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Save the Cat! Story Course and Cards

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Oh no! The cat is in trouble and it’s up to YOU to save her! If you’re a fiction author like I am, then you know that it’s your job to put your protagonist into perilous situations and then help them find a way out of that mess. One tool you can use to make your novel look like an actual story is to use story beats. One of the best methods to get those beats down is to use the Save the Cat model. I was invited to review the Save the Cat! beat and scene cards, as well as the online course, as part of their latest Save the Cat! Blog Tour.

I’ve reviewed the book Save the Cat! Writes a Novel previously, but today I’m going to talk about the Save the Cat! online class and the Save the Cat! beat and scene cards.

I had written nine novels (or novellas) before I had ever heard of story beats. I wrote the first two books in high school (don’t remember the full details of those stories), but I think I got lucky with the next seven stories I wrote. If you’ve read books or watched movies before, you’re probably familiar with story structure, even if you’ve never used it before. Story structure probably was used even as far back as cavemen around the campfire. If you want your story to shine, then using the Save the Cat! beats as a guideline will probably make your books stand out.

When I started my tenth (still unfinished) novel, I ran into some problems. I knew where I wanted my story to go, yet it kind of ran off the rails. This is probably why this story is… still unfinished. I love the main characters, but not having clearly defined story beats when I started the story caused the middle to turn into an unfocused mess.

If you want to enhance your storytelling skills, Save the Cat! might be able to help. Some of the tools you might be interested in are Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, Save the Cat! beat and scene cards, and the Save the Cat! online course. I’m reviewing the last two today.

Save the Cat! Beat and Scene Cards

The Save the Cat! Beat and Scene cards are adorable! These can help you focus on what you want to write about in each beat. They’re big enough to make plans, but not so big that you’re going to outline EVERYTHING.

I probably should add more to the beat card above, because I know what the final image is going to look like, and I want it to mirror, in many ways, the final image. With my unfinished 10th novel, which I wrote for NaNoWriMo in 2019, I could definitely put some more thought into what I want the opening image to look like, as well as the final image. I’m already using these cards to plan my NaNoWriMo novel for this November, so hopefully it won’t run off the rails.

You probably have heard before that every scene should move the story along. The Save the Cat! Scene cards can help you make sure that each scene should be there, and that there’s some conflict in each scene. They come in different colors. You could use them for different books or different acts.

Sure, you could probably use regular notecards for these, but these cards already have everything you need in here. It’s easy to plan your story with these, because everything is already laid out for you.

Save the Cat! Online Class

The Save the Cat! Online Course outlines a lot of what you’ll find in Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, in an easily digestible video course. You can go through the course at your own pace, working on your own story ideas. The class starts out nearly opposite to how many writers create their stories: create a title and logline to your story first. A lot of times, writers will write the story, then try to figure out the title and logline. And then when they try to write the synopsis when they get around to querying, they have difficulty. Using Save the Cat! will help you write a story that works, rather than one you have difficulty querying when it’s done.

The Save the Cat! class works in conjunction with the book. If you have the book, great! The chapters you’re assigned as homework will reinforce what you’re learning when you watch the video. If you don’t have the book, you won’t be able to do that part of the homework, but don’t worry. You’ll still be able to put together all your story beats.

The online class is designed with screenplay writing, not novel writing, in mind, but the same story beats that work well in movies work well with novels too.

Does Save the Cat! Work for Pantsers?

A lot of people like to sit down at their keyboard with a blank screen and just write whatever comes to them. These are commonly known as “Pantsers.” Can you use Save the Cat! if you’re one of these people?

Yes! Well… probably. We all have different writing methods, but Save the Cat! can probably work for you. There are a couple ways this course can work for you: 1) If you’re a pantser and know about story beats, you will have a “milestone” that your characters can work towards, or 2) You may want to use these beats to help edit a book–especially if the story’s all over the place.

