Story Deep Dive Podcast

Story Deep Dive
  • 5.0 (6)
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Join editor and USA Today bestselling author Dana Pittman and developmental editor Rachel Arsenault for a weekly deep dive into great novels. storydeepdive.substack.com

  1. 2d ago

    Episode 96: Old-School Romance, Group Projects, and Small Town Christmas in The Christmas Fix

    Welcome to Story Deep Dive! In this episode, Dana and Rachel kick off their month on The Christmas Fix by Lucy Score, a steamy small-town holiday romance with no villain and plenty of conflict. They map the threads they’ll follow all month: why this is a classic contemporary romance, how a rebuilding project carries the external plot, and why Christmas has to matter to the story instead of just sitting on the calendar. Whether you’re a romance writer, paranormal author, or story strategist, you’ll gain valuable insights on letting the relationship drive the story, positioning your leads so the plot creates conflict, and setting stakes by choosing where you point the reader’s attention. You can also watch the video version of this podcast on YouTube! Estimate Timestamps 0:05 – A Holiday Kickoff Rachel opens the month on a light, festive book after Hell Bent, and spends a minute apologizing for her choice of words. 1:31 – Dana at Danja Tales: You Already Do Hard Things Dana has been learning Spanish and feels like she’s learned nothing, but she keeps showing up. When her husband said writing a novel seemed much harder, she realized: “You do hard things all the time. And you don’t realize it’s not hard to you anymore.” Her message to writers: let the journey be what it is, and make room in your life for the thing you want. 9:05 – Rachel’s Runner Client Rachel shares how she helped a first-time novelist who runs: nobody starts at five miles a day, and some runs just suck. Her tool is the analogy itself, “finding something analogous so that your mind can kind of wrap around the experience.” Dana adds that grown-grown writers already carry transferable skills. 13:58 – Rachel at StoryCypher: A Gothic Reading List Rachel leans into her side-quest genre with The Hacienda, The Reformatory, and Interview with the Vampire. Gothic fiction, she says, is so good at atmosphere and prose. 17:46 – Gothic Romance and Dark Romance Roots Dana explains that early dark romance was shelved as gothic romance or romantic suspense. Rachel breaks down the classic gothic setup and why it lends itself to romance, while Dana backs slowly toward the door. 24:49 – The Agenda Dana brings classic contemporary romance, romance as a dual protagonist genre, making Christmas count, and “it’s not about perfection, but impact.” Rachel brings the plot archetype, character design, and the fact that this is early Lucy Score. 27:32 – Walking Into Book Two Rachel felt like she’d walked into the middle of something. Learning that the book follows Mr. Fixer Upper in a series that never continued cleared up her confusion about the big cast. 28:57 – A Classic Contemporary Romance Dana’s frame: the relationship drives the front half, and the physical relationship isn’t consummated until around the middle, “a good old, old school romance.” For anyone writing a romantic subplot: “Same rules apply. It’s just the scale.” Rachel notices the early language isn’t steamy either, and Dana explains what that signals to a reader. 33:00 – A Group Project Plot Rachel names the external plot archetype: a group project. Nature starts the conflict, nobody plays the villain, and the job is to rebuild the town. They compare it to Tempt Me at Twilight and Before I Let Go. 36:44 – Why the External Thread Still Matters Rachel says the rebuild gives the story something to do when the lovers aren’t together. Dana says the Christmas Eve deadline makes it concrete, where Before I Let Go stayed open-ended. Her Pride and Prejudice example shows how an external thread keeps the story moving while each lead changes at their own pace. 41:53 – Romance Is a Dual Protagonist Genre Dana explains why most craft books miss that romance has two protagonists, and both have to change. “When the two of them bump into each other’s worlds, that’s where the good stuff happens.” 44:56 – The Bulldozer and the Immovable Object Rachel shows how each lead’s position on the plot creates conflict: Cat comes in as construction plus reality TV, and Noah is the town manager guarding the budget. Dana adds that the reason each says no is “the epitome of what the other represents.” It’s low stakes, but high conflict. 48:30 – Making Christmas Count Dana lays out how Score layers Christmas into the deadline and into what the season means to Noah and Cat. Rachel: “This story almost could only happen at Christmas.” 52:47 – Stakes Live Where You Point the Reader Rachel notes that Score could have made the stakes financial ruin, but she drew attention to the internal stakes instead. Dana’s frame: “There is a Noah-sized hole in her life that only Noah can fit,” and the “more” beyond chemistry is what builds the small moments. 56:27 – Early Lucy Score Rachel compares this 2017 book with Things We Never Got Over (2023): you can see it’s early, and her humor, town, and banter are all already here. Dana closes on “it’s not about perfection, but impact.” 1:00:55 – Wrap Both recommend the audiobook, and Rachel praises how the narration works the dialogue cues into the dialogue itself. Book Selection: Title: The Christmas Fix Author: Lucy Score She’ll save Christmas just to spite him… There’s only one thing standing in the way of Cat King saving a small town’s Christmas festival: Grumpy town manager Noah Yates. Single dad Noah takes his responsibilities seriously. When a late season hurricane turns Merry, Connecticut, into a disaster, he’s left scrambling to pick up the pieces of the town he loves. At least, until home renovation expert and smoking hot reality TV star Catalina King arrives with a camera crew and a budget big enough to put the town back together again. But Noah doesn’t want a celebrity diva capitalizing on their tragedy or filling his daughter’s head with visions of glitz and glam. Blonde bombshell Cat is used to being underestimated, but Noah has an uncanny knack for getting under her skin. They can’t be in a room together without rubbing each other the wrong way…except that time in the dark alley where the rubbing was just right. Can these enemies work together to pull off a Christmas miracle or will their fighting leave them both on the naughty list? Where to Find the Book The Christmas Fix by Lucy Score is available in several formats. It's also widely available in libraries and online retailers. Details on her website. Next Episode: In the next episode, Dana and Rachel dig into the plot of The Christmas Fix: the classic contemporary romance flow, the love interest as antagonist, and how Score moves time across a whole-town rebuild. Join the Conversation: Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave a review, and share your thoughts at storydeepdive.com. Follow Story Deep Dive on YouTube and Substack, and connect with Dana and Rachel to keep the discussion going! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storydeepdive.substack.com

