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The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent Vol 4 by Yuka Tachibana and Fujiazuki

Hey all, Sam here.

We have reached another Monday, and that means it’s time to talk about manga some more. It just seems like a fun way to get the week started. And I think it’s going to be a really fun week. I know I don’t have a whole lot of plans, but I am planning to have a reading marathon this weekend.

It has been tradition for David and I to go visit his grandparents in the Hocking Hills area in Ohio every Memorial Day weekend, but we won’t be able to do that this year. One of my favorite things about this long weekend tradition was that there was a small-town festival going on, so there was awesome food and drink just a couple blocks away, but even more than that, the phone and internet signal there is pretty terrible. I actually really loved completely disconnecting for a few days. Without the distraction of social media, I was able to read quite a bit, and it was really relaxing.

So…my plan for this weekend, May 26-29, I am going to only turn on my TV so I can listen to music, and I am only going to jump on social media to do quick little update posts. Otherwise, I’m just going to read, and see how much I can accomplish. Of course, that also means that I need to get my blog posts prepped up, so I won’t have those to distract from my reading.

I have a decent selection of reading options, both books that have already been published and some digital ARCs from NetGalley. I’m hoping to be able to complete a bunch of books, so next week’s check-in should be a good one.

All right, let’s go ahead and jump into today’s Manga Monday review post.

Sei thought she was summoned to another world completely by accident — a bystander, a leftover, and most certainly not the Holy Saint of legends. After a short struggle, she’d finally found a happy place for herself as a potionmaker and enchanter. But thanks to her literally miraculous powers, no one can deny that Sei really is the mystical savior the world’s been waiting for. Now there’s a whole new struggle, first to hone her powers underneath the boyishly handsome Grand Magus Drewes, and then to navigate the political consequences of her saintly power. What will become of the lovestruck prince who foolishly backed Sei’s rival Aira, or the poor girl herself, after failing to live up to everyone’s expectations?

My Thoughts

Rating: 5 stars

This volume spends a lot of time with Sei basically getting used to a new reality in this magical world. Now that it is clear that she is the Saint, she has a whole bunch of lessons she needs to take. Because she needs to hone her magic better, under the tutelage of Grand Magus Drewes, who was mostly missing from previous volumes…due to how strained he was from the Saint Summoning Ritual.

Speaking of the summoning, this volume also gives us a chapter following Aira, the other girl who was summoned, and we find out that things have not exactly been easy for her either, even though she was presumed to be the true Saint based on the declarations of Prince Kyle. I feel like this chapter was almost like one of those backdoor pilots in an existing show to try and get a spin-off green lit. And you know what? This works out for me in this story and world. I’ll be reviewing the first volume of Aira’s spin-off in July, after I’ve caught up with the volumes I’ve read of Sei’s story.

I was glad to see Aira and Sei get to interact a little bit, because they have been kept so separated up until this point. I think they could be friends, and I also rather enjoy the friendship growing between Sei and Elizabeth.

And while it seems like most of Sei’s absolutely minimal affection is aimed towards Commander Hawke, it is also very clear that several of the men in this world who have interacted with our sweet Saint Sei are in love with her.

This story is still cute, and I still fly through the volumes, but I feel like it needs to have a little more action. And I’m not saying like duels or fighting scenes or anything like that. But it does seem like a lot of the story has been just Sei at the Research Institute making potions, or Sei taking lessons or receiving training. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good lore drop, but I also want us (and Sei) to see more of this magical world that is her home now.

Hopefully we get more of that soon. Then again, maybe there’s more in the Light Novels for the series. I should try and read those sometime soon-ish.

Well, that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.

Book Review: Bite Me by Donaya Haymond

Hey all, Sam here.

We are home from our little weekend Ren Faire getaway…and we are still pretty tired. I had a dumb moment while we were gathering everything together that we needed to pitch our tent at the available campsites, I forgot to pack our blankets…so we had the sheets for the air mattress, but no blankets. And it got pretty chilly overnight, so much so that we were shivering all night and didn’t really get much sleep.

But overall we had a pretty nice time, and we’ll get back to our usual schedule of posts starting tomorrow. And…I’m still planning on doing basically an all weekend reading marathon for Memorial Day Weekend, because I’m used to mostly unplugging and doing a lot of reading while mostly disconnected from all the distractions of the internet. I’ll probably post a bunch of progress photo updates on my Instagram (@SamRushingBooks), so be sure to follow me there May 26-May 29 as I try to read a whole bunch of books.

Anyway, let’s go ahead and jump into today’s post, a review of the second book in the Legends of Laconia USA series by Donaya Haymond. Oh…and I guess I should say that there are some minor spoilers in the book summary for the first book.

It’s hard enough for Dianne to be fifteen and obviously to love her parents, even worse when there’s something weird about them no one quite understands. Her father being a vampire and her mother being a werewolf is a simple fact of life. More worrisome are Mom and Dad getting sick for unknown reasons, the effect an accidental display of power is having on her social life, and the possibility that the boy next door thinks she’s a freak. Matthew seems to like her, yet there’s something off about him. Dr. Nat Silver, a vampire with several medical degrees, may provide some answers. For the most part Dianne feels it’s her wit and devotion versus a world more cruel than any supernatural being could ever be.

My Thoughts

Rating: 4.5 stars (nostalgia rating 5 stars)

At its heart, Halloween Romance, was a romance, as the title suggests. A staple of romance books is that the couple ends up in a happily ever after (or at least a happily for now). So obviously Ferdinand and Selene ended up together….and this book takes place years later, following their daughter. That is all clear in the book’s summary.

What I won’t talk about in this review is that there is an encounter/scenario/series of scenes in this chapter that talk about a pretty big event from the first book…and so I absolutely suggest that anyone read Halloween Romance before picking up Bite Me. Although, again, I’ll point out that Eternal Press shut down and so these books are sadly out-of-print, which means finding a copy is a little bit difficult.

But I still want to talk about these books, because they were so important to me in my earlier years as a reader. Not my earliest years, because I have been a serious fan of books since I was a toddler, but still in that high school/college age where I was really figuring out the types of books I enjoyed.

Plus, this book introduces us readers to Dr. Nat Silver, and I adore Nat. I have such fond memories of the character development and arc for this character, although obviously I won’t talk about that here. But this is where we are introduced to another vampiric character, and this one also has some fun quirks to him, that are fun and endearing and adorable. Plus he helps Ferdinand and Selene and Dianne through some stuff, and is able to answer some questions for them.

Oh, this book also introduces us to Dianne’s neighbor/friend Taylor, who will be the protagonist for the third book in the series, a book that basically takes place at the same time as this one, so there is some nice inter-connectivity within the series.

Ferdinand and Selene are still great characters, and this second installment does a great job of introducing Dianne and Matthew and Nat and Taylor, all of whom will be big characters through the rest of the books.

Again, this book is around 130 pages, so it is a pretty quick read and I did fly through it. But it is also enjoyable. Dianne is still in high school and is trying to figure herself out, and so we have that teenage drama to make the story feel more intense and dramatic. This makes it stand out on its own, while also having some of the elements of paranormal creature interactions and such that were introduced with the first book.

Even all these years later, I still very much love reading these books. I’m glad I have the ability to reread the whole series. Honestly, I might keep doing some nostalgia reads, while also reading (and re-reading) books by friends, as well as self-pubbed and indie press authors. I say nostalgia reads because I really want to re-read the Animorphs series, and I’m also feeling like I want to re-read the Stravaganza series.

Well, that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.

David’s Game Review: Infamous.

Hey all, David here.