Whether you’re looking to fix a story that’s gone off the rails (like my still-untitled NaNo19 novel), trying to improve an already good story, or trying to create a story from the ground up, Save the Cat! can probably save you a lot of pain and suffering. It’s worth checking out.

The full Save the Cat! Blog Tour information is below:

Save the Cat Blog Tour

Chain of Iron

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment
Chain of Iron

I finished Chain of Iron an hour or so ago.

So… I just have to review it. Considering it’s March 3rd, the book released yesterday (although I got it Monday evening), the book is 688 pages, I’ve had work duties for the past couple of days, and I’m already 5 books behind in my Goodreads reading challenge, I suppose you can guess that it was a book I couldn’t put down. In fact, I stayed up until 3 AM two nights in a row to read it.

But… wow. That ending.

This review assumes you’ve already read Chain of Gold (click the link for my review of that book).

Lucie is on the cover of Chain of Iron, but this book spends a great deal of time on James and Cordelia. Which I love, because they’re my favorite couple in this series. The book begins right before their wedding. And after that… everything falls apart.

There’s a killer on the loose again, and James is having dreams about the murders. Elias, Cordelia’s dad, returns, but he’s still drinking. Matthew’s still drinking–if you’ve read “Cast Long Shadows” from Ghosts of the Shadow Market, then you know why he started drinking, although Matthew does tell someone what happens during the course of this book. Lucie and Grace are working together, trying to resurrect Jesse.

It’s hard to say too much without giving away spoilers. But… we have some of our suspicions (if you have them) confirmed about Grace, some of the relationships in the Shadowhunter’s Found Family tree are foreshadowed, Belial makes a comeback, and Lucie turns out to be a little more conniving and interesting than she was in Chain of Gold. Grace and Alastair are shown to be… sympathetic characters? Chain of Iron doesn’t excuse their actions, but it does give reasons as to why they behaved the way they did. Maybe they’ll even be redeemed in the last book?

And then there’s the elephant in the room. The ending. It’s not as bad as the ending to that one Shadowhunter book where a major character is literally stabbed to death in (I think) the last chapter, but it comes close to it. If you don’t like cliffhangers–wait to read this one. There isn’t a major death at the very end, but there is a–misunderstanding–that could easily be cleared up under normal circumstances, but Cassandra Clare literally throws every obstacle in the way so that it doesn’t, and now we have to wait a year to see it resolved.

That being said, I’m willing to bet that Chain of Thorns is going to be MONSTER sized (like pretty much all of her last books in trilogies are). There are so many things that have to be done in that book. Matthew’s secret is going to have to come out, all the characters that are supposed to get together and have kids in the Found Family Tree are going to have to find love together, and the epilogue will probably end up showing us how they live happily ever after. Clare has said that after The Last Hours, she’s going to write The Wicked Powers (which deals with the modern-day timeline) and that’s going to be it. Since this will be the end of our London timeline, I’m sure she won’t leave us with loose ends. I’m sure I’m going to ugly cry hard like the end of Clockwork Princess.

In a nutshell–amazing book, noooo!!!! ending because of the cliffhanger. I need Chain of Thorns ASAP. Chain of Iron will most certainly get a reread before next March.

The Ribbon Duet

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The Boy and his Ribbon cover

The Boy & His Ribbon has been on my radar for a couple years. I finally drew its name in the TBR lottery, and–this duology may just be one of the best books I’ll read in 2021. It’s still early in the year, but this book had all. The. Feels.

The blurb doesn’t give away much; however, I think that to get an idea of what you’re getting yourself into with this book, you’ll want to at least know what happens by the second or third chapter. From the blurb, I imagined The Boy & His Ribbon was a story about a boy who had been sold, and he fell in love with his owner’s daughter while he was still “their property.” Nope.

The Girl & Her Ren

This story begins with the boy running away from the people that bought him. With the monsters’ baby daughter in his backpack, stowing away. Ren is ten years old, and he not only has to worry about surviving after escaping, but he also has to worry about taking care of an infant. He can’t take her back because they’ll kill him, he’s too kind to leave her to the wolves, and he’s too distrustful of people to leave her to Social Services.

