In 2024, I developed a habit I'm still using called "5-minute fiction." I did a podcast episode on this powerful writing hack, and I'm bringing it back for you this week.
My "5-Minute Fiction: New Habit for the New Year" (episode #10) is my most downloaded episode, and for good reason. This little hack is helping authors around the world write more consistently, and it's helping authors take their first steps in dictating their fiction.
So for this episode, I recorded a new introduction to include a special announcement to share with you...
The 5-Minute Fiction Club!
What's inside this club that I created here at fictioncourses.substack.com?
The 5-Minute Fiction Club is a place for you to take first steps in dictating your fiction. It includes:
5-Minute Dictation Training Videos
You’ll get quick start videos where you’ll learn the methods and tools of dictation so you can start TODAY.
Climb to the Top
The 5 achievement levels in this club are waiting for you to conquer. But you won’t be climbing alone! Join your fellow fiction authors on an epic adventure by sharing your achievements every week. Whether you’re starting as a “Walker” or a “Hiker,” work your way through the “Backpacker,” “TrailBlazer,” and “Summit Seeker” levels together.
Live support
Each month, you can join a live Q&A call to get your burning dictation questions answered.
After you listen to this episode, join the 5-Minute Fiction Club
Listen to The Confident Fiction Author Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you can find podcasts.
Episode 33 Transcription
Hey there my friend and welcome to this week's episode of the Confident Fiction Author podcast. I'm your host Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer and today I have a throwback episode for you of my five-minute fiction habit that I did back at the start of 2025.
And the reason why I want to bring it back around for you this week is I have just created and launched my five-minute fiction club over on Substack.
I created the five-minute fiction club to help you take your first steps in dictating your fiction. So it's loaded with some dictation quick start videos. There are fun accountability levels going from Walker, Hiker, Backpacker, all the way up to Summitseeker as you build your five minute habit by dictating your fiction.
And I'm also going to have a monthly live Q&A in there for you to ask all of your burning dictation questions.
So that's the five-minute fiction club. I did start it over on Substack which is a brand new platform for me honestly. So if you're on Substack please do email me a link to your stack so that I can check it out. You can email me at hello@fictioncourses.com.
I would love to check it out as I'm learning this platform myself and also welcoming in authors to subscribe to my Substack which is all about the podcast.
So I have the podcast episodes on there. I'm getting the transcripts for each episode loaded onto there. And then for the paid upgrade version of my Substack that is the five-minute fiction club.
So I wanted to introduce that to you and I thought a great way to do it would be in bringing out this episode of the five-minute fiction habit that I developed and really giving you the details and the actions you can take to write fiction every day.
So do enjoy this episode and then head over to fictioncourses.substack.com to subscribe to my Substack there and I invite you to upgrade to the five-minute fiction club to get those dictation quick start videos, accountability levels, and live Q&A.
But first listen to this episode to learn all about my five-minute fiction habit. Let's get into it.
The Origin of My Five-Minute Habit
I'm pulling back the curtain on a daily exercise that I started in the summer of 2024. I had been on a fiction writing sabbatical for several months and I had technically ended my sabbatical because I did write a novella in the spring of that year but I really wasn't back into fiction writing.
I wasn't feeling confident honestly with getting back into fiction writing and doing it as a daily habit and really that's something that's been a part of me as an author since I started taking writing seriously as a career and as a lifestyle.
I've just always had a hard time being consistent as a fiction writer and getting words down regularly, keeping up with my editing, and publishing books.
But I will say I have published nearly 20 books so far so it's not like I'm a slacker. I just haven't been terribly consistent and I love writing fiction. I love just the act of creating worlds and putting them down on paper, seeing them on the page, and so it's always been something I've wanted to make a more consistent part of my daily life.
So while I have published several books I just love fiction writing and was always trying to figure out how could I get this into my daily routine.
Start with a Throwaway Story
When I started my five-minute fiction habit I knew I needed something that I could go into and be able to write every single day without having any pressure that this was something that would be published someday or that I needed to closely follow and outline.
I really went back to the heart of where I started out as a fiction writer and that is just being a panster, just writing by the seat of my pants, following the characters through each scene, and just seeing what happened.
And while having a vague idea of where the story was going in my head and I may have even already written it all out in my head and this is just putting it down on paper or on the digital screen.
So what I decided with this five-minute fiction is that I was going to do a throwaway story to build this habit and get me used to having this five minutes in my morning routine.
Telling Yourself Stories at Bedtime
I don't know about you, this may be a little weird, but I think since I'm talking to fiction writers it's not going to be as weird as the general audience—but I tell myself stories every night. Like that's how I go to sleep.
I'm in some kind of fictional story world, nothing related typically to what I actually write and publish. It's just purely from my imagination and I'm telling myself a story.
