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