And they fall in love. Not immediately, but as they grow up. Perhaps you’re thinking this is really weird–I mean, do you fall in love with someone who you grew up with that is almost like a cross between your dad and your sibling, even though you’re not technically related? This is addressed in the books. The Boy & His Ribbon is mostly about the first 18 or so years of their life together, watching this relationship evolve. The Girl & Her Ren is about the next 20ish years of their life.

A Tragedy

This duology is not a happy story; it is a tragedy. While A Boy & His Ribbon isn’t a tragedy, The Girl & Her Ren is, and you’re not going to want to read one without reading the other. This is why I’m reviewing them together. You don’t want to start reading the first book without being prepared for having your heart ripped out in the second. I don’t want to say too much about what exactly happens here (although I do plan on writing a second, spoilery post on my thoughts later), but I was weeping for almost the entire second half of the second book. But there were some beautiful parts to this love story as well.

This book is true-to-life, and sometimes life is heartbreaking. But even when life is heartbreaking, there are plenty of good times too. That is probably what makes this book so good and so painful in the end. It doesn’t paint life with a rosy brush and try to pretend everything is always wonderful.

Kind of Funny… An Anachronism

This book was published in 2018, but it runs into the future, ending in 2032. Of course, the characters go through 2020. Of course, there are no mentions of the pandemic. It could take you out of the story if you think too much about it, but if you see this as an alternate universe where the pandemic never happened, then the references to 2020 and no masks or lockdowns is a little comical.

Not A YA Book

Don’t look at the description and think this is a YA book. It is definitely not. Yes, the story starts out with a ten-year-old boy and a baby, but they grow up. Even in the first book. I wouldn’t recommend this to my fourteen-year-old.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for an adult book that will break your heart, you may wish to give The Ribbon Duet a try. It wasn’t what I expected, but it was sooo good. I think it was highly underrated. At the same time, the blurb really didn’t give enough information to give me a good idea of what it was about.

Make Up Break Up

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Make Up Break Up

I’m so excited because Make Up Break Up comes out this week! In case you didn’t know, Sandhya Menon has a pen name in order to write adult books: Lily Menon! Her first full-length adult romance Make Up Break Up, comes out on Tuesday. She also wrote the novella “Booked for Christmas” which was excellent. And there’s more to come!

Make Up Break Up is about two tech entrepreneurs: Annika, who created a computer program called Make Up, which has a premise of getting people back together, and Hudson, who created a program called Break Up, which helps people break up.

Obviously, they have two different philosophies on life. Their two businesses aren’t exactly compatible. As the story progresses, they will end up bumping into each other at work.

The only problem is–Hudson is hot. And Annika thinks he’s a complete jerk. Why does she have such a negative reaction to him? As you read the book, you’ll find out that they have met before.

I enjoyed how Ms. Menon slowly reveals the details of their story. I don’t want to give out too many details, but we eventually find out why they have such an animosity towards each other. I was so surprised at the final revelation. And of course, since this is a romance, there’s a happily ever after.

I did find Annika to be a little immature at the beginning of the story, considering she’s an adult, but some people are like that. Especially when they become emotional about something.

If you’re looking for a cute romance and the tech industry is your thing, I definitely recommend Make Up Break Up. It’s definitely an adult book, so I don’t recommend this to younger Sandhya Menon fans, but if you’ve loved her YA books and would like something a little steamier, you may enjoy this book.

Fireblood

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I recently read Fireblood by Elly Blake. It’s been nearly two years since I read the first book, Frostblood. I liked the story, but I wasn’t enamored with the book (probably because I listened to the audiobook and I didn’t care for the narrator). I read a physical copy of Fireblood so I wouldn’t have those problems.

Because this is the second book in a trilogy, there are probably spoilers for the first book. You can read my review for book 1 here.