  2. Oct 25

    Episode 95: Gifted Protagonists, Book Twos, and Story Promise in Hell Bent

    Welcome to Story Deep Dive! In this episode, Dana and Rachel wrap their month on Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo with their editor’s takeaways: how to write a gifted protagonist without draining your stakes, how to make a book two work for you, and why one clear focal point is the lesson to keep if you keep only one. They also reveal November’s palate cleanser, The Christmas Fix by Lucy Score. Whether you’re a romance writer, paranormal author, or story strategist, you’ll gain valuable insights on putting limits on a character’s power, pacing a book that is “fast paced, but not in a hurry,” and delivering on the promise your title makes. You can also watch the video version of this podcast on YouTube! Estimate Timestamps 1:16 – November’s Pick: The Christmas Fix Dana reveals the next read, a standalone enemies-to-lovers Christmas romance by Lucy Score with a renovation-crew heroine and a small town that does not want her there. Rachel calls it dessert after a very spicy meal, and a short one, about a ten-hour audiobook. 11:24 – The Agenda Rachel brings gifted protagonists, deepening the secondary cast, and failing forward. Dana brings making book two work for you, the focal point, and story promise. Her framing for the episode: sometimes the takeaway is simply “man, that is so good, I need to remember that.” 17:45 – When Power Undermines Stakes Rachel contrasts hard magic, where rules constrain even the most gifted hero, with soft magic, where abilities can become “this amorphous cluster.” Her warning: if the only limit is training, the hero becomes unstoppable and the antagonists lose their bite. Her three fixes: leave room to grow, add real limits or risks, and scale the antagonists. 18:52 – Kryptonite and Reverse Engineering Bardugo’s version: Alex learns to draw in Grays, then learns the cost, then meets forces that overpower her anyway, which shows the reader how dangerous they are. Dana’s image is Superman’s kryptonite, and her tip is to know where your character ends up and reverse engineer it, “then maybe taking it up just a notch.” 23:31 – Watch the Protagonist Solve Problems Rachel’s rule for fantasy writers: “The most interesting part of your story for reader is watching your protagonist solve problems.” Readers want to watch the character solve problems with the magic, “not watch the magic save the day.” Dana adds that the world pushes back as Alex tests her limits. 27:58 – Book One Is the Floor Dana on making book two work: “Book one really became the floor,” which let Bardugo drop deeper into history and into Alex’s gift and deliver “the same, but deeper.” Her favorite quality of the book: “fast paced, but not in a hurry.” It never rushes Alex’s growth and never stalls. 32:08 – Why Readers Stumble on Book Two Rachel, on her fourth read, names the reader complaint that book two is the one you “put up with.” Hell Bent avoids it by keeping everything readers loved in Ninth House while giving book two its own plot. Dana: “You don’t have to do a big thing. It just has to be a meaningful thing.” 32:54 – Deepening the Cast You Already Have Rachel argues an ensemble of strangers would have felt like a different series, and deeper stakes land harder with people we already know. Dana adds that it saves word count and protects the information management: “You already have ingredients, cook with what you have.” 40:17 – The Focal Point, If You Take Only One Thing Dana revisits get Darlington out of hell, which meant “we still understood what the assignment was.” Rachel makes it the month’s headline: “If you only take away one thing, I think the focal point is the thing to take away because that will hold true in any genre and any story.” 46:18 – Runway Without Losing the Reader Dana: without a focal point, writers take the runway they need anyway, “and then it’s boring or we DNF your book.” With one, side threads that look like squirrel moments turn out to be development. The two hosts nerd out on mind maps and Whirlybirds. 49:11 – Plot Armor and Failing Forward Rachel on literary sleight of hand: a hero who always just barely wins “has plot armor,” and the reader sees the author’s hand. The failed ritual is the model of a failure that costs something and opens a new door. Dana adds that fiction is art depicting life, and Bardugo has “no precious ones.” 55:41 – Knowing Your Story Promise Dana’s closer: deliver what the reader came for, then say “but watch this.” “You cannot title a book Hell Bent and not bring it.” The promise is what carries readers through the dense stretches until the setups pay off. 1:00:38 – Deadbeat Is Out Rachel’s final note: book three is out now, and Dana, who went into both books kicking and screaming, already bought it. Book Selection: Title: Hell Bent Author: Leigh Bardugo Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. The Ivy League is going straight to hell in the sequel to the smash New York Times bestseller Ninth House from #1 bestselling author Leigh Bardugo. Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex” Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory—even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale. Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies’ most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls. Thick with history and packed with Bardugo’s signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters. Where to Find the Book Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo is available in several formats. It's also widely available in libraries and online retailers. Details on her website. Next Episode: In the next episode, Dana and Rachel begin their November deep dive on The Christmas Fix by Lucy Score, a standalone enemies-to-lovers holiday romance. Join the Conversation: Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave a review, and share your thoughts at storydeepdive.com. Follow Story Deep Dive on YouTube and Substack, and connect with Dana and Rachel to keep the discussion going! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storydeepdive.substack.com

