7 Top Tips from The Novelry on Writing Podcast (Season 1)

As the year draws to a close, many of us rush to reach the goals we set in January. The holiday season approaches and the pressures of life begin to build, with work stress, looming deadlines, and family demands taking precious time away from our writing. At this time of year, it’s more important than ever to find moments of self-care in our daily routines. What better way to combine self-care with your writing practice than to listen to an informative and engaging writing podcast?

You only need 15 minutes to indulge in the advice and wisdom shared by bestselling authors and publishing editors in each episode of The Novelry on Writing. Launched in 2024, The Novelry on Writing is a creative writing podcast featuring our bestselling writing coaches and editors as they discuss the art of writing a novel. Whether you need a moment alone, something to listen to while washing dishes, or entertainment for your drive home, you’ll find illuminating and practical guidance from the first season of The Novelry on Writing.

In this article, we explore the top tips from the first season of The Novelry on Writing podcast from the world’s top-rated writing school. With gems in every episode for fiction writers to take to heart, here are the game-changing secrets you can learn from season one. Interested? Dive in! You’ll learn something good that works for you and your book.

Our inaugural season is packed with insider tips and tricks to make writing your book a joyful, open experience. Want to build expertise in your fiction writing? Join us at The Novelry on Writing, the video podcast from the world’s top-rated school for fiction writers, known for its creative writing courses.

1. Focus on the small steps when you’re feeling overwhelmed

From Episode 1: Five Ways to Overcome Self-Sabotage in Writing

In our debut week, writing coaches Mahsuda Snaith and Alice Kuipers taught us five ways to overcome self-sabotage during the writing process. Ever thought you (or your book—or both) aren’t good enough? There’s some good news: it happens to everyone! Here’s how to be in the moment with your draft by focusing on the small steps.

Alice Kuipers: When I’m dealing with overwhelm, I reduce the things I could be doing to a small step. When I come to the draft tomorrow, I’m not going to do 95,000 things. I’m not going to write a whole book. I’m just going to write the rest of that line. And maybe that whole scene. Clarify and remove things that are in the way of you being able to get to the book. Cut through that overwhelm so the novel becomes a shiny, beautiful thing rather than a nightmare. Emylia Hall talks about making the novel like a garden, somewhere magical where you really want to be. And I love that feeling. My book could be somewhere that helps me feel better and less overwhelmed by all the other things in life.

Mahsuda Snaith: Writing a whole novel is huge. It’s going to take you months. But if you think I’m just going to write the first paragraph, it becomes less onerous and more achievable. And if you can’t write the first paragraph because there’s a lot of pressure there, just write a piece you’re really looking forward to. It’s so important to remember why you want to write. Think about why the escapism is so great for you, why you love the world of words. Then it doesn’t become overwhelming because it’s your treat to yourself.

2. Put a life on the line if you want your reader to turn the pages

From Episode 2: Five Secrets to Page-Turning Stories

In our second episode, writing coaches Melanie Conklin and Heather Webb discussed five ways to make your book a page-turner, no matter the genre. Let’s take a look at Melanie and Heather’s top recommendation. 

Melanie Conklin: Putting a life on the line is a plot- and stakes-oriented tip. Our characters start out one way and end a different way because what happens in the story affects them. The stakes need to be large enough to affect that change. If they don’t match, it’s not going to seem authentic. One of the ways to raise those stakes is to put a life on the line. That can be literal, but also metaphorical. Tap into that feeling of the stakes being that big, that important, that it is a form of death for the main character. Even if saving someone’s life isn’t literally what’s happening—sometimes the case in children’s literature—to them, it feels like a life on the line.

Heather Webb: You can have multiple characters in a book with different versions of that. In Queens of London, I have a boss of an all-girl gang, a 10-year-old on the run, and a female detective at the Metropolitan Police. So you’ve got social death, and you also have very real peril for the 10-year-old, who’s out on the streets. Play them off of each other. Put them all in there.

3. Draw from history to build your story

From Episode 3: Five Fantastical Insights Into World-Building

In our third episode, writing coaches Tasha Suri and Piers Torday gave us five fantastical insights into the world-building of your novel. Here’s their key insight on how we can get back to school by using history in our fiction writing.