Ruby is an anomaly at the frost court. If she didn’t have the favor of the king, Arcus–King Arkanus–she wouldn’t be there at all. Even so, she feels out of place. So when she gets the chance to see the fire kingdom, Sudesia, she takes it. Especially since the fire nation might be the key to destroying the Minax, which is now wreaking havoc in the countryside.

Of course, things aren’t quite as simple as Ruby would hope them to be. There’s trouble at home, Tempesia, there’s trouble in Sudesia, and–there may be a love triangle in this book.

I enjoyed this book and immediately added Nightblood to my TBR lottery. It’s hard to tell whether I liked this book better because I wasn’t listening to the audiobook or whether the book was better, but there was a lot going on in this book from start to finish. And now I want to find out how this ends–because while Ruby meets her goals for this book, there’s another difficulty that arises that she’ll need another book for.

Fireblood is an excellent sequel to Frostblood. It was well-written, had excitement throughout, and I cared about the main character, Ruby. I’m looking forward to reading the final book in the trilogy, Nightblood, although I’ll probably wait until I draw its number in the TBR lottery before I read it, since there’s so many other books I also want to read on that list.

A Sky Beyond the Storm

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The long wait for Sabaa Tahir’s A Sky Beyond the Storm has ended! If you enjoyed the other books in her An Ember in the Ashes series, then you don’t want to miss this finale. This is definitely one of my favorite books this year. Expect to see it on my top 10 list coming January 1st.

Because this review is of the fourth book in a tetralogy, it may contain spoilers from previous books.

At the beginning of this book, it seems like almost all is lost. Cities have been decimated, plus the Nightbringer received all the pieces of the star. Keris Veturius has outplayed the Blood Shrike at almost every turn. Laia found and then lost her mother again. And Elias has taken on the role of the Soul Catcher and seems to have discarded his humanity. Is all lost?

Laia is convinced she needs to take down the Nightbringer. The Blood Shrike feels she needs to protect her nephew, the new Emperor, at all costs. Much of this book covers their journeys. Since this is a book, it’s going to get worse before anything gets better. We also see the Soul Catcher and The Nightbringer as they go through their journeys. And one chapter from Keris’s point of view.

This book was so good. It wraps up the past with a beautiful red bow. All the prophecies we’ve seen will make sense. I did cry–for maybe the last 50 pages? But in the end, I was satisfying. It brought joy instead of the desire to throw my book across the room or write fix-it fanfiction. Yes, Ms. Tahir has taken us on a long journey and destroyed our favorite characters–but there is a Sky Beyond the Storm.

A Sky Beyond the Storm is full of lifelike characters. The villains aren’t just cookie-cutter evil people who give monologues–they have a past, hurts, and people that loved them. There are so many memorable quotes in here, I’m looking for the next Top Ten Tuesday where the topic is book quotes. I started writing in my book journal again, where I write down quotes, and I’m so glad I did this for this book.

This was one of the highlights in my reading year. In a year where I’ve been struggling to complete my Goodreads Reading Challenge, I finished this 500-page book in three days. If you’ve read the first three books in this series and loved them, I recommend finishing the series. If you haven’t started, now’s a good time to start.

If you’re interested in my other reviews in this series, they are here:

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

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The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

VE Schwab is one of those authors whom I own several books from, but I haven’t read many (before Addie LaRue, I had only read This Savage Song). The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is one of those books that you hear about long before you get the chance to read it. Ms. Schwab has been talking about this book on social media for a long time. It came out this week, and I highly recommend it.

What’s the Book About?

Addie was born in 1691 in the small village of Villon, France. She reminds me a lot of Belle from Beauty and the Beast, except instead of being a reader, she’s an artist. She wants more from life than that of a simple life being a wife and mother, never leaving her village, and dying without ever seeing or doing much else. The only trouble is, everyone expects her to carry out this role. This is how she finds herself in a wedding dress, being practically forced to marry someone she’s not in love with.

