Story Deep Dive Podcast

Story Deep Dive
  • 5.0 (6)
  • Fiction
  • Updated Weekly

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 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

  2. 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

  3. 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

  4. 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

  5. Sep 6

    Episode 88: Genre Rules, Layered Mysteries, and Book Ones in Louisiana Longshot

    Welcome to Story Deep Dive! In this episode, Dana and Rachel open their month on Louisiana Longshot by Jana DeLeon by mapping where cozy mystery actually sits on the crime spectrum and what that position asks of your protagonist. They then take apart how a book one seeds twenty sequels without overloading the reader. Whether you’re a romance writer, paranormal author, or story strategist, you’ll gain valuable insights on layering a mystery without stacking bodies, sizing a cast for a long-running series, and building a setting that works as a source of pressure instead of scenery. You can also watch the video version of this podcast on YouTube! Estimate Timestamps 1:05 – What Dana and Rachel Are Working On Rachel is closing in on the third draft of her magical realism murder mystery novella after months when work and life “traffic jammed with each other,” and she’s honest about the unglamorous reality of it: “I am in pajamas and staring, like me mugging the screen because I’m like, I don’t know what words go here.” Dana is out of drafting and into paper edits on her nonfiction book, with a reread of her example titles ahead of her. Her case for editors who keep writing: the experience of finishing your own drafts “gives you your zhuzh on your editing.” 19:24 – The Blurb and the Agenda Rachel reads the publisher’s blurb with full theatrical commitment, and Dana requests she take five large steps back from it. They set the agenda: cozy conventions, the tonal spectrum of crime fiction, cast size for a serial, Fortune as an atypical protagonist, and the book’s layered mystery. 27:40 – What a Cozy Mystery Actually Does Rachel breaks down the mechanics behind the mood: “We’re going to take murder, but it’s going to be fun.” She names the distancing devices a cozy uses, including a victim nobody mourns, time between the murder and the investigation, and the amateur sleuth whose limited access is itself a buffer. Dana’s turn makes it usable: naming what you feel as a reader is what lets you plan it and plot it as a writer. 33:02 – The Crime Spectrum Rachel lines up the genre from procedural to classic murder mystery to cozy, with comps from the podcast’s own back catalog, and places Louisiana Longshot at the far cozy end next to Janet Evanovich. Dana connects it to craft decisions: your proximity to the crime drives your protagonist’s profession, the circumstances you choose, and what your reader came to the book to avoid or lean into. 38:31 – A Professional Forced Into an Amateur’s Position Dana flags the anomaly that makes this book unusual: Fortune is a CIA assassin, which almost never happens this far down the cozy end, and the book works because she is stripped of the ability to use any of it. “She is a professional, but she is thrusted into an environment where she cannot lean into her professional skills.” Rachel shows how Ida Belle and Gertie’s search for a missing friend hands Fortune a job an amateur could plausibly do. 40:26 – The Layered Mystery, Not the Body Count Dana’s read on the book: this is an onion, not a morgue. One bone, one dog, and three stacked layers of question. “She really did it beautifully in that we were still sort of concerning that murder and that body while really we were just looking for Marie.” A useful model for writers who want the puzzle without the corpses. 46:24 – Casting a Twenty-Book Serial Rachel takes cast management: “You can’t just jam all the characters in and be like, here are all the people that you need to know.” DeLeon anchors four core players, gives repeat touch points with a handful of others, and lets the reader feel the residents they have not met yet. Dana adds the CIA handler thread, tugged just enough to stay on the page. 49:45 – The World Keeps Spinning Dana names a common failure: “It’s almost as if when we go to the next chapter, the characters freeze. No, it should feel like life still goes on.” Rachel gives it a name, the reader vortex, where the world was turning before the reader arrived and keeps turning after they close the book. That liveliness is what turns Sinful into a force of antagonism rather than a backdrop. 54:22 – Why This Book Earned the Pick Rachel’s case is that the plot threads are unusually visible here, which makes the book a teaching text for any genre. Dana’s is that it avoids the saccharine end of the subgenre while keeping real stakes. Both land on the same verdict: a light lift with an outsized payoff. 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 dig into the plot of Louisiana Longshot: the hide-or-die inciting incident, Ida Belle and Gertie as motivated agents of chaos, buckets of conflict, red herrings, and how every thread converges at the climax. 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. Aug 30