We’re at the Renaissance Faire at Sleepy Hollow in Des Moines, Iowa, this weekend, so apologies for the short post. We’ll talk about our time at the Faire for the next WIP Wednesday.

Summary: The story follows Cole after he wakes in the aftermath of an explosion. He doesn’t remember a thing and the city gets put under quarantine after a disease begins to break through the populace. Cole tries and his friends needs to survive all this along with gangs and the police. Your choices determine whether or not you are a hero or become a villain.

Review: 4.5

A good start to this game though it sort of tosses you into important moral decisions almost right away. I did find myself changing a few of the controller settings right off the bat.

The story thus far has been full of combat  from a third person point of view. I decided to play through as a hero which honestly first choice did not seem to be very heroic, but i did make the right choice lol.

The citizens start to treat you a bit different based on the choices as well, though most treat you like crap at first because they blame you for the goings on in the city.

You start to meet people who run things behind the scenes and they start helping you get out of the city and or repair some of the damage that has been done to different aspects of people’s lives affected.

I like some of the abilities I would be getting if I was choosing a darker path but I chose to go good guy this time around. I think it will be an easy finish and it is a game I plan to finish.

—–

That’s all from me for today. Thanks so much for stopping by and we’ll be back with another post tomorrow!

Weekend Writer: Save the Cat! Writes a Novel Chapters Four and Five by Jessica Brody

Hey all, Sam here.

It’s amazing how much better you can feel after two really great days in a row, two days that were a soothing balm for your mental health. I’m of course talking about the fact that we got together with friends and played our first session of Pathfinder 2E on Wednesday evening…and then everyone apparently had such a good time that they woke up on Thursday asking if we could play again late that night after everyone was off work, and we said yes. So two days in a row of sitting around a table, rolling some dice, and enjoying a chaotic and shenanigan filled fantasy adventure. It was the first time in MONTHS that we had been able to do that…and it felt WONDERFUL.

For the past couple of years I told the people who I thought were my friends that sitting at the table with them and playing D&D was beneficial to my mental health and that it helped me feel better and more centered…so obviously when they voted to kick David and I out of the group at the beginning of this year, after the group being on hiatus for several months, my mental health took a dive. It’s why I’ve spent the past few months struggling and feeling extremely depressed.

It feels so incredible to have a gaming group again, and even with only a few hours at the table with all of our characters, I already love our adventuring party so much, and am very excited to find out what will happen next. But…I’ll talk more about it in our next WIP Wednesday.

For today, hello, and welcome back to Weekend Writer, a weekly series where I talk about creative writing. The first Friday of each month, I use a bunch of idea generators to create prompts, which I use to give myself a mini writing project for the month. These prompts are available for anyone to use; it doesn’t matter if you are a novelist, a short story writer, a screenwriter, a poet, an artist, whatever…if the prompts inspire you to create something, then that’s awesome. And for the final Friday of the month, I like to share a snippet of something I’ve been writing over the month. Usually this includes some writing based on whichever prompt I selected for myself for the month, but sometimes also includes a different creative project I’ve been working on. If anyone else participates in these monthly writing prompts, I encourage them to share their projects as well, either in a comment, in their own blog posts, or on social media (I’m @SamRushingBooks on Twitter and Instagram).

All of the other Fridays of the month, the focus is on a creative writing topic. This could be a writing panel, a creative writing article or blog post or video, or most of the time, a book focused on the craft of writing. For most books, I try and split it up enough so I can do a deep dive through the sections and chapters without making the posts too long.

Our current bookish deep dive is focused on Save the Cat! Writes a Novel: The Last Book on Novel Writing You’ll Ever Need by Jessica Brody, which is based on the books by Blake Snyder. The original books by Snyder had a focus on screenwriting, and Brody realized that the points could be refocused to cover novel writing as well…and here we are. Today the focus is on Chapters Four and Five, which began our breakdown of the Save the Cat! Genre Beats.

So…I don’t want to waste any more time here in the intro. Let’s go ahead and dive on in.

SAVE THE CAT!® by Blake Snyder is a popular screenwriting book series and storytelling methodology used by screenwriters, directors, and studio execs across Hollywood. Now, for the first time ever, bestselling author and writing teacher, Jessica Brody, takes the beloved Save the Cat! plotting principals and applies them to the craft of novel writing in this exciting new “workshop style” guide, featuring over 20 full beat sheets from popular novels throughout time.

Whether you’re writing your first novel or your seventeenth, Save the Cat! breaks down plot in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step method so you can write stories that resonate! This book can help you with any of the following:

Outlining a new novel
Revising an existing novel
Breaking out of the dreaded “writer’s block”
Fixing a “broken” novel
Reviewing a completed novel
Fleshing out/test driving a new idea to see if it “has legs”
Implementing feedback from agents and/or editors
Helping give constructive feedback to other writers

But above all else, SAVE THE CAT! WRITES A NOVEL will help you better understand the fundamentals and mechanics of plot, character transformation, and what makes a story work!

Chapter Four: Whydunit- Detectives, Deception, and the Dark Side

First up is the Whydunit, which primarily covers books in the mystery genre. Now I’ll be honest, I don’t really read a lot of mystery–I prefer to watch it–and I also don’t write books that are primarily mystery. I might write fantasy with a mystery/puzzle to solve but it’s a subplot, not the main focus. So while I was able to learn some stuff from this chapter, it doesn’t make me want to decide to write a complete genre flip or anything.

As with all the previous chapters, this one opens with a spoiler tag for books that Brody will talk about throughout the chapter. Again, I still find myself happy that this is included. It’s just nice.

Brody says that we turn to mysteries to find out more about ourselves and to find out more about the dark side of ourselves. The whodunit of mysteries isn’t what makes the story compelling.

It’s the why, not the who.

Why would someone commit such atrocities?

And what does that say about who we are as humans?

These are the two questions at the heart of the Save the Cat! story genre called the Whydunit.

page 86-87

These types of stories, whether a classic murder mystery or a detective mystery, they share a common core: a crime that has been committed and a dark secret at the heart of it all. As a writer, it then is our job in these types of stories to keep the reader engaged and to keep them guessing. Because while yes, there need to be twists and turns for the person trying to solve the mystery within the story, it’s the reader who you really need to surprise and it’s the reader who will be changed by what they learn in the book.

If you think your novel fits into the Whydunit category, you’ll need three key ingredients to ensure its success: (1) a detective, (2) a secret, and (3) a dark turn.

page 87

First up: the detective. Mind you, this doesn’t mean someone who is professionally a detective or private investigator. They could be an amateur sleuth. Brody points out that two things need to be true about your “detective”: they have to be wholly unprepared for what they’re getting into, and they have to have a reason for getting dragged into this. Basically, even if your detective character has professionally solved hundreds of crimes, they should still not be prepared for what comes their way in your story. It has to show them something new, or else, what was the point of the story.

The second ingredient is a secret. As you the writer start revealing more things and the detective character keeps discovering things, the main secret will finally be revealed. Unlike the skeleton of the mystery which asks who and why, the secret is the what and the where and the when. The secret will start off small and get bigger and bigger. As the secret grows, so too does the detective’s drive to solve the case.

This leads to the third ingredient: the dark turn, which is that moment when the hero breaks the rules or abandons the rules in order to pursue the mystery or the person who instigated the mystery. Brody says the basic point for this part is to show how this search for the secret or the truth has affected them, and how it will transform them.

There is another element that can be found in the Whydunit, although it is not a requirement, and that is the case within a case, or the detective investigating one mystery only to find that it is linked to another one.

In the end, Brody states that the detective, the secret, and the dark turn all serve the purpose to show us something about the dark side of human nature.