This is when she makes her “deal with the devil.” She asks to be free. Although she prayed and prayed and prayed to all the gods she can think of, the only one that answers is a god that answers after dark. She had been warned not to pray to them, but she’s out of options. He agrees to her deal, and she unwittingly agrees to a deal where she never dies or ages, but nobody ever remembers her.

Until one day–someone does remember her.

My Thoughts

This book is great. The story masterfully weaves the two timelines together: one that takes place in 2014, when she meets the man that remembers her, and the other starting in 1714, when she makes the deal with the devil. We learn about how she made the deal, how she survived, how she felt. Some things are hinted at, but we don’t learn the details of until well into the book. I didn’t find one timeline any more compelling than the other. They were both great.

As someone who enjoys history, I found it very interesting to see Addie live through three hundred years of it. Don’t worry, although the book is 448 pages, you don’t have to watch Addie live through all 300 years of her history; it only touches on the highlights. She lives through the French Revolution, World War II, and attends a speakeasy during the Roaring 20s. It’s not a history book, but you get to see a scene or two during these time periods, which I found interesting.

Addie as a person is great. She’s strong-willed like Belle, and I found her to be a likeable character. The man she meets in 2014 is also likeable, but does have some character development that he needs to work on. We do get to see that in the book, however.

This book made me cry because I missed my grandma, and call my mom. It must be difficult to live for so long and lose the people that are closest to you. In Addie’s case, since nobody could remember her, it was difficult to become close to anyone after she made her deal.

There’s a twist at the end which I’m not going to spoil. I don’t think it’s meant to be shocking–you see hints of what the twist is as the story progresses. As I read the very last section, I thought it was amazingly clever how the story was pieced together.

“Happiness is brief, and history is lasting, and in the end,” he says, “everyone wants to be remembered.”

The Invisible life of Addie LaRue (ARC), loc. 5257

Conclusion

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue was a great book, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up on my list of best books from 2020. Not only was it a very clever book, it kept me wanting to read more. Even though my reading has been way down this year, I’m super happy that I read this book. This is one of Ms. Schwab’s adult books, so I wouldn’t recommend it to her middle grade readers or her younger young adult readers, but if you’re 16 and up and looking for a story about time and what it’s like to go through a long life where nobody remembers you, I definitely recommend it.

The Opposite of Always

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Opposite of Always cover

Oh why can’t there be a book like Love and Basketball? A story which doesn’t revolve around black people’s pain and people live fairly normal lives? This is a question I’ve asked myself so many times. Not that there isn’t a place for those books too, but my biracial kids living in the suburbs really can’t relate. The Opposite of Always does have that vibe though (as does Conquest, which I read and have yet to review). I can’t tell you whether it has a happy ending or not (the ending actually surprised me) but it was a great book.

Jack King has a thing for one of his two best friends, Jillian. Until he meets Kate at a party. Which is a good thing, because Jillian is in love with his other best friend, Franny. Kate and Jake hit it off right away, but Kate is secretive. She gets sick and ends up dying (we later find out what it is; it just happens to be something my husband has, but I’ll refrain from saying what she has here). When Kate dies, Jack gets sucked back in time to the moment he met her, sitting on the stairs at a party.

It takes Jack several attempts to try to help Kate. Each time, he messes something up, but each time it’s in a different way. Each time, Kate ends up dying. Often, he messes something else up in his life. Eventually, Jack begins to wonder whether they belong together or not. I won’t tell you the ending, but he goes back one final time… and the story reaches a satisfying conclusion.

My Thoughts

I love Jack’s voice in this story. He seemed like a real person, and his friendship dilemmas seemed realistic as well. I wasn’t a huge fan of the Kate-Jack ship at first (I thought perhaps he should be with Jillian) but they kind of grew on me. The whole repeating time thing was great too. It’s not a unique concept, but The Opposite of Always brings a nice twist to the trope.