And I know a friend of mine who does this as well so this may be you. You may be in the habit of telling yourself a story, a story that just continues on night after night and you're building it and developing it but you're not planning on doing anything with it.
It's not in the genre that you're writing, it's not in anything you're interested in publishing, it's just entertainment for you as you're going to sleep—similar to the tradition of telling someone a story, a bedtime story when we're kids to go to sleep.
So that's something that I do. So I picked one of those as my throwaway story for this five-minute fiction habit.
Step 1: Pick a Story Idea
The first thing I would recommend is come up with a story idea. It can be something fresh, some kind of plot that you were inspired with after a news story that you saw or something that happened at the coffee shop and your imagination started taking off with it.
Pick something that is just a complete throwaway story. You have no intention at any point of anyone ever reading it and that's the place I encourage you to start at with developing this new habit of five-minute fiction in your day.
Step 2: Decide When to Write
And I say “in your day”—I do this as a part of my morning routine so before I ever get to my desk before I start work, it is just a part of my routine.
Once you've decided on your story idea, decide where you're going to put this five minutes of fiction. It may be your bedtime—like when you're going to bed.
If you handwrite, type, dictate, whatever your method is, if you're able to do that right before bed that may be where you want to put this five minutes of fiction in.
How I Built It Into My Morning Routine
So what I do is I have it tacked on to my morning pages routine. Whenever I get up in the morning I go through a few things in my routine. I do my Bible reading and then I get into my morning pages.
Immediately after that, I'm kind of primed because I've just written three pages either by handwriting or dictating up to 750 words for my morning pages. So the pump is primed with some words, and I go immediately into my five minutes of fiction.
Other Times That Might Work for You
That doesn't have to be where you put it. You could put it in during your lunch break. So if you work a traditional nine-to-five job and you have that 30 minutes or an hour for your lunch break, it can be while you're in line.
If you go solo for lunch typically, while you're standing in line, if you have your phone and you type, you can type out that five minutes of fiction or dictate it, or while you're waiting for your food.
The incredible thing about this habit is that it is five minutes.
Somewhere in your day—tagging it with a meal or as a part of your morning or evening routine, or that five minutes of being in the carpool line—wherever you can have just a little bit of space (and hopefully a little quiet, but that’s not even required), you can fit it in.
Watch the Clock or Set a Timer
When that time comes, I want you to either watch the clock or set a timer.
Whenever I'm dictating, I don't literally watch the clock every second, but I do have it on my phone and I'm glancing at it periodically. Usually the closer it gets to that five minutes, the more that I'm not watching the clock because I'm really getting into the story.
But I do remind myself—oh, I need to check the time. That will usually pop into my head right at about five or six minutes and I'll check it and go, “Oh, okay, well I'm done.”
If I'm dragging a little bit on the story, my creativity is kind of lagging, I may be watching that clock a little bit more.
But that's the beauty of this—you're just doing five minutes. If you’re blocked or uninspired, you know it’s just five minutes, and then you’re done for the day.
Track Your Progress
You can check it off your habit tracker. What I like to do at the beginning of the week, or when I'm doing my planning—typically the Friday before the next week—is I will put on there: “Write fiction” or “Write DB11” (which is Doc Beck Book 11, the one I’m in right now).
I just put that on each day of my planner. Then when I get to my desk, I get to scratch that off.
Put it in your habit tracker so that as you're watching the clock, you can remind yourself: you get a sticker at the end, or you get to cross that off your list. You already have something done before you even start your workday—or before you go to bed if you’re doing it at night.
Use a Timer If the Clock Is Distracting
If watching the clock is too distracting, set the timer on your phone. I’ve done that as well for other habits—like I like to read for 15 or 20 minutes in the morning, so I’ll set my timer.
That way I don’t worry I’m spending too much time reading. I know when the time is up, I’m moving on.
So you can set the timer for five minutes. Or check the time—if it says 6:47 a.m., I know at 6:52 a.m., I am stopping.
Use Whatever Tools You Want
Next, I want to just talk about how you're going to write this five minutes of fiction.
You may typically write fiction at your desk, on your laptop—you pull up Microsoft Word, or Google Docs, or Scrivener (that’s what I use).
With five-minute fiction, you can give yourself permission to do it differently.
If you're like me, you probably started out handwriting your stories. I started when I was five, and my mama gave me a pad of sticky notes—the little yellow pads—and I wrote out my first story on that.
So handwriting may have been how you started too.
Even if you now type your stories, you may want to handwrite this five minutes. I mostly handwrite my morning pages, and I could keep another notebook with my morning pages notebook, have my pen and hard surface ready.
Or Try Dictation (It’s What I Love)
On the other hand, I’m really attached to dictation. It’s so fast, and it’s fun to see the words rack up in Scrivener iOS.
