn't have to slow the story down. And I usually notice that it feels that way when it's handled as a separate thing aside from the action. Like when a character stops to think about their grief or has this kind of long internal moment between chase scenes or something like that where they're really just kind of sitting in it and nothing much is happening. And I'm not necessarily saying that's what you're doing. I'm just saying this is how I see it kind of come up a lot. And again, I think that's because there's a lot to juggle. You have the fast pacing of the plot and then the internal growth and emotions of the character, and it is a lot. But ideally, your plot and your character arc would really be woven together in every single scene. So what we want to aim for is on the surface, external activity that puts pressure on your character's internal obstacle, on the choices she makes and how she feels and how she's processing things and stuff like that. So let me give you an example because at the scene level, you always need to have a character who's pursuing a goal, who faces conflict, and is forced to make some kind of tough choice, even when you have something like a battle scene or a chase scene or something that's just very external. And something I talk about with my students a lot is the idea of having volume dials for your story. So imagine you have one dial that represents the internal arc and the other that represents your external arc or the plot of your story. Now, in any given scene, you might turn one of those dials all the way up, maybe close to all the way down, right? You can manipulate them however you want. But either way, the key elements that make a scene work still need to be there. So let's say that your character is being chased by the crime boss's men because he knows she's onto him and is going to expose him. Her scene goal might literally be about survival, right? She wants to get away without being caught or killed. The conflict in your scene could also be very physical and external. So maybe the road is blocked, the crime boss's men are closing in as they're chasing her, right? Maybe she gets injured or has an old injury flare-up or whatever it is. But then imagine that to actually escape, she has to make some kind of moral decision. So maybe she's deciding like, do I shoot this young lookout who's blocking my way, even though he's, you know, 17 and barely old enough to hold a gun? Or do I turn back and risk getting caught because I cannot kill this young kid, right? So the external action in this case is forcing a moral dilemma. And the same could be true of a dilemma that has to do with her grief, or, you know, you name it. And so in this example, the external dial is turned way up because it's a chase scene, right? But the internal stuff is still there, and it's actually what's creating a lot of that tension outside the exciting plot events. So in that example, her morality is on the line, her survival is on the line, and there's really just no easy answer. And whichever route she chooses, the pacing never slows down, right? It's still exciting. And whatever choice she makes, that doesn't just kind of go away when the scene ends, right? It's going to carry forward into the next scene and into everything she does next. And that's a great natural jumping off point to develop her internal arc later on and as the story goes forward. So, point being, the goal is to make the action or use the action in your story to force the internal struggle or those internal dilemmas or to explore the internal piece of your character. And every time the stakes go up on the outside, ideally the pressure should go up on the inside as well. Now, does this mean you can never have quiet internal moments? No, not necessarily, but I would encourage you to consider how each of your scenes touch on the external and the internal layer and then go from there. All right, so I hope that helps Brayden and thank you for asking this question. That is a good one that I hear a lot.

Getting Unstuck With A Simple Process

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All right, now the next question comes from Shulamit, and here is what they asked.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

I'm stuck, completely stuck, and I would love to get back to my writing. Um I just don't know how to put everything else aside and make time for the writing. Should I do that first or should I do the things in the house first or carry on with sewing and then do it? I just don't know when and how to do it.