    Episode 87: Writing Paths, Time Horizons, and Why Your Goals Change Everything

    Welcome to Story Deep Dive! In this bonus episode, Dana and Rachel dig into one of the most important questions a writer can ask: what do you actually want your writing to do? The answer to that question determines your publishing path, your timeline, your research priorities, your team, and how you build an audience. Whether you’re writing toward a traditional deal, planning to self-publish, or still figuring out which way you’re going, this episode gives you the real trade-offs, the timelines no one tells you, and the mindset that makes the whole process more sustainable. You’ll come away with a clearer picture of what each path actually costs and what questions to start asking right now. You can also watch the video version of this podcast on YouTube! Estimate Timestamps 0:05 — Check-Ins: Triple Threat Book Club and First Draft Season Dana’s summer at Danja Tales is centered on the Triple Threat book club experiment: instead of everyone reading the same book, each student is reading their genre’s GOAT, bringing their own work and insights to a shared conversation. “You don’t get to hide in the crowd.” Dana is holding the framework while students bring the specifics. Rachel is heading into first draft season with a new NAV 101 cohort, with graduates from previous cohorts in the room as a second voice: “I promise, it really is so good on the other side.” 24:02 — The Core Question: What Do You Want Your Writing to Do? Dana frames the episode: naming what you want from your writing life isn’t a soft, philosophical exercise. It’s the question that shapes every downstream decision. “Different goals call for different craft decisions. They may call for different resources.” Rachel adds the coaching side: the first question she asks in any consultation is what the client wants the book to do and what they want their writing career to look like — because the answer changes the work. Even “I don’t know” is a useful answer. It keeps the question on the table. 30:08 — Every Path Has a Price Dana’s framework for the episode: every writing path has a cost, and knowing yours before you commit keeps you from being surprised at the wrong moment. Rachel goes straight at the most common misconception: choosing traditional publishing to avoid marketing. “Going trad, you still have to do marketing — especially as a debut author.” Marketing is a requirement on every path. The only writer who doesn’t have to market is the one who doesn’t care if anyone reads the book. 33:51 — Traditional Publishing: What You Get and What You Pay The trad path hands off cover design, printing, and distribution costs to the publisher. What you pay instead is time. Query timelines alone run six to eight weeks minimum per wave, across multiple waves. Add agent submission time and editorial consideration time on top of that. Dana names the math: “If it takes you a year and a half to two years, plus their year and a half to two, you see what I mean?” The launch window at the end of this long runway is compressed. Rachel adds the one-shot rule: you get one pitch per agent per project. Get rejected, move on. The manuscript can come back later — “when you get your first book out, they’ll say, what else do you have?” — but you don’t get a redo on the same submission. 