  3. Oct 18

    Episode 94: Ensemble Cast, Magic Limits, and Absent Characters in Hell Bent

    Welcome to Story Deep Dive! In this episode, Dana and Rachel dig into the characters of Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo: a cast deepened from the edges of book one instead of expanded with strangers, a protagonist whose power keeps getting outmatched, and a love interest who shapes the whole book from hell. They also show how the plot keeps a wounded heroine sympathetic instead of exhausting. Whether you’re a romance writer, paranormal author, or story strategist, you’ll gain valuable insights on building a cast that reveals your protagonist, putting real limits on a character’s power, and keeping an absent character present on every page. You can also watch the video version of this podcast on YouTube! Estimate Timestamps 1:42 – Second Draft Month and Working Weekends Rachel previews November in the Story Cipher Academy, where second draft month lines up with the season formerly known as NaNoWriMo, complete with the group goal spreadsheet and a Thursday through Saturday working weekend. 4:39 – The Ha-Ha Queen and the DTW Write-a-Thon Dana shares her homeschool NaNoWriMo stories, starring a daughter who padded her word count with giant fonts and a comedy where every “ha” was its own word. Underneath it: the goal was butt in seat, not quality. DTW is running a month of weekday sprints from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., with 45 minutes on and 15 off. 12:38 – Why a Container of Time Works Rachel’s case for challenges: a set window “breaks it down into something that is so achievable,” short enough to sustain and long enough to build a habit. Dana adds grace, because longhand, dictation, and every other method count, and the point is discovering “what you can really do when you put your mind to it.” 17:42 – The Agenda Rachel brings two deep topics, the deepened cast and Alex’s power. Dana adds the ensemble, secondary characters as mirrors for transformation, Alex as a wounded protagonist, and Darlington’s impact while absent. 22:52 – Pulling Characters In From the Periphery Rachel shows how Bardugo adds only a couple of new faces and instead pulls book one’s side characters into the central plot, where we see them in action, under stress, and with each other, not just with Alex. The hosts admit they are being vague on purpose, since even naming the team is a spoiler. 26:42 – Choosing a Cast Like Seasoning Dana: “Don’t just pick people to pick people.” The cast changes the reader’s access at every level of the story and pushes back on the goal as much as it helps. A couple of picks felt unlikely until they worked. 29:41 – A Cast That Reflects the Protagonist Dana shows how Alex’s relationships with Darlington, Dawes, and her professors each reveal a different side of her, as she moves from being led by emotion toward being led by allegiance. It lets us go deep without living in her head, which Dana calls show versus tell at its best. Then she names why she loved it: a found family forming in real time. 33:44 – Putting Limits on a Soft Magic Power Rachel walks through how Bardugo keeps Alex from becoming all-powerful: the gift started as a menace, drawing in Grays now carries real risk, and new antagonists are so strong that “she gets wrecked.” Her advice for series writers: know the limits, plan the growth, and scale the villains. 39:06 – Special, But Not Special Enough Dana: “She’s not special enough. Not yet.” Alex’s growth expands like concentric circles instead of arriving by chapter two, and the reader never feels anyone has this handled. “You cannot have a story like Hell Bent and not bring it.” 42:15 – The Wounded Protagonist Alex just wants to pass her classes, and instead she is leading, making decisions “with her knees knocking.” Dana notes that book twos often let competence overshadow transformation, but here “for every win she gets, she takes like five L’s.” 44:23 – The Absent Character Who Is Always on the Page Darlington spends most of the book in hell and still drives it. Dana: “Even if he wasn’t on the page, he was on the page.” Rachel shows how he lives in Alex’s head and in Dawes’s reminders without ever becoming a clumsy “don’t forget Darlington,” while still carrying slow-burn tension. 50:18 – Echoes and Learning the Hard Way Dana names the echoes that build our understanding of Grays and demons through the cast instead of lectures. Rachel shows how Dawes, Turner, and Darlington fill Alex’s gaps at the right speed, and gives advice for every writer: “Let your characters learn things the hard way.” The reader works it out alongside them. 54:10 – Why Her, Why Now Dana’s anchors: a strong why her, why now even for a wounded protagonist, and a motivation big enough to carry the book so the ensemble never overshadows Alex’s journey. 55:59 – Wounded Without Being Insufferable Rachel shows how Alex stays wounded and consistent without undoing book one or wearing out the reader. The conflict is so relentless that “we were only asking Alex to get through the day.” 59:55 – What Book Two Reveals About Alex Dana closes on how Bardugo reveals more of Alex’s past, her mother and the hospital, through a mechanism that fits a character who “would not have willingly told.” Book Selection: Title: Hell Bent Author: Leigh Bardugo Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. The Ivy League is going straight to hell in the sequel to the smash New York Times bestseller Ninth House from #1 bestselling author Leigh Bardugo. Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex” Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory—even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale. Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies’ most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls. Thick with history and packed with Bardugo’s signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters. Where to Find the Book Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo is available in several formats. It's also widely available in libraries and online retailers. Details on her website. Next Episode: In the next episode, Dana and Rachel wrap the month with their editor's takeaways from Hell Bent and reveal November's pick. Join the Conversation: Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave a review, and share your thoughts at storydeepdive.com. Follow Story Deep Dive on YouTube and Substack, and connect with Dana and Rachel to keep the discussion going! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storydeepdive.substack.com