Tasha Suri: It is really useful to draw inspiration from real history and real events. Look at something like Game of Thrones: you can see strong inspiration from the War of the Roses, from British history. I really recommend this because (1) history’s fun, and (2) it allows you to ground your world meaningfully in real things. When I wrote The Jasmine Throne, I drew on a lot of Indian history, particularly the period when the Mughal Empire ruled. Their approach to who would get to take the throne was: why don’t we all just fight each other? Not effective, but really interesting for a novel. 

Piers Torday: My latest series, Midnight Treasure, is a parallel fantasy, but I’ve used history. It comes from this idea that the most famous literary vampire—Bram Stoker’s Dracula—was based on Vlad the Impaler, who was known as that because he was pretty ruthless and did impale a lot of people. And—spoiler!—he wasn’t actually a vampire and he did actually die, like all humans do. (Terribly disappointing!) But what if he was a vampire and a successful military commander? Then what if the vampires reigned over this bit of Europe? How would that change history? It’s taking a real thing, a battle or military campaign, but adding that fantasy element to it. How would that have changed things? What if this fantasy element had disrupted the historical timeline? It began with exploring real history. Take what you find fun and mix it with the facts. See where it takes you.

4. Don’t info-dump in dialogue

From Episode 4: Five Methods to Make Dialogue Come to Life

In our fourth episode, coach Tara Conklin and editor Nic Caws discussed five ways to bring your dialogue to life when writing a novel. Conversations between your characters are a good way of telling us who they are, but try to avoid the infamous ‘as you know, Bob’ speech…

Tara Conklin: Don’t do an info dump when you’re writing dialogue. Movies are probably the most obvious place to see this, where one character delivers information that is obviously not something they would actually say, but it’s information the screenwriter thinks the viewer needs to have. Or there’ll be dialogue where information both parties should already have is being talked about in a way that makes it clear the reader needs it. It is so jarring.

Nicola Caws: It happens most of all in the openings of novels, which are the hardest thing to write. Sometimes, writers think: I’ll use dialogue as exposition. But you have to do it in a really subtle way that feels natural. Otherwise, it comes across as the ‘as you know, Bob...’ dialogue. It makes the reader feel like they’re seeing behind the curtain at the theater, seeing what’s going on in the wings. As the reader, you don’t want to see it.

Tara: It’s awkward when you’re writing your first draft, and you’re not sure how to convey this information to the reader. When I was starting, I did not give my reader the benefit of the doubt. I felt I had to explain every piece of backstory and every emotion and not leave those spaces in between. Now,  I try and get across the factual backstory information that is only 100% necessary for the reader to understand the story. I will write pages of backstory on every character, but that is purely for me. It’s a matter of really paring it down. 

Nic: And one line can say so much. A simple nod can be enough.

5. If you’re using a trope, use it wisely

From Episode 5: Five Tips to Turn Up the Heat in Romantasy

In our fifth episode, writing coaches Bea Fitzgerald and Ella McLeod discussed five ways to turn up the heat in romantasy. Their conversation bubbled with brilliant observations for every writer to learn, and we loved their guidance on how to use tropes—which exist in every genre—in wise and careful ways.

Bea Fitzgerald: There are tropes specific to romantasy that don’t exist outside of it, like soulmates or fated romance, but you also have tropes that do exist outside of romantasy that just pop off better here—like enemies to lovers. Sometimes, it’s not that deep if it’s the co-worker that glares at you. However, the enemy prince of a nation your country’s been at war with for 5,000 years? That’s enemies to lovers. Lean into tropes in romantasy, but do it with care. You can also subvert tropes. You really can’t go hard enough, but think about them, use them cleverly. They have a bad reputation, but every single genre has them. They exist for a reason. Don’t be afraid of them. 

Ella McLeod: It’s okay to feel like you’re not reinventing the wheel. It’s all in the execution. Another trope that isn’t specific to romantasy: there’s only one bed. In The Map That Led to You, I have a ‘there’s only one bed/wound-tending’ combined scene, but it’s also fated matesy because only this other character can heal him. If you find a way to combine tropes uniquely and your characters are unique, that’s the stuff that makes it sing.

6. When your writing gets stuck, get moving

From Episode 6: Five Ways to Push Past the 30k Word Slump

In our sixth episode, writing coaches Colleen Oakley and Gina Sorell shared five practical ways for writers to get through slumps. Have you stopped writing, you don’t know where to go, and you’re not even sure what you’ve written is any good? Here’s how to get the craft wheels ready to turn again...