38:45 — Independent Publishing: What You Get and What You Pay Indie gives you control over timing, positioning, and pace. What you pay is that every decision is yours to get right or wrong. Cover design, team assembly, market research, reader list building — it all lands with you. High-demand cover designers can have two to three year waitlists. Rapid release is possible and common in romance, but it’s built on inventory writers accumulated before hitting the market. “They are responsible for when it goes out.” Rachel draws the contrast cleanly: traditional moves at the publisher’s pace and you’re along for the ride. Indie, you set the pace. 44:26 — Time Horizons: What Timeline Have You Actually Assigned to Your Writing Career? Dana names the thing most writers haven’t said out loud: “I realized I always thought of writing as my retirement plan. I didn’t realize that’s the timeline I had stuck on it — and that made, it changed my choices.” The timeline shapes the catalog. If you want your books to have long legs, you make different choices than if you’re trend-forward. And knowing your timeline means you can plan backwards from where you actually want to land, not from someone else’s idea of what “a long time” means. 48:44 — Getting Your Reps In Dana’s emphasis: doing all your work on one story can work against you, especially in the trad lane. The first idea is not always the best version of the idea. There’s real value in completing work, getting it read, and learning the gap between what you envisioned and what a reader experiences. Rachel adds the time-limit tool: give yourself a defined window on any single project — a year, a year and a half — and commit to either pitching it or calling it practice by that date. It prevents the indefinite spin that kills momentum without producing a manuscript anyone can read. 53:29 — Build the Audience Before You Need It Both hosts land on the same non-negotiable: build your audience before you need it, regardless of publishing path. Newsletter, social presence, reader engagement — these are not optional for writers who want their work to reach people. Dana: “You want to build the audience before you need it.” A larger number is better, but what matters most is that you have one and you’ve started. The earlier you begin, the more leverage you have — in negotiations, in launches, and in your own confidence at the table. 59:09 — Research, Industry Events, and the Things No One Tells You Industry knowledge is more accessible than it’s ever been. Pitching sessions on X, conferences with agent access, agent and editor social media — these are tools, and writers who use them come in better prepared. Dana’s point for indie writers: being in charge is only useful if you know what you’re doing. “If you don’t know nothing, you got somebody that don’t know nothing in charge.” Working with people who do know is part of the cost of the path. 1:02:47 — Your Journey Is Allowed to Be Yours Dana closes with a client who stepped away from writing for a decade while his kids grew up, retired, and came back. “That’s not what you’re going to see anywhere. But he had to have grace to let his kids get older.” Timelines are personal. Platforms change. The publishing landscape keeps shifting. What stays stable is the question: what do you want? Write that down. Bring it into the room with you. And give yourself permission to build toward it at the pace your life actually allows. Even “one book at a time” is a plan. Next Episode: Dana and Rachel kick off their discussion of Louisiana Longshot by Jana DeLeon. 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