  4. Oct 11

    Episode 93: Plot Threads, Try-Fail Cycles, and Ticking Clock in Hell Bent

    Welcome to Story Deep Dive! In this episode, Dana and Rachel take apart the plot of Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo, a fast, complex book with six plot threads running at once, and show why it never tips into chaos. The answer they keep landing on is one clear goal, get Darlington out of hell, which filters every piece of history, world building, and subplot. Whether you’re a romance writer, paranormal author, or story strategist, you’ll gain valuable insights on catching readers up without a recap, setting up multiple plot threads early, and writing failures that push the story forward instead of stalling it. You can also watch the video version of this podcast on YouTube! Estimate Timestamps 1:10 – Querying Season and a Kickstarter Record Rachel’s clients had a big summer: one querying with agent feedback pending, one launch in July, and Table of Gods, a project she consulted on two years ago, raising $2 million on Kickstarter. Her tip from preparing for agent notes: never print a whole manuscript double-sided by hand. “It was some certified shenanigans.” 6:11 – Proud Mama Moments and the Christmas Collaboration Dana celebrates a client’s shout-out from Steve Pressfield, then shares that the Danja Tales Christmas collaboration is underway: thirteen books across romance, fantasy, and cozy mystery, releasing from November, with a demonstration for every launch step. Rachel’s point: launching takes practice too, and a group project is a safe place to get your reps in. Dana calls signing up again “baby amnesia.” 16:05 – Spoilers and the Blurb Rachel repeats the spoiler warning for Ninth House. Dana clarifies that Ninth House names both book one and the series, so listeners should track which the hosts mean. 18:40 – The Agenda Rachel brings the catch-up, the first hundred pages, and try-fail cycles. Dana, one read in, brings a single idea at three levels: the focal point of getting Darlington out of hell grounds an expanding world, turns instability into an asset, and becomes a filter for what belongs on the page. 24:26 – The Recap You Never Notice Rachel contrasts the upfront summary a long series can use with the seamless catch-up a trilogy needs, one that serves both the reader who waited two years and the one reading back to back. Her example is one line about Darlington’s map of New Haven, dropped into a plot-relevant conversation with Michelle Alameddine, “almost like hiding that information under the plot.” 28:45 – Expanding the World While Holding the Focus Dana compares the book to fireworks, where everything is beautiful and you do not know where to look. Book two is a natural home for backstory and history, but the story still has to move. A simple objective lets Bardugo “maneuver around a complex situation without losing the reader.” 31:49 – A Hook to Hang It On Rachel’s rule for information in every genre: without plot relevance it “just drops to the ground.” Dana compares Bardugo to a good comedian who must condense and still deliver, except the payoff here is emotion and historical context. 34:52 – Six Threads in the First Hundred Pages Rachel counts them: the gauntlet, Alex’s errands for Eitan, a new complication with the Grays, a new Praetor, their jobs at Lethe, and dying faculty. All six escalate, collide, and converge at the climax. The murder mystery arrives last and resolves first because it is nested inside the rescue. 39:36 – Complex Characters, Simple Plots Dana’s long-held advice is to pair complex characters with simple plots, and she treats Hell Bent as the exception that shows why the focal point matters. Six threads, a large cast, rich history, and fast pacing could have been chaos. A trilogy’s familiarity is part of the payoff that lets book two go bigger. 43:20 – Failing Forward Rachel explains how “your characters can’t win all the time” gets misapplied into failures that go nowhere and stall the plot. In Hell Bent, a desperate alternative ritual fails catastrophically and puts Alex and Dawes at risk, but its result moves them closer to the gauntlet. 46:49 – The Ticking Clock Dana ties the failures to the deadline. There is no “maybe next semester we try that again,” so every gap in knowledge becomes history, a try that never fully wins, and more pressure against the clock. 49:20 – Giving a Hard Problem Room Rachel’s reread insight: side threads let a stuck problem stay stuck without the plot stalling, so it feels genuinely difficult. Dana adds that a heavy book needs breathing room, but “it can’t be with like, oh, Alex went to go get a manicure.” Every errand circles back. 56:42 – Why Do We Care? Rachel’s closing test: every scene should answer “why do we care?” with how it affects the main plot. Dana adds that the question filters the reader’s experience and the writer’s choices, and that Bardugo never makes a one-for-one exchange. Book Selection: Title: Hell Bent Author: Leigh Bardugo Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. The Ivy League is going straight to hell in the sequel to the smash New York Times bestseller Ninth House from #1 bestselling author Leigh Bardugo. Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex” Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory—even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale. Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies’ most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls. Thick with history and packed with Bardugo’s signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters. Where to Find the Book Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo is available in several formats. It's also widely available in libraries and online retailers. Details on her website. Next Episode: In the next episode, Dana and Rachel turn to the characters of Hell Bent: a cast pulled in from the edges of book one, the limits on Alex's power, and how Darlington shapes the whole book while he is gone. Join the Conversation: Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave a review, and share your thoughts at storydeepdive.com. Follow Story Deep Dive on YouTube and Substack, and connect with Dana and Rachel to keep the discussion going! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storydeepdive.substack.com