On page 91 we are given a list of popular Whydunit novels. And on pages 92-102, Brody gives us our very own beat sheet breakdown of a novel. For this chapter it is The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. So…the beats we covered in Chapter Two, all 15 of them…we get to see the novel’s plot broken down beat by beat, which gives us a nice example of how the details are all laid out to create a compelling narrative.

Chapter Five: Rites of Passage- When Life Gets in the Way

Another chapter that opens with a spoiler tag for the books mentioned/spoiled in the chapter. This particular chapter focused on a common story theme, which is basically the hero growing and changing, aka the Rites of Passage.

Death, puberty, separation, midlife crisis, adolescence. These are the roadblocks of life that stop us in our path and force us to reexamine who we are as human beings. They’re also the building blocks of an incredible story that will resonate with readers because, hey, we’ve all been there. We’ve all been kicked in the butt by life at some point or other. We’ve all experienced some kind of “life problem” that required us to grow and change in order to overcome it.

page 103

This type of story is so common because we’ve all had life dump all sorts of things on us that we have to work our way through, things that cause us to change and hopefully to grow. Or, I guess, to actually grow, but it’s a question of if that growth is positive or negative. That doesn’t mean that the story needs to be all doom and gloom, because there are light-hearted and comedic tales that fit this story theme as well.

Much like with the last chapter, this one gives us three essential ingredients to a successful Rites of Passage story: (1) a life problem, (2) a wrong way to attack the problem, and (3) a solution of the problem that involves accepting a truth the hero has been avoiding.

Let’s break that down a bit.

Brody says that all great stories involve some sort of Act I problem that includes a wrong way to take care of it in Act II, and solving the problem in Act III that comes with accepting some truth that had been avoided before. What makes the Rites of Passage unique is that the initial problems arise from just being alive.

That life problem is unavoidable because it is simply a part of life, a part of being human. But you don’t actually have to be a teenager to experience growing up. There are plenty of stories with characters in their 20s or 30s who are having to adapt and grow up in some ways. Or, there are stories with a middle-aged protagonist who goes through some big life change and it again forces them to grow up.

Let’s remember that is also a common thing to have heroes who try to fix things the wrong way at first. This is where the second necessary ingredient comes in to play. This shows that the hero is actually resistant to change, but it also gives the story a purpose and a path forward. Because if the hero just accepted the changes humbly and moved forward then what would be the point of the story?

In the end though, Rites of Passage stories are about acceptance, which is the third ingredient for a successful growing up story. Because life isn’t going to change, so the hero had better change instead. Brody says that ultimately, when the hero accepts the change, they realize something about themselves, and in turn, that makes the reader realize something about themselves as well.

As with the Whydunit chapter, here is where we get loads of examples. On page 106, Brody includes a list of popular Rites of Passage novels. And from page 107-117, we are treated to the 15 story theme beat breakdown for The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

These beat breakdowns are fascinating, and I really enjoy having these extensive examples to show off how to use the 15 story beats we read about a few chapters earlier. It’s one thing to hear about what each beat means and what it’s supposed to do. It’s another thing entirely to see it in practice using popular novels in each story genre.

I’m really enjoying this book, and am finding this information very handy. I hope you all are enjoying these breakdowns as well.

Well, that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.

Book Review: Halloween Romance by Donaya Haymond

Hey all, Sam here.

Have you ever had those times where you miss a certain book you remember loving from many years before and you just want to revisit it? Or you find yourself missing a friend and so you want to do something that reminds you of them and lets you remember the good times?

Well, I was starting to feel quite a bit of that recently…so I looked at my bookshelves and decided that I have a few friends who are published authors (whether small press or self-pubbed) and I should probably get around to talking about my friends and their stuff more. And I have quite a few of their books,……and I’m pretty sure I haven’t talked about a lot of them here on the blog…and I want to support my friends more.

I don’t have a huge following online, but I want to use the following I do have and my voice to promote my friends and speak up about things that are important to me.

Selene believes Ferdinand would abandon her if he knew she was a werewolf, something that isn’t supposed to exist. Ferdinand hides his vampirism from her for the same reasons, and must also hide from a world that thinks he’s evil. He’s just a melancholy English major who had a serious misadventure last summer. She’s just a college student with a bizarre family history. A comedy of secrets and a romance of accepting what makes us different.

My Thoughts

Rating: 4 stars (nostalgia rating is 5 stars)

It’s funny because Goodreads only has me listed as having read this book in 2010 and just now in 2023. But I read this book back when it was on fictionpress back in like 2004, and then it was published by Eternal Press in 2009. Sadly EP closed up shop, and so now you actually can’t get this series anymore. Which is a shame, because I adore the Legends of Laconia USA series.

Originally written when Donaya was like 13, I found them when I was about 16, and there was something so interesting and charming about this romance between a werewolf and a vampire. The characters felt so mature to me then. Now I read this and can look back on my memories fondly, but I can also see points where the characters feel like they could have more depth and more expression

This book is short, only like 130 pages in total, so it is pretty quick and easy to read. I still love Selene and Ferdy (sorry, I can’t call him Andy like Selene does…plus the fandom holds strong. So many of us called him Ferdy back in the day), but I think looking back on these books after having gone to college and having experienced romance in something outside of fiction and having lived a bit more…the whole story feels a bit diminished, a bit less.

I still love these books and this story, and I still enjoy Donaya’s writing (although I’ve also loved seeing her writing grow and develop over the years), but this is very obviously her first book. There’s nothing wrong with that. All of us who are writers have that first book that we look at with fondness, remembering the feelings that went into finishing it and editing and all of that. But I know when I look back on my old writing, I also have this itch to improve on the weak areas….and it makes me wonder if Donaya has ever thought about circling back to this series.

Because, see, this was originally written as a twelve-book series, following four sets of families in Laconia. The first five books were published by Eternal Press, and there were plans to edit and adapt some of the later plot lines to bring them all together and wrap the series with a sixth book. Sadly it never made it to publication.

I think vampires are starting to swing back into focus. I’m seeing more witch and werewolf and vampire books circulating around again…and now might be a great time to bring back Selene and Ferdinand (and all of the later characters who I won’t mention here because that would possibly be spoilery).

There were still plenty of moments when I laughed or cried or gasped in reaction to what was happening on the page. I love when stories can evoke those kinds of responses. There’s something so wonderful about Selene and Ferdinand’s relationship, and maybe medium stakes for the story, so not quite a cozy paranormal, but still mostly nice and cute.

And, like I said, this is a short book. I think it only took me an hour to read…which is way better than those fictionpress days when there was that awful wait in between chapter releases. Wow, those were the days. Some stories would update daily or a few times a week, and we all acted like that wait was agonizingly long. We were so spoiled. I sometimes miss the community there, and the feedback when posting chapters.

I’d love to see what Donaya’s experience over the last decade+ would mean for building upon this story and these characters and this world. It would be awesome to revisit this tale with even more depth and detail and awesome bonuses. ….Maybe I’ll have to send her a message, check in with her, and see if she’s been doing any writing.

It feels weird to talk about and review a book that is difficult to snag a copy of. There might be some thrift store copies out there somewhere, maybe. But since the publisher shut down they are out of print, and honestly I don’t even know if Donaya got the rights back to the books. If she has the rights, maybe she could do a re-release, even if just digitally. Who knows what will happen?

Well, that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.

WIP Wednesday – May 17

Hey all, Sam and David here today.

It’s the middle of the week once again. We don’t have a whole lot to talk about, at least not compared to last week, but since we have cool plans for this weekend, next week will probably have more to talk about.