Conclusion

Do I recommend The Opposite of Always? Absolutely! I’m sure I’ll recommend it to my boy, although probably when he’s older: the relationship between Kate and Jack is pretty prominent, and Kate has the same thing my husband has. Although I don’t think it would scare my son (my dh is only mildly affected whereas Kate is in the hospital frequently), it might be something for him to read later (he’s 13). But if you’re looking for a story featuring time travel and black people living happy lives finding love and getting ready for college, this might be a book to add to your TBR.

P.S.: I just noticed that the Kindle version of this book is free to read for Amazon Prime members. I paid $1.99 for it (also not a bad price) but free is great too!

The Damned

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The Damned cover

I recently read Renée Ahdieh’s The Damned on audiobook. I always try to have one audiobook going, and when I saw this was available at my library, I was surprised.

The Damned is the second book in The Beautiful duology. This review contains spoilers, but you can read my review of The Beautiful instead, if you haven’t read the first book.

Celine has no memories of Sébastien Saint Germain, but she feels like something is wrong. Everyone tells her that Michael saved her from a brutal attack, and he’s been spending a lot of time with her. He’s interested in more than friendship with Celine, but she doesn’t really feel a passion for him. Should she settle?

Meanwhile, Sébastien is learning how to be a vampire, and we learn more secrets about him and the fey creatures he hangs around.

With the way The Beautiful ended, of course Celine and Sébastien meet up again. There are surprises in store for them, however. I was surprised at some of the things that were revealed in this book. I certainly did not expect this series to take the turn that it did. But I enjoyed it nevertheless.

While I enjoyed most of this book, I thought it ended quite abruptly. There were things revealed in this book that I thought should have been explored more thoroughly. I don’t think a third book is planned for this series, but it really should have one.

Update: It IS getting a third book so the ending is fine.

Conclusion

The Damned was a good continuation of The Beautiful duology; however, there were several twists that were introduced in this book that should have had further exploration. (Edit: It IS getting a third book!) I think this series should have been a trilogy. Otherwise, I did enjoy reading this book.

The Crow Rider

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The Crow Rider

I recently read The Crow Rider by Kalyn Josephson (thank you Netgalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the Advanced Reader Copy, sorry I’m late with this because–pandemic). It is the second book in The Storm Crow duology; as a result, there are spoilers. If you haven’t read the first book, you can read my review of The Storm Crow instead. This book wraps up the duology nicely.

Thia has left Illucia; the queen is dead-set on waging a war against her people and she needs allies. Meanwhile, she is also conflicted in her feelings about Ericen. Can he be trusted? Does she care about him?

The Crow Rider does an outstanding job of covering the emotions one might go through in a traumatic situation (or even a ::cough cough:: pandemic). Thia went through a deep depression in the last book; now, she’s dealing with feelings of inadequacy in the face of insurmountable odds. She’s not the only person in this book to deal with trauma. Even Res, the crow, goes through a period of difficulty. The villain’s past, and how she became the horrible person she turned out to be, is explained here (but not in an infodumpy type of way).

Another thing I loved about this book were the battle scenes. They were well-done and I could imagine them in my head. There were no guarantees either. In a couple places, I thought that perhaps all was lost.

The Crow Rider answers questions and adds new magical depth to the world. Where did the crow magic come from in the first place? Why can only certain people hatch eggs? If you’ve been wondering this and other questions, they’re answered here.

The only downside to this book that I can think of is that it has a huge cast. If you haven’t started the series yet, I would recommend you read The Storm Crow and The Crow Rider in a short time span. There were some characters I had forgotten about that get re-introduced later in the book and it was a little confusing. Ms. Josephson does do a good job at explaining who they are, but still–the cast seemed a little large.

Conclusion

If you liked The Storm Crow, I recommend you finish reading the duology with this great book. I don’t recommend The Crow Rider if you haven’t read the first book; a lot of things in this book are dependent on events from the first book. It captures emotion well, has a realistic teen protagonist, and wraps up everything nicely.