  5. Oct 4

    Episode 92: Book Twos, Escalation, and Reader Trust in Hell Bent

    Welcome to Story Deep Dive! In this episode, Dana and Rachel open their October month on Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo, one of the few book twos the podcast has covered, and set the lens for the month: what a middle book in a trilogy has to do. They dig into how Bardugo raises the stakes without getting more gruesome than Ninth House, and how she walks a reader into a very big imagination one step at a time. Whether you’re a romance writer, paranormal author, or story strategist, you’ll gain valuable insights on making a sequel feel familiar without repeating it, escalating stakes by making them personal instead of bigger, and earning enough reader trust to take your story anywhere. You can also watch the video version of this podcast on YouTube! Estimate Timestamps 1:21 – Drafting Month and the Group Spreadsheet Rachel shares first draft month in the Story Cipher Academy, where her only rule is “There are no rules except finish.” This round she added a shared goal tracker in which every writer’s checkbox also moves a group progress bar, turning individual goals into a communal push. She admits she is “not a spreadsheet girl,” and a student fixed her formula overnight. 9:20 – Dana’s 52-Week Project Fresh off her 75-day challenge, Dana is building a year-long plan for how she writes, teaches, and shows up online, with a goal of being two weeks ahead on content. “Real glow ups do not happen in no 90 days.” She ties it back to writing: the runway you build today is what you reap later, whether the goal is a book, a series, or an agent. 21:32 – Spoilers and the Blurb Rachel reads the back cover copy with a standing warning: Hell Bent is one big spoiler for Ninth House, so listeners who want to stay clean should start with the podcast’s first four episodes. Dana confesses she never reads the blurb on a Rachel pick, which is how she ended up texting about ghosts last time. 24:50 – The Agenda for the Month Rachel frames everything through book two: how this one functions, how it escalates without going more gruesome, and what a middle book offers a writer. Dana brings three threads: “she baby steps us into her crazy,” Bardugo’s control of information, and how she builds a container that is entirely her own. 31:34 – Same But Different Rachel shows how the sequel mirrors book one without rehashing it. The rescue plot grows out of book one’s ending, the prologue structure repeats, and a new murder mystery is nested inside the bigger plot instead of standing alone. Dana adds that the new allies bring freshness while keeping us rooted in Lethe. 35:58 – Escalating the Stakes Without More Gore Rachel lays out the escalations: Alex and Dawes start on their last chance with Lethe, Darlington alive and suffering in hell is worse than Darlington dead, and the conspiracy keeps going deeper. Dana names why it works. Personal stakes are about importance to the character, not size, and pairing this book’s subject matter with more gore “would have been too much.” 42:16 – Baby Stepping Us Into Her Crazy Dana’s signature idea for the month. Book one built the foundation, so book two can take you deeper, one Gray at a time. “Had we been with Darlington and the Ring of Fire at the beginning,” she would have been back on Amazon checking the categories. Because Bardugo walked her there, the shock lands as story. 48:06 – Go Wide or Go Deep Rachel breaks book two opportunities into two buckets: widen the world and the cast, or deepen the protagonist, their gift, and the characters you already have. Every book two does both. Hell Bent stays at Yale and expands the world “almost vertically.” 52:07 – Navigating Information Off the Grid With rule-following Darlington gone, the story leaves the documented rituals behind. Dana’s read: “The things that we learned in book two were in theory true in book one. But it just wasn’t time yet.” When the reader feels off balance, it is intentional, “making us feel off because they feel off.” 55:04 – Building a Lane of Your Own For writers told to pick a lane, Dana shows how Bardugo blurs genres without losing readers. The decorum and pacing of the opening buy enough trust that “she can go just about anywhere.” 58:06 – The Boiling Frog Rachel’s metaphor for growing a world slowly so the reader never jumps out, followed by both hosts realizing, live, how grim the phrase is. 1:00:41 – Buying Time and Buying Trust Dana’s coaching lens for writers with a big imagination: find the entry point, show restraint early “while still packing a punch,” and “you’re buying time and buying trust.” 1:04:32 – Not Just for Book Twos Rachel stresses that the month’s takeaways apply to standalones and book threes too. Dana adds that a trilogy’s book two maps neatly onto the middle of any novel. Book Selection: Title: Hell Bent Author: Leigh Bardugo Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. The Ivy League is going straight to hell in the sequel to the smash New York Times bestseller Ninth House from #1 bestselling author Leigh Bardugo. Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex” Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory—even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale. Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies’ most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls. Thick with history and packed with Bardugo’s signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters. Where to Find the Book Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo is available in several formats. It's also widely available in libraries and online retailers. Details on her website. Next Episode: In the next episode, Dana and Rachel dig into the plot of Hell Bent: catching readers up without a recap, setting up six plot threads in the first hundred pages, and try-fail cycles that move the story forward instead of stalling it. Join the Conversation: Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave a review, and share your thoughts at storydeepdive.com. Follow Story Deep Dive on YouTube and Substack, and connect with Dana and Rachel to keep the discussion going! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storydeepdive.substack.com