Each week we like to do this weekly check-in, talking about everything we’ve been reading, watching, playing, and doing since our last check-in. Doing this helps us keep track of everything we do, which can be useful when the days and weeks start to blur together.

Anyway, we have some stuff do to this evening, some pretty fun plans, and so we’re going to leave this intro fairly short.

Sam

In some ways it was a slow week. In other ways, I guess it wasn’t too bad. Let’s get started.

Reading: Halloween Romance by Donaya Haymond, Bite Me by Donaya Haymond, and Waking Echoes by Donaya Haymond.

Yes, these are all re-reads for me. I actually read these back in the days of fictionpress, long before they were picked up by a small-press publisher. In the early to late 2000’s, there were 12 stories in the series, and 5 of them ended up being published, with plans to rearrange and condense some of the later stories to wrap-up the series in book 6, but book 6 never made it to print.

Donaya and I have long been internet friends, and have never managed to meet up IRL. Currently she lives in Thailand, so it’s unlikely that we’ll get to meet anytime soon, but I still hope to someday meet my cool long-standing author friend.

Revisiting these stories has been a wonderful trip down memory lane…and I look forward to reading the rest of the series…because I have the unpublished edition of book 6 sitting in my Google Docs. Perks of being a longtime fan and friend, I guess. I don’t think I ever reviewed these on the blog, though, so I’ll probably do that soon-ish.

Watching: “The Marvelous Mrs Maisel” Season 5 (in progress), “Arrow” Season 7 and Season 8 (in progress), “The Flash” Season 5 and Season 6 (in progress), “Critical Role” Campaign 3, oh–and last week I watched “Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story” but forgot to mention it, plus “A League of Their Own,” “Easy A,” and “The Legend of Vox Machina” Season 1 (rewatch in progress).

Writing: I felt a desire to write an important backstory scene for my upcoming Pathfinder character (not the one mentioned in yesterday’s Tabletop Tuesday. This is someone different) but from outside her perspective, because I had the feeling that there were some things she simply wouldn’t admit to…and the writing process has also helped to flesh out her home village, which helps David out with the worldbuilding for our campaign, so that’s fun. I haven’t written much, just a few hundred words, but it’s pretty interesting so far, and I can’t wait to see what secrets she’s holding in so deep that she won’t even write them down in her own journal. Writing from a third person perspective gives me the freedom to see the full story, whereas a first person point of view will always hold a certain amount of bias.

Someday, this story will be released to the world. If we do things right then this Pathfinder campaign will be a podcast, and we’ll hopefully set up a Patreon, and little interviews and bonus content will be a perk for subscribers, and this story will be one of those bonus releases…after some things have been revealed in-game, of course. Don’t want to spoil the listeners or anything.

I need to work more on Roll for Romance‘s in-game story, and do more editing for the Project Death books. I need someone to hold me accountable for that, goodness. Somebody please yell at me on Twitter/Instagram @SamRushingBooks to remind me to keep to my personal deadlines.

Other: Still doing quite a bit of 3D printing. We’re going to help a friend out at a local summer market, held one Thursday a month here in town, and he’s graciously allowing David to set up some of his 3D creatures for sale as well. It should be a pretty fun time. The first one is June 8th, so we’re trying to prepare for that.

Oh, and I started trying to play “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” on my Switch. I say trying because I’m not very good at it overall. I’ve actually only completed the first four shrines and finally been allowed to leave the starting area of the Great Plateau. I guess I’ve only died like 5 or 6 times though, so I guess I might not be as bad as I think. I don’t play games quickly. I might play for an hour or two and then set the game aside and not pick it up again for weeks, so I have no idea how things are going to go.

Oh, oh, and this weekend David and I are going to a local Renaissance Faire…the Renaissance Faire at Sleepy Hollow. They have a one weekend Spring Fling event, and then have another two weekends in the fall. So, it’s nothing like we’re used to with the Ohio Renaissance Festival, which runs for eight weeks straight, but since we didn’t manage to go to any Ren Faire last year, this will be really fun. And we scored a camping spot for the night, so we actually get to pitch our tent at the faire grounds…and they have a Renaissance After Dark event on Saturday, which is obviously for adults only and doesn’t allow photos/videos because the shows and stuff apparently can be a bit risque. I don’t know what to expect, but it should be a memorable experience at the very least.

David

Okay so a lot of little things have kept me from doing a whole bunch of stuff, but I have managed to make some progress in areas of geekdom. Work has me doing all my 4 10 hour days in a row so my first day off is to recuperate, the second to try fixing printers and maybe game a bit, and the third to just game since I probably was not able to figure out the printers again.

Gaming: So my entire gaming time has been absorbed by The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. This may or may not be a bit spoilery, but the first thing I wanna say about that is Ganon is a hot boy lol. For reals though I am enjoying the new game and I have not really gotten caught in any glitches yet and am just trying to get used to the buttons again.

I am enjoying the abilities setup in this one as well, like a lot of other gamers I love sticking things to other things and just building stuff as well. Having a map that goes both above and below the surface is pretty cool as well. Sam enjoys a good laugh when I have cursed loudly because I fell off of something, usually to my death.

Printing: The printing has slowed to a crawl as I am having a different difficulty with each printer that is not running and I am unable to pinpoint the exact cause. I have heat creep with Alphonse, Melinda does not want to heat up and stay heated up once the print begins, Haweye and Printicus are having issues with adhesion.

Percy has been the only one behaving since I slowed down the print and lowered the temperature. That is the only one going right now so printing all this cool stuff is been slowed to a crawl exponentially.

I have been taking time to game and play Pathfinder 2e in order to stave off the frustration of dealing with these printers. I wish I knew someone locally who has more experience with them that could help me out because sometimes its hard to understand what some of the folks online are saying to try.

Well, that is all from us for today. Thank you so much for stopping by. Feel free to let us know what you’ve been up to recently in the comments, and we’ll be back soon with more geeky content.

Tabletop Tuesday: Pathfinder 2ECharacter Creation

Hey all, Sam and David here.

Okay, so we had purchased the Pathfinder Second Edition Core Rulebook at Gen Con a couple years ago, when it had come out of playtesting and was available in hardcover. But it just sat on our shelves, waiting for us to pick it up and try it out, ever since. The group we had been playing with seemed perfectly happy with playing D&D 5E. There’s nothing wrong with 5E, but we generally like to explore other systems as well.

At the beginning of the year, there was that whole OGL debacle with Wizards of the Coast and people were flocking to other gaming systems…like PF2E. And Sam decided that it was a good time to pick up the Beginner Box. This was also the time that our D&D group (the ones perfectly happy with D&D 5E) decided they didn’t want to play with us anymore and kicked us out of the group.

We’ve been wanting to try out the Beginner Box and review it ever since…and we’ve finally managed to figure out our schedules enough with a few new friends to be able to play. And we’ll be doing our first session tomorrow.

So…we figured we would spread out our thoughts on Pathfinder 2E (PF2E) over a few different posts. Last week we all got together to make out characters, so today we’re going to focus on that. Let’s go ahead and get started.

Take the first step into an amazing world of fantasy adventure!The Pathfinder Beginner Box contains everything you need to learn how to play the Pathfinder Roleplaying GameWill you be a courageous fighter, charging headfirst into battle, or a sly rogue, moving quietly to strike at foes from the shadows?Maybe you will be a knowledgeable wizard, wielding incredible arcane spells or a wise and pious cleric, using the power of your deity to shape the world for the better. It is all up to you!The Pathfinder Beginner Box includes an 80-page Hero’s Handbook, including rules for character generation, a solo adventure, skills, spells, and equipment.A 96-page Game Master’s Handbook, containing an introductory adventure, over 20 pages of monsters, rules for building your own adventure, and magic items.Character Creation

Okay, the Beginner Box does include four pre-built characters: a fighter, a wizard, a rogue, and a cleric. And honestly, the sheets in the Beginner Box are pretty cool, but they’re also simplified from the actual 2E sheets. They have included the pre-built character sheets as well as a few blank ones, and the game instructions actually recommend sitting down and building a character, even if you choose to play with the pre-built ones. That way you have more of an understanding about how the sheet is set up and how to do everything.