After I finish morning pages, I pull that up, open my throwaway story, hit the dictation function, and just start speaking my words.
Because it’s a throwaway story, I usually get more words than I do on publishable projects.
I don’t clean it up. I’m not even planning to go back and read it—it would be painful with all the plot holes and floating character names. It’s a mess, but it’s a fun mess.
Choose the Method That Fits Your Life
So make that decision: will you handwrite, type, or dictate?
And feel free to break away from how you usually write fiction. If you’re a computer typer, but you’re in the carpool line, type it on your phone with your thumbs.
This isn’t about how many words you get. It’s about the fact that you are writing fiction every day for five minutes.
Set a Rhythm That Works for You
Now I say every day—I personally do this Monday through Friday. I typically take Saturday off, and I most certainly take Sunday off.
But I do find myself wanting to write on a Saturday morning sometimes, so I’ll go ahead and do my five minutes of fiction—especially if I happened to miss one day during the week and want that satisfaction of hitting five days.
You get to decide where this five-minute fiction habit fits into your life. Maybe just on weekends—Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Maybe weekdays only. Whatever it looks like for you, you get to decide.
Stick With the Five-Minute Cutoff
The last step here is: stick with the five-minute cutoff.
This was something I determined when I started the habit—I would stop at five minutes. The reason why is I needed to build trust and confidence in myself that I would do it every day and that it wouldn’t disrupt the rest of my day or routine.
If I let myself get carried away and go 30 minutes or an hour, that could cause resistance the next day. My brain would think: we got to our desk an hour late, that caused stress, we missed an early meeting, or didn’t clear our email.
Then it becomes a threat to the rest of my routine.
So now my brain might resist opening the Scrivener app because it might steal too much time and mess with the flow of my day.
Stopping Leaves You Wanting More
Also, stopping at five minutes—even in the middle of a sentence or scene—makes it easy to start again the next day. You remember where you were, and it’s exciting.
“Oh yeah, I get to keep going with that action scene!” It builds anticipation.
After doing this for several months, five minutes goes by really fast—and I often want more. But I set the habit. I get to decide: do I want to grow it into 10, 15, 30 minutes?
That’s fine, as long as it’s intentional.
It Can Grow With You
Eventually, five minutes might become your full fiction-writing block for the day. That’s what happened to me.
I moved away from the throwaway story once I had my next book—Doc Beck Book 11—outlined. I started using my five-minute fiction habit to work on that.
Now, that five minutes includes reviewing my outline for where I’m at in the scene. I go a bit slower, because I’m publishing this one. I still write a messy first draft, but I’m more careful with the plot and characters.
And I’m planning to expand that five minutes to 10, 15, or 20 minutes so I can finish the novella.
So yes, it started small—but now it’s part of my regular fiction-writing routine.
What About You?
So what do you think about this five-minute fiction habit?
Is it something you’ll incorporate in the new year as a new habit?
I would love to hear about it! Feel free to send me an email at hello@fictioncourses.com and tell me how you’re incorporating this.
Will it be in the morning? Afternoon? Evening?
From experience, I can tell you this can be a huge boost to your fiction writing in 2025. It helps you be more consistent—and just enjoy the process again.
A Gentle Reentry Into Fiction Writing
Like I said, after taking a fiction-writing sabbatical for several months, it took me a while to get back into it. I was rusty.
And because I write historical fiction—especially historical Westerns—I spend a lot of time researching, revising, and reworking my messy first drafts.
If I wrote for 30 minutes or an hour every single day, I couldn’t keep pace with myself when it came to research and editing.
That’s why I’ve been inconsistent with writing daily—but five minutes of fiction changed that.
Make It Ridiculously Easy
Alright, bringing it all home for you: the main thing with five-minute fiction is I want you to make it ridiculously easy.
We all have busy lives. Looking ahead to 2025 and all the goals and habits we want to build, it can feel like a lot.
But five minutes of fiction made it so easy for me to build the habit and keep up with it.
I hope it does the same for you. I hope it brings joy back into your fiction writing each day—especially if you’ve been in a dry season or just need a reentry point.
Join the Five-Minute Fiction Club
Alright, my friend—that is all for this week’s episode of the Confident Fiction Author podcast.
I’m excited to have you join me in developing your five-minute fiction habit through the Five-Minute Fiction Club over on my Substack.
You can subscribe at fictioncourses.substack.com.
I’ll see you in there—and I’ll also see you in next week’s podcast episode.
Take care.
Free resources for you:
The Confident Fiction Author Toolkit: fictioncourses.com/toolkit
Dictation + Scrivener Power Combo Mini Course: fictioncourses.com/dictation
Dictation for Authors: Tools and Tips of the Trade: fictioncourses.com/dictationguide
5 Stereotypes to Avoid When Writing about Native Americans: fictioncourses.com/stereotypes