  6. Sep 27

    Episode 91: Genre Rules, Setting, and Backstory in Louisiana Longshot

    Welcome to Story Deep Dive! In this episode, Dana and Rachel close their month on Louisiana Longshot by Jana DeLeon with their editor’s takeaways, built around a single argument: knowing your genre cold is what makes breaking it possible. They also hand back two portable tools, conflict buckets and the POV levers, and work out how much backstory a first book owes a twenty-book series. Whether you’re a romance writer, paranormal author, or story strategist, you’ll gain valuable insights on innovating inside genre expectations, building a setting with its own unspoken rules, and dosing backstory so curiosity survives book one. You can also watch the video version of this podcast on YouTube! Estimate Timestamps 0:27 – October’s Pick and What a Book Two Is For Rachel reveals October’s read, Hellbent by Leigh Bardugo, announced over rolling thunder she considers thematically perfect, and reassures anyone hesitant that it escalates without doubling down on the heavier content of Ninth House. Dana raises the structural question she wants to watch: whether a middle book pauses to fill in backstory and world building, or drives like a second act. Her standard for series work: “A book one is only as good as the book two.” 18:12 – The Small Town Is Not a Haven Dana’s first takeaway inverts a cozy default. “She runs, but she’s not running to a haven. She’s running into danger.” Fortune is not opening a bed and breakfast, and the bone surfaces before she unpacks. The move that turns it from gimmick into structure: “The very thing that she’s running from is the very thing that she needs.” Dana catches the mirror in it, too, since the lone wolf who ignored her boss now has to deal with two women who will not follow her plan either. 23:01 – Know the Rules Before You Break Them Rachel makes the month’s central editorial argument: this kind of innovation is only available to a writer who has absorbed the genre. “When you understand what is expected from a cozy, what needs to be present to create the cozy effect, you can take your own innovations and give it your own twist while still fully delivering on the genre expectations.” Dana’s compressed version: “Don’t create something different, create something uniquely your own. Don’t break the rules unless you know them. She knows these rules.” 26:12 – The Hot Dog and the Medicine Rachel’s analogy for how the book carries weight without souring: “You stick the medicine in a hot dog so that they’ll take the medicine. She gives us the hot dog and all of a sudden we realize, hey, we just got something serious. But we were so busy laughing.” Dana adds the calibration rule she has built all month, that the humor is proportional to the subject matter. A book touching veterans, feminism, and local laws about women earns its comedy from glasses and stubborn independence, not pratfalls, “without feeling preachy.” 30:06 – Conflict Buckets, One Book Later Rachel revisits the tool as something to take home: three to five sources of conflict abstracted into trackable categories, here life in Sinful, the mystery, and Fortune’s hidden identity. The loop between them does double duty: “Her identity brings her to life in Sinful, which gets her caught up in the mystery, which pulls her deeper into life in Sinful, which threatens her identity to get exposed.” Dana notes the same buckets carry into book two with new facets, which is what makes a long series plannable. 34:15 – The Quasi-Amateur Sleuth, Revisited Dana returns to Fortune’s position and lands on Ida Belle’s early read of her: “I told you, she’s a different thinker.” That verdict comes from training Fortune cannot admit to, and it matters because the crime is decades old and the physical evidence is long gone. What is left is deduction plus two women who can get information on anybody at any time. 39:22 – POV as a Takeaway Rachel restates the three levers as portable craft: what a character will say out loud, what slips out because it is automatic, and what finally makes them say the thing they have been holding. She notes it works in third person as well as first, and that Fortune doubles as the reader’s stand-in: “We get to pull up a seat right next to her and just watch with her, except she’s getting dragged into it and we get to stay behind.” 43:11 – How Much Backstory a Book One Owes Dana’s takeaway on serial construction: enough that nothing feels missing, little enough that curiosity survives. Tension with a military father, glimpses of a mother, a relationship to her career, and the energy of a woman with something to prove. “We’re not quite sure at the end of book one what that is yet, but we do know that for sure.” The other edge of the rule: “You also don’t want to leave things out to where people are pulled from the story because something is missing.” 47:30 – Setting-Building as Anthropology Rachel puts on her anthropologist hat for the most transferable takeaway of the episode. Every place has a culture, not just small towns, and the questions to ask are what the unspoken rules are and what insiders know that outsiders do not. Her illustration is her own city’s Airport Boulevard, the road everyone in Mobile knows to avoid: “You hear that enough times and you’re like, ah, this is the road that we avoid in this city.” Dana adds that Fortune’s assumptions about two elderly women are the entry point to the entire plot. 54:43 – Who Should Read This Book Dana’s closing recommendations: read it for world building, secondary characters, and turning a genre expectation on its head “in a way that doesn’t break something that is working.” Read it if you want to write cozy but do not think you can write humor. Read it for pacing, since it is a meaty story on a short timeline. “If you are not the cozy reader, this is a good pick for cozy. And you’re going to walk away with a lot of gems.” Book Selection: Title: Louisiana Longshot Author: Jana DeLeon It was a hell of a long shot.... CIA assassin Fortune Redding is about to undertake her most difficult mission ever—in Sinful, Louisiana. With a leak at the CIA and a price placed on her head by one of the world’s largest arms dealers, Fortune has to go off-grid, but she never expected to be this far out of her element. Posing as a former beauty queen turned librarian in a small bayou town seems worse than death to Fortune, but she’s determined to fly below the radar until her boss finds the leak and puts the arms dealer out of play. Unfortunately, she hasn’t even unpacked a suitcase before her newly inherited dog digs up a human bone in her backyard. Thrust into the middle of a bayou murder mystery, Fortune teams up with a couple of seemingly sweet old ladies whose looks completely belie their hold on the little town. To top things off, the handsome local deputy is asking her too many questions. If she’s not careful, this investigation might blow her cover and get her killed. Armed with her considerable skills and a group of elderly ladies the locals dub The Geritol Mafia, Fortune has no choice but to solve the murder before it’s too late. Where to Find the Book Louisiana Longshot by Jana DeLeon is available in several formats. It's also widely available in libraries and online retailers. Details on her website. Next Episode: In the next episode, Dana and Rachel begin their October deep dive on Hellbent by Leigh Bardugo, the second book in the Alex Stern series, and one of the few book twos the podcast has covered. Join the Conversation: Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave a review, and share your thoughts at storydeepdive.com. Follow Story Deep Dive on YouTube and Substack, and connect with Dana and Rachel to keep the discussion going! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storydeepdive.substack.com

  7. Sep 20

    Episode 90: Point of View, Comic Timing, and Character Foils in Louisiana Longshot