    Episode 87: Writing Paths, Time Horizons, and Why Your Goals Change Everything

  7. Aug 23

    Episode 86: Story Threads, Tropes, and Interpersonal Conflict in Broken Harbor

    Welcome to Story Deep Dive! In this final episode on Broken Harbor by Catherine Cowles, Dana and Rachel share their editor’s takeaways: the braid, the four-act structure, conflict buckets, suspense that never sacrifices the romance, and interpersonal conflict between characters who like each other. They also reveal next month’s crossover pick. Whether you’re a romance writer, a cozy mystery author, or a story strategist, you’ll gain insight on tracking your threads, using tropes as an engine, and learning from books that aren’t your own picks. You can also watch the video version of this podcast on YouTube! Estimate Timestamps 0:26 – Next-Book Reveal: Louisiana Longshot by Jana DeLeon The hosts announce next month’s crossover pick, Louisiana Longshot by Jana DeLeon, a cozy mystery with a twist: the protagonist is a CIA agent, not the usual amateur-sleuth baker. Dana explains why cozies are a strong study in character development across a long-running series this one runs 30 books and is still going, and Rachel flags it as their first fully clean, no-steam pick in two years. 18:35 – Editor’s Takeaways: The High-Level List Dana reiterates the month’s refrain and names her takeaways: the braid internal, external, romantic, tropes as engine, and suspense without sacrificing romance. Rachel folds in external threads used to real effect, specificity for story and characters, and the importance of interpersonal conflict. 20:51 – The Four-Act Structure and the Braid Dana teaches the four-act structure each act roughly 25 percent as a more natural pacing tool than three-act, and maps the book onto it. She ties it to the braid and gives a sharp editor’s caveat: when two braid elements integrate so well they can’t be severed, it reads beautifully but studies poorly, because the beat is doing double duty. Broken Harbor keeps its threads trackable, which is what makes it teachable. 27:40 – External Threads and Conflict Buckets Rachel notes Sutton builds a life even when Cope isn’t on the page, which keeps her from being a damsel. She introduces conflict buckets: categories of antagonism you can abstract from your story to verify your act-one setups pay off and to see what happens when two buckets hit at once. Dana adds the bonus: mapping threads makes plot holes blaring, so it doubles as an editing tool. 32:41 – Suspense Without Sacrificing Romance Writers lean into suspense because it’s more tangible than plotting a feeling, but it usually railroads the romance. Cowles keeps clean lines, the romance progresses while the suspense stays as present white noise, then both converge in one relevant climax. Rachel ties it to expectations: because the prologue signaled the destination, the twist is satisfying, not out of left field. 40:00 – Tropes as Engine, Revisited Dana revisits the trope list, single mom, hockey player, found family, small town, forced proximity, and shows each affecting trajectory rather than dangling as a label. Rachel connects it to specificity: tropes feel arbitrary when jammed in for popularity, and the fix is to ask why this matters to the story and how it’s part of the fabric of the characters. 44:47 – Same Ingredients, Different Dish Dana reframes the trope-skeptic’s worry with a cooking metaphor: same ingredients, totally different dish. Your lens and your characters’ specific wounds are what make a familiar trope uniquely yours. You know better now, so you do better, and leveling up is the whole point of studying a book like this. 48:26 – Don’t Shy Away From Interpersonal Conflict Rachel’s closing craft point: conflict between characters who care is a gift, harder and more meaningful than conflict with the snooty side character. It lets them confront flaws and shows change over time so growth doesn’t feel overnight. Dana adds it happens in a safe space, where someone you care about can say what others can’t. 58:57 – The Mic Drop: Learn From Books That Aren’t Your Pick Both hosts close on the show’s philosophy: you can learn enormous amounts from books outside your genre. See it, don’t unsee it, generalize the move, then notice why it hit you, and solve the new problem, how do I do this in a way only I can? Book Selection: Title: Broken Harbor Author: Catherine Cowles Since the moment our lives fell apart, the only thing that mattered was making a good life for my son. A life where he was happy and safe. I just never expected to find that safety with a hockey player known for his brutal dominance on the ice and his recklessness off it. But Cope Colson is so much more. The gentle way he makes sure we’re okay. The playful care he shows my son. The way he truly sees me. When my life comes apart yet again, it’s Cope picking up the pieces. Now, we’re living in his house, eating his incredible, chef-worthy meals, and it’s not just my son who’s falling. It’s me. Because when Cope touches me, I lose all sense. I’m no longer thinking about staying safe, I’m thinking about how my skin ignites with every glance, how I come undone with the barest brush of his fingertips, and when we give into temptation…I’m lost. But Cope has secrets and so do I. And when the forces from our pasts emerge from the shadows, there’s nothing they won’t do to end our happiness once and for all… Where to Find the Book Broken Harbor by Catherine Cowles is available in several formats. It's also widely available in libraries and online retailers. Details on her website. Next Episode: Next month, Dana and Rachel kick off Louisiana Longshot by Jana DeLeon, a cozy mystery crossover pick and their first fully clean read, with a CIA-agent protagonist and a 30-book series to learn from. 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. Aug 16

