Savannah Gilbo

speaker

3,356 appearances 13 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 18 Aug

Savannah Gilbo’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 13 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 5.

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Fiction Writing Made Easy with Savannah Gilbo | How to Write a Novel & Writing Advice · #258. 5 Myths Keeping You From Finishing Your First Draft · 28 Jul 2026 podcast

But whether you outline or not, you do need to develop enough of your story's foundation to support a full-length novel.

That means understanding things like what your protagonist wants and why, what stands in their way, and where the central conflict is headed, all so that your time and effort have somewhere useful to go.

So the key takeaway here is that finishing a novel, of course it takes time and effort, but adding more of either won't help if your idea hasn't been developed enough to outline or draft effectively.

So before pushing yourself harder, just make sure that you've built enough of your story's foundation for your effort to actually move it forward.

All right, now let's move on to myth number two, which is I just need to learn a little bit more before I feel ready to write.

Now, most of the writers I work with are excellent students and they love learning.

They care deeply about their craft.

And so when they get stuck, their instinct is to often buy another craft book, listen to another podcast, or try a different plotting method.

And no judgment on this because I am guilty of this as well.

It also makes a lot of sense, right?

Because learning about writing and learning about our craft is very valuable.

But the problem is that learning or consuming more craft advice can quietly become a way of postponing the moment that you actually have to apply what you've learned to your own story.

Now, I know how this goes.

Like I said, personally, this one is hard for me as well.

But you know how it goes.

You tell yourself you'll start writing once you understand story structure a little bit better.

And then it's character arcs, then it's theme, then it's point of view or world building or whatever else it is that you feel like you need to learn more about.

And the finish line keeps moving because there's always going to be something else you could learn.

But eventually you have to realize that more general advice about writing stops answering the questions that are keeping you stuck.

What I mean by this is that a craft book can explain what a strong central conflict does.

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