SPEAKER_05 18:58

This is such a good question. And I saved your question for last because I think a lot of people will relate to your question about wanting to write and having to kind of put life first or do other things like chores or schoolwork or a day job or whatever it is. Um, having to put that before writing is really tough, you know? Because on one hand, you want to write, you want to finish your book, but on the other hand, life has other plans and it's very valid to feel tired or like you just have a lot going on, a lot on your plate, or like writing is too exhausting or too overwhelming to think about right now. So, first things first, please give yourself some grace. You might just be in a busy season and that's okay. Now, I wish on one hand that I could tell you whether to write before or after the house is all sorted and before your sewing's done, but that really depends on your life and your energy levels. And, you know, really only you can decide that. But what I can help with is making sure that whenever you do sit down to write, whenever you do have those pockets of time or when your motivation is, you know, ready to go, that you know exactly what to work on. Because a lot of times what I see with my students is they feel the same way you do. And once we kind of dig into it, it's not really about how much is going on outside their writing. It's more like they're overwhelmed because they don't know what to do when they sit down at their desk to write. So, what do I mean by this? Well, imagine you have 30 minutes to work on your book today and you sit down at your desk. All of a sudden there's a million things you could do, right? Should you outline? Should you write a scene? Should you edit that scene you wrote last week? Should you build out your magic system? Should you research fashion from the 1700s? Should you figure out how space travel works? Should you learn more about this particular plotting method or that particular plotting method? Should you watch that training you signed up for on writing better dialogue that's just kind of sitting in your inbox, right? There are so many things you could do, but you only have 30 minutes. So I think part of the problem and what causes a lot of the overwhelm is just not knowing what to do or not having a process to follow. And the process that I teach my students in Notes to Novel is to first develop the foundational elements of your story. So if you haven't done this already, I want you to answer these five questions. Number one, what is your genre? Number two, what is your theme? Number three, what does your protagonist want and why? Number four, what conflict will they face, both external and internal? And number five, what's at stake? So answer those five questions. And if you can't answer them with specific answers, so we're not looking for generic answers like my character wants to be happy, or my character will feel bad about herself if she fails. We want to be more specific than that. Okay, so if you can't answer those five questions with specific answers, then that is what I want you to focus on in your your next writing session. Okay, so let's pretend that you're like, okay, I've done that. Then the next step is once you feel good about your story's foundation, even if you just have some kind of working answers that you know aren't perfect, I still want you to move forward and I want you to create some kind of roadmap. So personally I always recommend creating an outline, but I know that not everybody outlines. So if you're someone who is resisting the idea of outlining, maybe just create a summary of what you imagine happening in the beginning, middle, and end. Could just be one page. It could be a one to two cents log line that gives you the big sweep of your story. Doesn't matter just something to show you the big picture because that is really the goal. I just want you to see the big picture of your story so you know where things are headed, even if it's going to change later. And then I want you to start writing scene by scene. Okay, so foundation first, then develop some kind of outline or roadmap so you can see the big picture, then start writing. And what I see all the time is that writers will try to do all three of those things at once and they end up completely overwhelmed, which makes it really hard to use the small pockets of time and operate within your natural fluctuating energy levels. It's really hard to write a book in that scenario. All right Shulamit, so first give yourself some grace and then make sure that you're not trying to tackle all the different layers of your story at the same time. So foundation first then roadmap then start writing. And I also want to give you a little kind of bonus tip here because you said should I do the things in the house first or carry on with sewing and then do it. And maybe dictation would be a good way for you to get your book out while doing other things. So if you haven't ever explored dictation or kind of talking your story onto the page, that might be a good option for you as well. So I hope that one of those solutions will help you make some forward progress but again have some grace with yourself and give yourself some compassion. And I think really the key is probably just to make the big task of writing a novel, taking that big task and breaking it down into smaller chunks. So I hope my answer helps and thank you so much for asking this question because I know a lot of listeners will relate to exactly where you are right now. And keep me posted Shulamit, I hope that you are able to start making some progress soon and just know that I am over here rooting

Free Training Invite And Next Steps

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for you. All right so that is all I have for you in this episode but really quick before you leave I just want to let you know that if you're someone who is stuck in the middle of an outline stuck in the middle of a first draft or just kind of not really making the progress that you want to be making then I would love to invite you to come watch my free training. It's called Why You Keep Getting Stuck and How to Finally Finish Your Novel. And in that free training I will walk you through the most common reasons writers get stuck. I'll walk you through a high level overview of the process that I take my notes to novel students through so that you can see how I work with writers to develop their foundations, outline their stories and ultimately finish a first draft they're proud of and we'll also talk about what to do if when you start outlining or start writing, what to do if something changes when you're let's say 30, 40, 50% in your story and you kind of hit that crossroads of what do I do? Do I start over or do I keep going all the way to the end? So we'll talk about what to do in that scenario and I'm also going to share a whole lot of other tips and tricks with you throughout the 60 minute training. So again it's totally free it's about 60 minutes long and I will put the link in the show notes for you if you want to go check it out. As I mentioned earlier if you like this kind of episode and want to see more of them where I'm answering your questions and coaching you on the podcast let me know. Leave a comment if you're listening on Spotify or a review if you're listening on Apple. And remember that you can also send me a voice note with your question by clicking into the show notes for this episode and finding the link that says send Savannah your question. And I can't promise that we will get to all of them on the show but we will definitely try to get to as many as possible and we will always prioritize the ones that we think could be of the most help to the most people. All right so that's all I have for you today. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope your writing is going well and I will talk to you next week.