    Welcome to Story Deep Dive! In this episode, Dana and Rachel take on the cast of Louisiana Longshot by Jana DeLeon, including the argument that Ida Belle and Gertie are not Fortune’s opposites but a preview of who she is becoming. They also break down how point of view builds character through the gap between what someone says and what they think, and why identical small-town details become opposite books depending on tone. Whether you’re a romance writer, paranormal author, or story strategist, you’ll gain valuable insights on using POV as a character tool, generating comedy from inverted expectations, and developing a cast through similarity instead of contrast. You can also watch the video version of this podcast on YouTube! Estimate Timestamps 1:05 – Hot Seats and Christmas Collaborations Rachel describes a new format in the Academy: hot seats opened up from full-act reads to any problem a writer is stuck on, done live and in community. Her case for the discomfort: “If you’re having the problem, other people are having the problem. It’s never just you.” Dana connects it to boot camps, where a principle only lands once there is a story to hang it on. Her own update is the Christmas collaboration, spanning cozy mystery romance to dark mafia romance, which doubles as a live demonstration of a launch for her DTW students. 24:48 – POV: The Gap Between What She Says and What She Thinks Rachel’s core argument is that DeLeon extracts everything available from being inside Fortune’s head. “One of the ways that she tells us so much about who Fortune is, is by showing us the gap between what she says and what she thinks.” The undercover premise makes that gap structural, and the cleanup after a slip is character work too. Rachel turns it into three levers any writer can use: what a character will say out loud, what slips out by accident, and what finally makes them say the thing they have been holding. 29:08 – The Quasi-Amateur Sleuth Dana takes the positioning problem: a CIA assassin is exactly the wrong protagonist for a cozy, and the book solves it by making all of that unusable. “You take somebody that is different, and because of the way you position her, you make her fit into the norm.” Her repeated formulation: “Don’t try to write something different, write something uniquely yours.” She also flags Fortune’s habit of sizing people up, which reads as overkill until it becomes both her advantage and her exposure risk. 32:39 – Ida Belle and Gertie as Fortune’s Future Dana’s read reframes the whole cast. The old ladies are not a contrast to Fortune, they are a preview: “Gertie and Ida Belle end up being sort of like the version of what you could see Fortune being in the future. They are these women before their time, they are veterans, they are not what you expect.” Rachel names the technique underneath it, developing characters through similarity rather than opposition, and explains why it works: “You can have a quality, but when you see it in someone else, it sure hits you a little different.” 39:58 – Comedy Is Inverted Expectation, Not Clowns Rachel corrects a common assumption: “We’re not just thinking, oh, we want a clown character. That’s actually not really what makes comedy most of the time. Comedy comes from, we think one thing’s gonna happen and something else happens.” Ida Belle and Gertie invert on schedule and never tip into caricature, because they keep having human moments. Dana adds a calibration note: the humor here is not slapstick, it comes out of the same aging and independence the book is actually about, which is what keeps the stakes intact while the pressure gets released. 47:13 – Same Town, Opposite Light: A Sharp Objects Comparison Rachel makes the case that these two books share more raw material than anyone would guess: an ultra-small town, young people trying to escape, women who married young and stayed, old-timers coping in various ways. The difference is entirely tonal. “Tone determines the light in which we cast those things.” One book gets a hog butchering plant, the other gets a banana pudding race after church. Dana carries it down to the working level: which scenes, which dialogue, which characters are in the room. 55:22 – The Layers Behind the Southern Charm Dana closes on Sinful as a character: small but big, charming on the surface with the women who actually run the town underneath it. “The moment you say that is the moment that you have your readers hooked.” Her craft point is about restraint in a book one, since what you introduce first is all you have to deepen later: “All you’re gonna be able to do after this is go deeper.” Rachel’s close is that this is exactly what makes a serial worth returning to. Book Selection: Title: Louisiana Longshot Author: Jana DeLeon It was a hell of a long shot.... CIA assassin Fortune Redding is about to undertake her most difficult mission ever—in Sinful, Louisiana. With a leak at the CIA and a price placed on her head by one of the world’s largest arms dealers, Fortune has to go off-grid, but she never expected to be this far out of her element. Posing as a former beauty queen turned librarian in a small bayou town seems worse than death to Fortune, but she’s determined to fly below the radar until her boss finds the leak and puts the arms dealer out of play. Unfortunately, she hasn’t even unpacked a suitcase before her newly inherited dog digs up a human bone in her backyard. Thrust into the middle of a bayou murder mystery, Fortune teams up with a couple of seemingly sweet old ladies whose looks completely belie their hold on the little town. To top things off, the handsome local deputy is asking her too many questions. If she’s not careful, this investigation might blow her cover and get her killed. Armed with her considerable skills and a group of elderly ladies the locals dub The Geritol Mafia, Fortune has no choice but to solve the murder before it’s too late. Where to Find the Book Louisiana Longshot by Jana DeLeon is available in several formats. It's also widely available in libraries and online retailers. Details on her website. Next Episode: In the next episode, Dana and Rachel close the month with their editor's takeaways: why the small town is danger instead of haven, how knowing genre rules is what makes innovation possible, setting-building as anthropology, and how much backstory a book one owes a twenty-book series. They also reveal October's pick. Join the Conversation: Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave a review, and share your thoughts at storydeepdive.com. Follow Story Deep Dive on YouTube and Substack, and connect with Dana and Rachel to keep the discussion going! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storydeepdive.substack.com