    Episode 85: Everyday Heroines, Layered Alphas, and Backstory in Broken Harbor

    Welcome to Story Deep Dive! In this episode, Dana and Rachel discuss the characters in Broken Harbor by Catherine Cowles: an everyday single mom, an alpha hero with real depth, a kid who functions as a true catalyst, and a rich conversation about backstory, memory, and the meaning a character makes of what happened to them. Whether you’re a romance writer, a paranormal author, or a story strategist, you’ll gain insight on writing love interests with variety, building believable family dynamics, and deploying flashbacks that actually mean something. You can also watch the video version of this podcast on YouTube! Estimate Timestamps 1:00 – Danja Tales Check-In: Drafting a Full Series Before Release Dana shares that she finished first drafts of an entire four-book series back to back before releasing any of it, for scheduling and sanity, and is now reading top to bottom before working each book individually. She leans on dictation because she orally processes and on a meticulous folder because names are her kryptonite. Big caveat: this only works because it’s a proven, profitable pen name, and she wouldn’t recommend it to a newer writer. 17:42 – StoryCypher Check-In: Open Submissions and Beta-Reader Feedback Rachel describes her Academy’s open-submission sessions, including a live track-changes edit that solved a student’s problem by deleting two sentences. It opens a bigger point: take beta feedback in the aggregate, don’t spin out on one comment, and beware writer friends who diagnose the problem instead of reporting their experience. Give beta readers specific questions or “you don’t want them to tell you what they think, don’t open that can.” 29:22 – Sutton and Cope: The Everyday Woman and the Layered Alpha Dana frames Sutton as an everyday woman you want to protect, not a pity party, and praises how Cowles wrote Cope so you almost forget he’s a rich hockey star. Her craft note: if you can’t have a real emotional moment with your own story, you won’t get it on the page. Cowles gave Cope a wound as deep as Sutton’s, so their showing up for each other never feels like a free pass. 44:37 – Opposites on Another Level: Why This Isn’t Grumpy-Sunshine Rachel points out this isn’t the grumpy-sunshine dynamic of Knox and Naomi. Sutton and Cope share a bad habit, caretaking while keeping people at arm’s length, anchored in different wounds. Dana’s theory: as a book three, it earns leeway for atypical, outlier leads. Both land on the real lesson: tropes look samey, but love interests hold enormous variety. “You change one detail, you change everything.” 50:46 – Michael Hauge and Seeing the Essence Dana lands the episode’s richest idea through Michael Hauge: your couple sees the essence of the other person. Sutton sees through Cope’s coping without knowing the cause, and being seen without being called out creates the safety to eventually unload the wound. She’s careful to note Sutton can’t heal Cope, she can navigate him toward the conversation that frees him. 54:45 – Luca as Catalyst, Not Set Dressing Both hosts stress Luca is structurally essential, since Sutton wouldn’t be near hockey without him, and praise the age Cowles chose: independent enough to challenge his mom and carry both the one-liners and the wisdom. He also keeps the story out of the lazy miscommunication trap and, as Dana puts it, gets Sutton “Jedi-mind-tricked into taking care of herself.” 1:00:41 – Family Dynamics and the Specificity of Memory Rachel argues romances are a great place to study believable family dynamics, funny, snarky, annoying, lovable, not saccharine, built from specific mannerisms. She extends it to memory: a vague memory tells us nothing, but a specific one the hot dog down a stranger’s shirt reveals character. Dana adds the essential layer: what meaning did the character make of it? Backstory is the residue of the moment that changed who they are, not clever information to drip in. 1:11:01 – The Mic Drop: Freeing Characters From Their Jails Dana closes on the writer’s job: drip the transformation, don’t dump it, because nobody changes overnight. Do the extra work to build the undercurrent beneath each moment. What you’re really doing is freeing these characters from their mental, or situational, jails so they can become whole enough to love and be loved fully. Book Selection: Title: Broken Harbor Author: Catherine Cowles Since the moment our lives fell apart, the only thing that mattered was making a good life for my son. A life where he was happy and safe. I just never expected to find that safety with a hockey player known for his brutal dominance on the ice and his recklessness off it. But Cope Colson is so much more. The gentle way he makes sure we’re okay. The playful care he shows my son. The way he truly sees me. When my life comes apart yet again, it’s Cope picking up the pieces. Now, we’re living in his house, eating his incredible, chef-worthy meals, and it’s not just my son who’s falling. It’s me. Because when Cope touches me, I lose all sense. I’m no longer thinking about staying safe, I’m thinking about how my skin ignites with every glance, how I come undone with the barest brush of his fingertips, and when we give into temptation…I’m lost. But Cope has secrets and so do I. And when the forces from our pasts emerge from the shadows, there’s nothing they won’t do to end our happiness once and for all… Where to Find the Book Broken Harbor by Catherine Cowles 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 share their editor's takeaways from Broken Harbor, the braid, the four-act structure, conflict buckets, and suspense without sacrificing romance, plus a sneak preview of next month'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

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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

Information

  • Creator
    Story Deep Dive
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    94
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Dana Pittman & Rachel Arsenault
  • Show Website
    Story Deep Dive Podcast