Gina Sorell: I like to get moving. Shake my body up, do something different. I have one of those mini trampolines, and I’ll blast some music and jump on that. Or I’ll go for a walk around the neighborhood to work out plot points. With my first book, I think I covered all of Los Angeles on foot. Every day, I would walk for hours, trying to untangle it. There’s something about moving my body, letting it work in my subconscious. It’s also being reminded that there’s still a world going on outside that other people are operating quite fine in. That made a really big difference to me.

Colleen Oakley: I got really stuck halfway through my first book. And I didn’t know—was this normal? All that panic and anxiety started to set in. Sitting at my desk day after day, staring at the computer. Spiraling. I remember pushing myself away from the desk, and I went out and redid the flower section at the mailbox, and it looked beautiful. Half of the time, I was feeling very guilty. I’m not a writer. I felt like I’d quit and given up. But as I was working, things started to unravel. I got a little piece of dialogue. And that was the first lesson to learn: you can still be working while you’re not at the desk. Your brain is still working on the story.

Gina: It makes a big difference. You’re doing something that has a sense of completion. It’s a tangible accomplishment while you’re working on something else in the background.

7. A good ending to satisfy any reader

From Episode 7: Five Keys to Unlock Suspenseful Stories

In our penultimate episode, editor Sorcha Rose and writing coach Amanda Reynolds shared five keys to building suspense. Suspense takes many forms in fiction writing, not just in crime novels and thrillers, and it builds toward your ending. Here’s a way to make sure your reader is satisfied by your closing pages...

Sorcha Rose: Your reader shouldn’t be shocked by the ending. The murderer shouldn’t be someone who’s been on the page three times, and we don’t know anything about them, or they come in right at the end as a new character. That’s super annoying. And readers do get angry.

Amanda Reynolds: We don’t want ‘the robot did it’—unless the robot’s been in the book all the way through. We don’t want: page 300, somebody comes in that no one’s met until this point. Readers will pretty much forgive you anything except a bad ending. That’s what they remember. The end is really important and I’m a massive fan of when you think everything’s wrapped up and you get to the last page... Like Louise Doughty’s Apple Tree Yard, where almost everything is upturned by the last page. I love that you leave the reader with that question they immediately take to social media: who’s read this? I need to talk to you about it. 

Sorcha: And it doesn’t have to be some big dramatic ending, because if your story is not that sort of book that makes sense for it to happen, don’t just kill everyone because that’s surprising. Those aren’t the books we remember. It’s those books where you see how long they can eke it out. I’ve got three pages left and we haven’t got to the end... That’s really exciting.

Bonus tip: Look within yourself

From Episode 8: Five Ways to Use Your Shadow Side in Your Writing

In our final episode, coaches Kate Riordan and Anissa Gray explored five ways writers can use their shadow side when writing. How far will your characters, even the good ones, be prepared to go for something? One way you can explore this when writing novels is to take a moment and open up…

Anissa Gray: To find that shadow side in your character, first look inside yourself. Then, because this is fiction, amplify it. The shadow self is a very real concept psychologically. We all have this person we aspire to be, but that’s often in conflict with this darker side of ourselves. When I want to create a really nuanced, layered character, I start with some of my own darker impulses. In The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls, I wrote a character who had an eating disorder. I gave her that part of myself, but I amplified it. 

Kate Riordan: All our characters should be pushed and pushed. I was thinking about Yellowface... Such a talking point among writers and publishing generally, because who hasn’t been horribly jealous of another writer who seems to be getting more attention and seems to have this perfect life on Instagram? That idea of stealing someone’s manuscript is the dark side of reading a book and thinking: I wish I’d written that. Push that, and you get Yellowface. Stealing a manuscript from somebody who’s just died! 

Anissa: We push them to do the thing most of us wouldn’t do.

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More from The Novelry on Writing

Thank you for listening to The Novelry on Writing. Season one is now complete, and you can listen to all eight episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts. Videos of every episode are also available on YouTube.

Season two of the podcast will debut in the New Year 2025, packed with even more creative writing topics to enjoy to your heart’s content each week. Get ready by subscribing now so you don’t miss it! With even more expert advice, guidance, and tips from the bestselling authors who coach at The Novelry and our in-house editors, you can look forward to living the dream of writing your novel with the podcast from the world’s no.1 writing school right beside you.

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