  8. Sep 13

    Episode 89: Inciting Incidents, Red Herrings, and Conflict in Louisiana Longshot

    Welcome to Story Deep Dive! In this episode, Dana and Rachel take apart the plot machinery of Louisiana Longshot by Jana DeLeon, from a hide-or-die opening that plants thriller stakes inside a cozy to a climax where every thread collides at once. They also hand over two tools you can use on your own manuscript this week: buckets of conflict and a working definition of the red herring. Whether you’re a romance writer, paranormal author, or story strategist, you’ll gain valuable insights on placing your protagonist for maximum discomfort, tracking your sources of conflict so they actually pay off, and misleading your reader while still playing fair. You can also watch the video version of this podcast on YouTube! Estimate Timestamps 0:43 – The 2027 Retreat and a Second-Book Client Dana announces the return of her in-person retreat for the first quarter of 2027, the first since before the pandemic, and describes what it actually is: “You are not coming because it’s going to be this bunch of teaching or sitting in a room and talking about theory. You are coming to write.” Rachel’s client is starting his second book after a summer of marketing his first, and has learned he can only outline to the midpoint. That leads into an honest exchange about process fantasies, with Rachel noting that “what worked for book one may not work for book two,” and Dana comparing accumulated craft to a refrigerator door full of condiments. 29:24 – Hide or Die: The Inciting Incident Dana breaks down an opening that behaves nothing like a standard cozy: a blown CIA assassin given an ultimatum, then given no grace period once she arrives. “The first day, almost like twenty minutes into her stepping foot in Sinful, all hell breaks loose.” Her craft point is stakes placement: most cozies put the protagonist in danger eventually, this one puts something larger on the board from page one. Rachel adds that DeLeon “situates her for maximum discomfort and maximum difficulty,” and that the assumed identity is deliberately the opposite of who Fortune is. 36:50 – How the Cozy Effect Is Actually Manufactured Rachel separates the skeleton from the flavor. The investigation supplies the scene structure, and the tone comes entirely from what goes wrong inside it: “The real cozy facet really comes in with the kinds of things that go wrong.” Bayou boat chases, hostile dogs, and characters whose idea of a rational decision produces hijinks. Her comparison to Sharp Objects, a near-identical setting with an opposite tone, shows that the events you choose are the tone dial. Dana adds that each answer in this book opens a new question: “You start questioning everybody.” 42:10 – Ida Belle and Gertie Are Not Comic Relief Dana names them agents of chaos and, more importantly, plot drivers: in this book it is usually not a clue that redirects the investigation, it is the old ladies. What keeps that from reading as convenience is motive. “It’s not something that you feel like you’re rolling your eyes because, okay, they just threw this one in there. But they’re looking for their friend.” Rachel supplies the structural necessity: a protagonist under orders to lie low has no reason to enter the plot, so Ida Belle and Gertie supply the reason from outside her. 48:36 – Buckets of Conflict Rachel introduces the Academy’s term for abstracting your sources of conflict into trackable categories, and the problem it solves: new writers who “just reach for something random and toss it in there” and never pay it off. This book runs three buckets, the mystery, life in Sinful, and Fortune’s hidden identity, and they collide in nearly every scene. Dana extends it to series planning: the buckets shift across books, but they tend to stay the same buckets, which is what makes a long-running series plannable. 54:12 – The Climax as Convergence Dana’s model is a funnel that narrows until everything spills into the final act at once: the murder solved, the lone-wolf tendency broken, the friendships reshaped. “You take it in your cooking and you sort of simmer it down until it’s just the good stuff.” Rachel’s version is blunter: “This is how you do that, by taking all of those things you were setting up and then jamming them together to create an explosion.” Both note the cozy keeps that explosion tuned. As Dana puts it, “it’s full throttle, but not.” 59:19 – What a Red Herring Actually Is Rachel corrects the common definition: a red herring is not false information, it is true information the protagonist misreads. “If your protagonist draws a reasonable conclusion from that information, your reader is going to follow them into that conclusion.” That is what produces the late-book aha while keeping the author honest. Dana’s respect for the difficulty closes the episode: “Cozy mysteries read as if they’re easy, but it’s extremely hard.” Book Selection: Title: Louisiana Longshot Author: Jana DeLeon It was a hell of a long shot.... CIA assassin Fortune Redding is about to undertake her most difficult mission ever—in Sinful, Louisiana. With a leak at the CIA and a price placed on her head by one of the world’s largest arms dealers, Fortune has to go off-grid, but she never expected to be this far out of her element. Posing as a former beauty queen turned librarian in a small bayou town seems worse than death to Fortune, but she’s determined to fly below the radar until her boss finds the leak and puts the arms dealer out of play. Unfortunately, she hasn’t even unpacked a suitcase before her newly inherited dog digs up a human bone in her backyard. Thrust into the middle of a bayou murder mystery, Fortune teams up with a couple of seemingly sweet old ladies whose looks completely belie their hold on the little town. To top things off, the handsome local deputy is asking her too many questions. If she’s not careful, this investigation might blow her cover and get her killed. Armed with her considerable skills and a group of elderly ladies the locals dub The Geritol Mafia, Fortune has no choice but to solve the murder before it’s too late. Where to Find the Book Louisiana Longshot by Jana DeLeon is available in several formats. It's also widely available in libraries and online retailers. Details on her website. Next Episode: In the next episode, Dana and Rachel turn to characters: Fortune as a quasi-amateur sleuth, Ida Belle and Gertie as the future Fortune does not realize she wants, comedy built from inverted expectations, and a tone comparison with Sharp Objects that explains how identical settings become opposite books. Join the Conversation: Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave a review, and share your thoughts at storydeepdive.com. Follow Story Deep Dive on YouTube and Substack, and connect with Dana and Rachel to keep the discussion going! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storydeepdive.substack.com

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About

Join editor and USA Today bestselling author Dana Pittman and developmental editor Rachel Arsenault for a weekly deep dive into great novels. storydeepdive.substack.com

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  • Creator
    Story Deep Dive
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    98
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Dana Pittman & Rachel Arsenault
  • Show Website
    Story Deep Dive Podcast