Being that all of us have played TTRPGs before, including Pathfinder 1E, we decided to build our own characters anyway…using the character sheets we purchased and printed from Paizo’s web site. While the Beginner Box sheet is only a couple pages long, the actual sheet can be 8 pages long, depending on which pages you actually need.

And since we are playing with the full character sheets, and we have access to most of the books, David–our Game Master (GM) said that we could use any official rules to build our characters, which gave us all A LOT of options.

For example Tundra has decided to play a Swashbuckler, so he only needed the first four pages (two if you print front and back), because he didn’t have a need for the spellcasting pages or the pages for companion/familiar or formulas.

But for Winter and Sam, they both chose spellcasting classes that have a familiar or companion, so they need all eight sheets (four if you print front and back). Winter decided on a Witch, and Sam is playing a Druid. —What’s really fun about that is Sam’s first Pathfinder 1E character was a Druid with a companion animal too, but this one is very different.

For the moment we’re using the names Winter and Tundra for our friends. They are still deciding if they want to go by their actual names or pseudonyms online, and we respect whatever decision they make. So, we’ll let you know what names they choose, when they choose them.

Anyway, there are so many options with Pathfinder, both 1E and 2E, which makes it a bit more involved to create your character. Between all the ancestry and heritage options, the classes, and of course all of the different feats….making a unique character can be fun, even if it’s a little time consuming.

What is also really nice about Pathfinder is that pretty much all of the information is online for free. Paizo regularly shares places for you to get the information, places like Archives of Nethys. But, especially these past few months, We’ve also noticed that Paizo frequently shares 3rd party creators when they have cool ancestries or backgrounds or classes or adventures, things that aren’t official, but are really cool. We love that they seem to support other creators who use their system and world, and that’s really dope.

Overall, after deciding on ancestry and class, it didn’t take long to fill in most of the information. Both David and Sam have PF2E apps on our phones that show you what options are available for you at the level you’re creating the character, so it makes it way easier to get through all the options.

Ancestries are what was previously known as races, and honestly I like the name change because race never seemed fully appropriate. After you choose your ancestry (Human, Elf, Dwarf, etc) then you choose your Heritage, which is the specific type of folk within your ancestry–so this is where you can choose Human and then choose Half-Elf or Aasimar or Tiefling, or you can choose Elf and then choose High Elf or Wood Elf.

Your Ancestry and Heritage can determine some of your starting details, like hit points, speed, ability boosts (and flaws), size, and languages, as well as a special ability feature or feat that you start with.

Your class choice also influences your hit points, so you add your ancestry HP and your class HP plus your Constitution modifier, and that’s your HP at first level. Honestly, we like that this means you aren’t starting as a level 1 Wizard with only 7 HP. Most of the random characters we’ve built for fun end up having something like 12-20 HP at level 1, which feels pretty epic. Your class also determines your starting proficiencies with your saving throws, weapons and armor, perception, and skills.

You also choose a background—and there are a LOT of options here–but your background also gives you ability boosts, some skill proficiencies, and usually a feat or other feature. Honestly, that feels like it makes it way more relevant than the background options in D&D 5E.

From there you can choose the rest of your ability boosts—-which, by the way, how you handle ability boosts and flaws is pretty interesting if you go by the standard build, the skills that were granted from your class and background, and then your starting equipment. If you’re a spellcaster, then you’ll also need to fill out your spells…which can get a little more complicated because of how Pathfinder runs prepared spellcasters.

Okay, more details on ability boosts and flaws. If you’re going with the standard ability set up, everything starts with a +0 modifier (AKA score is 10). Each ability boost gives you a +2 to the score, which equals a +1 to the modifier…until you reach 18 as a score and then a boost only does +1 to the score. Likewise an ability flaw means a -2 to the score, which is a -1 to the modifier. A majority of the ancestries give three boosts and one flaw, although there are exceptions, like human which only gives two boosts. You can also choose the alternate score option for the ancestry, which is two boosts and no flaws.

Obviously, your GM could decide to roll a stat array, or to have you roll for stats to make things a little more varied, but starting everything at 10 (+0) makes the characters feel like they’re going to be going on the epic hero path, and that’s something we kind of like. We might change things up with future campaigns and such, but overall it’s pretty cool.

But, overall, what makes character creation so complex is the sheer amount of options you have. And as you level up, you’ll get even more ancestry feats, skill feats, class feats, and general feats…so there are so many opportunities to diversify your character. We’re really looking forward to seeing what happens with our little party.

For the breakdown on our party for this Beginner Box adventure we have…

Tundra playing P.Q. Swarthington, a Ratfolk Swashbuckler

Winter playing Kiriko, a Kitsune Witch accompanied by Asa, her fox familiar

Sam playing Verdant “Verdy” Sun Drinker, a Leshy Druid accompanied by Pango, her pangolin companion

We might also be occasionally joined by another friend, who has built an Orc Fighter, but that depends on his schedule.

After we get through this Beginner Box adventure, we’re thinking of continuing on with the Troubles in Otari mini adventures. But it should be noted that David plans to alter some of the adventure details, because he wants to set it all in his homebrew world that we’ll eventually be running a big campaign in. If all goes well then we’ll be podcasting that big homebrew campaign…and we’ll be sure to give you all the details once we get it all worked out.

Well, that’s all from us for today. Let us know if you’d like a rundown of our first session for next week’s Tabletop Tuesday, because we’d be glad to talk about it! We’d also be happy to talk more about our characters, too! So let us know what you want to hear more about. Thank you so much for stopping by, and we’ll be back soon with more geeky content.

Manga Review: The Savior’s Book Cafe Story in Another World Vol 3 by Kyouka Izumi, Oumiya, and Reiko Sakurada

Hey all, Sam here.

Welcome back to Manga Monday, which means it is time to review another volume of a manga I’ve been reading. I still have an okay stockpile of volumes to talk about from various series, since I read them pretty quickly…but I should probably start thinking about picking up a few more to read in the near future, especially since a few of them I’ve been reading (including the ones I tried out for Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon) have more volumes out that I haven’t snagged yet.

Like today’s manga…Volume 5 comes out tomorrow, so if I get it, then I’ll have two more reviews before I need to switch to another series.

Actually, there’s a lot I would like to read, whether that is manga or novels or light novels or graphic novels. So, I’m really hoping that my reading weekend that I have planned for May 26-May 29th will be productive. There are so many incredible stories coming out, stories that I want to read and adventures that I want to go on. And I’m very much looking forward to reviewing all of these stories in the future.

Let’s get started.

FRIEND OR FOE?!

After being transported to another world by an orb that calls itself “God,” Tsukina used her newfound magical powers to open up a cozy book café. Now that she’s settled in, she’s started dating Il, a handsome soldier. However, Tsukina can’t relax just yet. Othel’s powerful neighboring countries are making some suspicious moves, and as tensions rise, a new savior arrives at the castle. Is he there to help the kingdom, or is he a new enemy for Tsukina to worry about?

My Thoughts

Rating: 5 stars

This easily could have just been a two volume series, with Tsukina opening her book cafe and then being the reluctant savior who stopped the other savior from destroying the kingdom, and finding a cute romance along the way. But, honestly, I’m glad it continued past that point. But obviously with there being a major arc ending, it becomes a question on whether or not there will be a smooth transition to a new story.

