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 · last 12 months

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

I know it's going to be hard, but trust me on that and just get to the end before you start polishing.

All right, now next up is myth number four.

And myth number four is something like, I should be able to get the story right as I write it.

I should be able to write it perfectly in one pass.

Something like that, right?

And this one is not about expecting every sentence to sound beautiful like we just talked about.

This myth is about expecting the entire story to come together while you're writing it for the first time.

So imagine you sit down to write a scene and you're expecting yourself to figure out what should be in the scene, how it's going to advance the plot, how it's going to reveal the character's inner struggle, how you're going to build the story world, how you're going to plant a clue that matters later, how you might reinforce the theme, maintain the right pace, and have it all read beautifully, all on the first attempt, all at the same time.

Of course that feels overwhelming, right?

In this scenario, you'd be asking yourself to solve several different kinds of story problems at once, often while you're still discovering what needs to happen in the first place.

And because all of those elements are connected, one uncertain choice can make the whole scene just feel impossible, overwhelming, maybe like it needs to be separated into four different scenes, right?

I've seen it all.

But I want you to think about it like this.

If you don't fully understand the character you're writing yet, then how can you know exactly what they would do?

If you don't know where your story is headed, then how do you know which clues to plant?

If you haven't crystallized your theme, then how are you going to make sure that shows up on the page all in one pass, right?

And this is why writers get overwhelmed because page by page, it feels like you need to kind of understand, maybe also reinvent the entire story before you can even write another sentence.

And to some extent, that is true.

You do need to understand the foundation of your story.

So what is your story actually about?

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