And I think this volume did a pretty good job with that. We start to see more and learn more about the neighboring countries of this world, even though their portrayals could have been handled a little better.

I think the relationship between Tsukina and Il is cute, but it feels like it’s moving so quickly, and part of that is because we’re not actually following them in their day-to-day lives. Sometimes we skip weeks or so in between scenes, and so we’re probably missing all sorts of interaction that really builds up their relationship and bonds them together. I mean, it’s obvious to me that they are a good match, and the scenes we do see make their compatibility clear, but I also would really like to see their developing romance even more.

What I think is really interesting about the transition to this story is that the character known as God brings another Savior to this area of the world, after Tsukina took care of the last one, who was unstable. This new Savior is male and he seems very nice and eager…but he also seems like he misinterprets the fact that Tsukina is simply being polite around him and others.

This leads to another potential Savior issue…because this new Savior does not seem like he’ll take the truth well…aka he’ll see it as a rejection. So this is a love triangle gone wrong, basically. Tsukina is obviously in love with Il, but Youta could easily become another Savior who Tsukina will have to deal with in order to protect her life and happiness in her book cafe and with her new home.

I don’t know. This is still just a really cute series. I wish there was more activity at the book cafe. I’d just love to see a whole bunch of oddball visitors coming to the cafe and being helped by Tsukina, but despite the book cafe being in the title of the series, it is a minor background focus.

I guess we’ll see if we get more guests to the book cafe as the series continues.

Well, that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.

Weekend Writer: Save the Cat! Writes a Novel: Chapter Three: Not Your Mother’s Genres – Ten Genres to Fit Any Story (Yes, Even Yours) by Jessica Brody

Hey all, Sam here.

It is Mother’s Day here in the US, so if you’re someone who celebrates, then I hope you have a lovely day honoring the mothers in your life. And if you don’t celebrate Mother’s Day, then I hope you are having a very nice Sunday.

Welcome back to another Weekend Writer post. Yes, I realize that this makes three Weekend Writer posts in a row, but honestly I am finding these to be very enjoyable and educational. Yes, the Weekend Writer series is the one that I spend the most time prepping and drafting, but it also feels the most rewarding. It really reminds me of college a bit, having assigned chapters to read and having discussions on the topics discussed in each reading section.

I might have some of these Weekend Writer posts cover discussions that don’t come from a book on writing craft. I attend writer workshop panels at Gen Con and try and take lots of notes. And there are several authors out there who have writing podcasts, or lessons or lectures that are available online. Like Neil Gaiman has a MasterClass series, or Brandon Sanderson has a number of lectures available on his YouTube. I might delve into some of those in future installments, perhaps in between books or something.

Anyway, I hope you all are finding these posts useful as well, and let’s go ahead and dive into Chapter 3. I promise it won’t be as long as the Chapter 2 posts.

SAVE THE CAT!® by Blake Snyder is a popular screenwriting book series and storytelling methodology used by screenwriters, directors, and studio execs across Hollywood. Now, for the first time ever, bestselling author and writing teacher, Jessica Brody, takes the beloved Save the Cat! plotting principals and applies them to the craft of novel writing in this exciting new “workshop style” guide, featuring over 20 full beat sheets from popular novels throughout time.

Whether you’re writing your first novel or your seventeenth, Save the Cat! breaks down plot in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step method so you can write stories that resonate! This book can help you with any of the following:

Outlining a new novel
Revising an existing novel
Breaking out of the dreaded “writer’s block”
Fixing a “broken” novel
Reviewing a completed novel
Fleshing out/test driving a new idea to see if it “has legs”
Implementing feedback from agents and/or editors
Helping give constructive feedback to other writers

But above all else, SAVE THE CAT! WRITES A NOVEL will help you better understand the fundamentals and mechanics of plot, character transformation, and what makes a story work!

Chapter Three: Not Your Mother’s Genres – Ten Genres to Fit Any Story (Yes, Even Yours)

This should come as no surprise: if you want to write a good story, you have to know what good stories are made of. Along the same lines, if you want to write a successful novel, you have to read successful novels. You have to study how they work, what makes them successful, why they resonate with so many people. You have to break them down, peek inside, and study their inner mechanics, the way a medical student would study the inner workings of the human body.

How do the pieces fit together?

Why does this part go there?

How are certain stories similar and how are they different?

In short, the first step to being a successful writer is being a reader.

page 79

This is basically advice I’ve heard many times before. The best writers are also readers. So many say to read from a number of sources and genres. Some actually say to avoid reading within your genre, while others say it is good to know what sells within your genre. But most say that if you want to write, you need to read. I think this can expand out to other story-focused mediums as well. Watch TV and anime and movies. Go see plays and musicals. Play video games (but specifically ones that have a story to them and aren’t purely PvP or something). If it has characters and a plot and dialogue…you can learn about story from them, if you care to pay attention.

And we’re all aware of sorting these stories into genres like fantasy or historical or horror or action or mystery or romance…but this chapter doesn’t look at those genres. Those are categories of tone, so a tone genre. This chapter looks at categories of story itself. So what kind of story are you setting out to tell? What type of transformation does your hero undergo? What central theme or question does your novel set out to tackle?

Brody says that these questions are far more useful while developing our novels, and they are the kind of questions that the Save the Cat! story genres were designed to answer.

The best news…there’s only ten of these genres in total, and each has its own design and formula to it. These are the things that make each of the stories within each genre work.

As human beings, we are hardwired to respond to certain types of storytelling elements. And when they are strung together in the right order, these stories make our hearts sing, our souls cry out, our inner humanity vibrate like a tuning fork. If we study the elements of each story genre, and the patterns that make those elements successful, we can easily see why the novels in each genre are successful. And why these elements and patterns appear over and over again, in novels as old as The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer and as new as Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (which, by the way, are in the same story genre).

page 80-81

Chapter Three is pretty much an introduction chapter, giving us an idea of what we’re going to delve into next within this book. This chapter introduces the idea of these story genres, and lists them out very simply for us. But it is Chapter 4-Chapter 13 that breaks down one Save the Cat! story genre per chapter.

But here’s the quick overview (found on pages 81-82):

Whydunit – a mystery must be solved by the hero during which something shocking is revealed about the dark side of human nature.

Rites of Passage – a hero must endure pain and torment brought about by life’s common challenges.

Institutionalized – a hero enters or is already entrenched inside a certain group, and must make a choice to join, escape, or destroy it.

Superhero – an extraordinary hero finds themselves in an ordinary world and must come to terms with being special or destined for greatness

Dude with a Problem – an innocent ordinary hero suddenly finds themselves in the midst of extraordinary circumstances and must rise to the challenge

Fool Triumphant – an underestimated underdog hero is pitted against some kind of “establishment” and proves a hidden worth to society.

Buddy Love – a hero is transformed by meeting someone else, including (but not limited to) love stories, friendship stories, and pet stories.

Out of the Bottle – an ordinary hero is temporarily “touched by magic,” usually involving a wish fulfilled or a curse bestowed, and the hero learns an important lesson about appreciating and making the most of “reality.”

Golden Fleece – a hero (or group) goes on a “road trip” of some type, in search of one thing and winds up discovering something else–themselves.

Monster in the House – a hero (or group) must overcome some kind of monster, in some kind of enclosed setting, and someone is usually responsible for bringing the monster into being.

Have you ever heard someone say there’s no such thing as an original story? Well, as you’ll see throughout the next ten chapters, it’s true. Original is not an achievable goal in novel-writing. So just throw that word out the window right now.

What is achievable is fresh.

page 82

Basically, what is your personal spin on the story that is something that has been told over and over again. When I look at romances, I see so many stories with the ordinary girl and the super rich kind-of-a-jerk boss man, and how there’s just one person who can break through his shell…the ordinary girl. And yet, as common as those stories are, they still have their own unique spark. Sure the basics are pretty much the same, but there is something about the story, whether that is the portrayal of the couple, or the side characters, or the writing, that stands out as its own thing, that feels fresh and different.

Brody says that what readers want is basically the same thing, but a little different. We want something we know we’ll like, but told in a way that makes it feel different.

Brody then goes on to compare writing a novel to baking a cake. When baking a cake, you know you’ll need butter, eggs, flour, and sugar (most of the time—there are some interesting recipes from wartime history that don’t use these things because of rationing and all that), and these elements are put together in the same way…but if you add an extra dash of flavoring (like vanilla or chocolate or spice or whatever) and then decorate it differently, then sure it’s a cake like all the other cakes out there, but it doesn’t taste the same as all the other cakes out there. It’s fresh.

Studying your story genre can help you not only structure your own story but also break free from writing and plotting blockages.

page 83

When you’re stuck on a certain point in your story, you can pull out these genre breakdowns and then find stories (whether that is a book or a movie) and start studying them. By seeing how other people handle the elements that are causing you to stumble, you can be inspired with ideas on how to handle the issue yourself.

Plus, knowing what your story is about, it’s theme and genre and arc, can help with pitching your novel to agents, editors, publishers, and producers. You’ll want to be able to sum up your story quickly, and giving comps is an effective way to do that.

But also be aware that novels are complex things, and it is possible for a story to exhibit and inhabit a couple of these genres. We can sit around and debate which one the story best fits in all day, but in the end, we need to realize that genres are simply there to help us focus our story and aid us in including the proper story elements.

And when you get around to pitching, you’ll want to lead with the genre that your story is most like, even when it might technically fit in a few different areas. Much like the fact that you might have multiple protagonists or POV characters, but you’ll need to figure out which one is your main focus, your hero, you might have your story fit several genres and you’ll need to sort out which one is the primary identifier for your story.

Basically find the genre that feels the most right to you and keep that one at the front of your mind while you’re writing, even knowing that it can and possibly will change through the writing process. You just need to figure out what genres are going to make your story work.

As Brody says, that is why you picked up this book, right?

Yes, I very much did pick this book up so I could learn from it and figure out how to make my writing and creating skills even better…and after just a few chapters, I am happy to say that this book is definitely giving me things to think about, and it is presenting the information in a way that makes it very easy to read. I love that this feels like I’m just hanging out with some writer friends and talking about the craft of writing.

Well, that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content. Manga Monday is tomorrow!

Weekend Writer: Save the Cat! Writes a Novel: Chapter Two – The Save the Cat! Beat Sheet aka The End of All Your Plotting Problems (Part Two) by Jessica Brody

Hey all, Sam here.

It’s a weekend of focusing on creative writing…and you know what? I’m totally okay with that. Sure, I had loosely planned to post up some book reviews, but I’m feeling very inspired to talk about creative writing, and so it’s just going to be three days straight of Weekend Writer. Next week I can make sure I get at least a couple reviews written up and scheduled.

And I’m thinking I might do a little weekend readathon for myself in a couple weeks. It has been my routine these past few years to spend Memorial Day weekend reading a bunch of books, eating some good food, and mostly disconnecting from the internet. Normally that is because we are spending the weekend with David’s grandparents in the Hocking Hills area of Ohio (where the phone and internet signal is not super great). We can’t make it back there this year, which is really sad, but I can still try and disconnect myself from the internet and focus on some book reading. So, look for random posts on my Instagram (@SamRushingBooks) May 26-May 29th, and we’ll see if I can improve even more on my Goodreads Reading Challenge.

For now though, now I should probably jump back into Chapter Two of our current writing craft book, because I only covered like 20 of the 57 pages yesterday. So let’s get back to it.

SAVE THE CAT!® by Blake Snyder is a popular screenwriting book series and storytelling methodology used by screenwriters, directors, and studio execs across Hollywood. Now, for the first time ever, bestselling author and writing teacher, Jessica Brody, takes the beloved Save the Cat! plotting principals and applies them to the craft of novel writing in this exciting new “workshop style” guide, featuring over 20 full beat sheets from popular novels throughout time.

Whether you’re writing your first novel or your seventeenth, Save the Cat! breaks down plot in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step method so you can write stories that resonate! This book can help you with any of the following:

Outlining a new novel
Revising an existing novel
Breaking out of the dreaded “writer’s block”
Fixing a “broken” novel
Reviewing a completed novel
Fleshing out/test driving a new idea to see if it “has legs”
Implementing feedback from agents and/or editors
Helping give constructive feedback to other writers

But above all else, SAVE THE CAT! WRITES A NOVEL will help you better understand the fundamentals and mechanics of plot, character transformation, and what makes a story work!

Chapter Two: The Save the Cat! Beat Sheet aka The End of All Your Plotting Problems

Okay, when we left off last, we had just finished talking about the beats of Act One. If you missed yesterday’s post, you can find it here.

Act Two

Brody says there’s something very important that we all need to know when it comes to the difference between Act One and Act Two…Act Two is the complete opposite. Brody states that she has seen many a wonderful book fall apart in Act Two because the author forgot to build this crucial element into the story, making Act Two as different as possible from Act One.

6. Break Into 2

This beat brings the hero into the upside-down world that is Act Two, and the hero will try to fix things, but they’ll do it the wrong way. And this story beat should happen around the 20% mark, and Brody states that this moment, this break between Acts should happen definitively and clearly by the time you are a quarter of the way through your novel.

It’s important to note that heroes don’t have to physically go anywhere in order to Break Into 2. But they do have to try something new. A new relationship, a new way of approaching life, a new job, a new persona at school. Regardless of whether your hero goes on a literal journey or a metaphorical one, the Break Into 2 is the moment when we leave the old world and old way of thinking behind and step into a new world and new way of thinking. It’s a single-scene beat. You get one scene or chapter to break your hero into Act 2. That’s it. So make it a good, effective break.

page 41

Even though you’ve set your hero up in Act One to be flawed, this is where we give the reader something worth reading about, where we show that there is something in the hero that is worth rooting for. But your hero still doesn’t know how to fix their life. Here in Act Two, the hero is still motivated by what they want, still not acknowledging that what they want isn’t what they need.

So that is why Act Two is all about fixing things the wrong way. But hey, at least they’re trying to solve the problem, right? Of course they don’t have all the information yet. The hero is still fueled by the external story elements. These are things that we want to see, because stories shouldn’t be all themes and life lessons. There should be some fun to it, which will be covered in a couple beats, but we have to talk about the B story, which is next.

7. B Story

This beat introduces the character who will represent the B story/theme and then help the hero learn it. And this usually happens right after the Break Into 2, but could technically come earlier. Just make sure that it happens in the first 25% of the book.

Now, the characters introduced as the A Story don’t have to disappear with the introduction of the B Story characters, but they will take a bit of a backseat to these newer characters.

Our B story characters are helper characters, who are meant to help the hero learn the theme. Most of the time this B Story character will be a love interest, a new friend, a mentor, or a nemesis. The two important details for a good B Story character is that they must in some way represent the world of Act Two and they must in some way guide the hero toward their life lesson or theme.

The reason this character needs to happen in Act Two is because the hero can’t learn their lesson and complete their lesson in Act One. They need to start their transformative journey. While the B Story character is introduced in a single-scene beat, they will appear throughout Act Two and possibly into Act Three as well.

And of course, you can introduce many characters in Act Two, but there will only be one who plays the special role of being the B Story character.

8. Fun and Games

This huge multi-scene beat delivers on the promise of the premise of the novel and shows how the hero is faring in the world of Act Two. This beat spans from 20%-50% of your novel.

Brody says that this section is probably the reason why readers picked up the story in the first place.

The key to figuring out the Fun and Games beat is realizing that this part of the story might be fun only for the reader. Not necessarily for the hero.

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Because the Fun and Games section doesn’t necessarily mean that it is fun, but it should be entertaining. The Fun and Games section of The Hunger Games is the Tributes in the arena and hunting and killing each other. Reading about that struggle in the arena is captivating and engaging.

The Fun and Games beat is where your hero either shines in their new world or they flounder in it. Those are the only options. The hero is either loving what is going on or they are hating it.

While the Fun and Games shouldn’t be all struggle or all success, it should have varying action and varying moments of ups and downs. This is what Brody calls the bouncing ball narrative. The hero is up and then the hero is down. They succeed and then they fail. This is how you make this section of the story fun and engaging.

However, regardless of how many ups and downs there are, overall there should be a general path you’re following, either heading on an upward path towards success or a downward path towards failure.

The general direction of your Fun and Games is a critical decision to be made as you structure your novel. Because as you’ll soon see, whichever path you choose for this beat–upward or downward–will ultimately define not only the next beat (the Midpoint) but the rest of the second act.

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9. Midpoint

Marking the middle of the novel, this beat is either a false defeat or a false victory while also raising the stakes for the story. And obviously, since this is the midpoint, it should happen at the 50% mark.

The Midpoint is magic. It’s the pivot point in the story. The nail in the wall on which all other beats hang. It is precisely the center of the hero’s transformative arc, and we must use that to our advantage and make the middle as dynamic and exciting as possible.

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For the most part, the Midpoint is a single-scene beat where the hero experiences a false victory or a false defeat, the stakes of the story are raised, and the A Story and B Story intersect in some way.

This is the culmination of the hero’s trajectory during the Fun and Games portion. If they were mostly succeeding and thriving, then they’ll experience a false victory. It is false because the story isn’t over yet, and your hero hasn’t actually learned the theme yet.

Or if they were really struggling in the Fun and Games bit, then they’ll reach a real low point and experience a false defeat. The hero might think that their life is over because they haven’t gotten what they want, this thing they thought would fix things. But obviously there’s more for them to learn and do.

From page 53 to page 55, Brody shows off several different ways to raise the stakes with your story, featuring various general themes of story. The examples given show the shift from wants to needs for the hero.

Basically the Midpoint changes things for the hero, and it changes the trajectory of the story. Much like the Catalyst, the Midpoint makes it so the hero can’t go back to where they were before this.

10. Bad Guys Close In

This next beat provides a place for the hero to rebound after the Midpoint, while their flaws close in a bit more. And this multi-scene beat takes us from 50% to 75% of your novel.

Overall Act Two is a beast of a section, because it takes up more than half of your novel. Brody says that if done right, then this beat could be some of the most exciting pages of your book. This beat is named after the sequence in an action movie where the bad guys regroup after failing to enact their plan in the midpoint and then come back with more guys, more weapons, and more organized.

If the Midpoint was a false victory, then this segment should be a downward path towards the next beat, so things get worse and worse for your hero. Or if it was a false defeat then things are getting better and your hero is improving and conquering obstacles. No matter what path they’re on, make sure to throw in more of those bouncing balls to keep things lively.

11. All is Lost

Here we go, rock bottom with this beat, illustrating the lowest moment of the story. This should take place around 75% in your novel.

At this point your hero has seemingly lost everything that’s important to them and they can’t see the true path. Basically you need to drop them so low that they have no other option but to change.

Whatever it is, it’s BIG. Even bigger than the Catalyst! It seems insurmountable. Your hero must be worse off than they were at the start of the book.

All really does seem lost.

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Don’t be afraid to really do awful things to your hero. Kill people, break people up, whatever. Your All is Lost moment has to be big.

Basically something has to end here. This is where the old world/character/way of thinking ends so that the new can be born. But whatever happens, it should at least in some way, be your hero’s fault. This is what makes them learn their lesson and reflect on the choices they’ve made that led to this moment.

12. Dark Night of the Soul

Welcome to the beat that shows how the hero reacts to the All is Lost, which leads them to figuring out a resolution, and this should take from 75% to 80%.

Your hero should wallow here. They sit around or walk around and just generally feel hopeless and sorry for themselves. Of course, some heroes get angry at this point, or slip into denial. Each hero will react based on who they are as a person. Where the All is Lost is a single-scene beat, happening quickly, but this beat is where what happened starts to seep in.

This is the darkness before the dawn. The final clues fall into place and revelations and epiphanies come to light.

What will your hero do now?

This is the only beat where you can let your hero move backwards instead of forwards. If it is possible, then take your hero back to where they started. Because when you’re wallowing, you just want to be somewhere familiar and reassuring. But returning to what is familiar also shines a light on how much the hero has changed from their journey, and even being somewhere that should be familiar just makes them feel out of place.

This is where they realize that there’s something they need to fix, to change about themselves and their situation.

Act Three

Here we are at the final act, which should be a fusion of the world from Act One and the world from Act Two.

“Who the hero was in Act 1 + What they’ve learned in Act 2 = Who they will become in Act 3”

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Here is where relationships are mended, and the A Story and B Story meet again, but this is where the stories become one. It’s the combining of all the elements from the previous acts to create a act that will resonate with the readers.

13. Break Into 3

This beat brings the hero into the world of Act Three where they can finally fix things in the right way, and it should be around the 80% mark.

Break Into 3 is literally a breakthrough. No more shortcuts or cheats. No avoiding bigger issues. Your hero has lost everything and now they know what they have to do to fix things in the right way.

The Break Into 3 almost always includes the following realization for the hero: It was never them who had to change; it was always me.

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Here the hero realizes that they are flawed and that they can fix their flaws. It is a single-scene beat that will guide your hero and the readers into the final act.

14. Finale

Welcome to resolving the problems that were created in Act Two and prove that the hero has learned the theme, learned the lesson, and they have been transformed by their journey. This beat takes up the 80%-99% portion of your novel.

While the hero has realized what they have to do, this multi-scene beat is them actually doing it. Here, on pages 68-71, Brody breaks down the Five-Point Finale. If you want the full details, pick up this book yourself. I’m just going to do a listing of the points.

Gathering the TeamExecuting the PlanThe High Tower SurpriseDig Deep DownThe Execution of the New Plan

Is the Five-Point Finale necessary? No, but Brody recommends at least giving it a try at least once. These points will help you focus your story and bring it towards a rewarding conclusion.

15. Final Image

This final beat is a mirror to the first, and it gives a snapshot of your hero and their life to showcase how much they’ve changed from this journey, and it should be the final scene or chapter of your book, taking up the 99%-100% of your novel.

How far has your hero come? What have they learned from their journey? How much have they grown and changed? What does their life look like now? How did they transform?

In the end, that is what all great stories do. They reprogram heroes. They transform human beings. And the beat sheet is essentially your reprogramming manual. It shows you which wires to cut, which code to alter, and in what order.

Pretty cool, huh?

But wait! Do the beats have to come in the exact same order that I outlined in this chapter?

Not necessarily.

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This will be covered a little bit in future chapters, but the main point is that all the beats are there in pretty much every single great story ever told.

Well, that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.