Because I freaking love Ally Carter's books. Gimme more Embassy Row, please!! My soul shattered when it ended. Also I really like the color scheme but shhhh I'm not a shallow reader.

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Usually, Ally Carter does a really good job at keeping her books cuss free. There was no bad language as far as I noticed; however, there were some instances when the main characters took the Lord's name in vain. The one thing that knocked this down half a star for me was a part where the main characters are lost in the woods and find a log cabin and it's so small they sleep with each other—which I could understand if it was survival driven—but I feel as if the instant was driven more by the romantic part of the story and not so much the survival part. That made me a little uncomfortable since they're teenagers and they aren't married. For gore, there was some blood, but nothing horrendous. I don't know, I actually have a medium tolerance for gore, so my opinion might be different from others. XD #raisedonLotR




I liked how Maddie was so wrongfully stuck on being angry towards Logan. I feel like that really drove her character, and as the tension built up, it gave her arc at the end a satisfying conclusion. Logan was okay too—he wasn't my favorite character, but he was pretty funny and I liked to see the two interact. I can't say that I even had a favorite character in this book. I had a hard time connecting with them. They were all pretty even in depth, but I was the most intrigued by Stefan and I wish his side of the story had been completed. The only thing that bugged me was how MEAN Maddie could be, but she felt remorse afterwards and honestly I think she was supposed to make me scream at her for how blind she's being, but oh well. Logan was just...a boy. I'll leave it at that. XD In short, I wasn't particularly attached to anyone.




I loved loved LOVED the opening scenes. Carter always does a superb job at drawing in the reader and that is why I love her books so much. This time, it was a little different because it depicts Logan and Maddie as younger versions of themselves and AWW THE FEELS they were adorable. The plot was actually pretty simple compared to what she's done in the past, but for a standalone, it was gripping and intense enough to help me fly through it in less than two days. It was kind of like Rogue One in between the Star Wars saga. The suspense had me on edge—not just the plot suspense, but also all the tension caused by those internal struggles going on. Also, the bridge scene was perfect. MMMmmmm I loved every part of that scene. Absolutely delicious. XD




Like I said, Carter's style is gripping and intense, perfect for constructing adventurous thrillers like this, while still adding the touches of romance to slow things down a bit and give the reader a break to breathe. Her writing isn't difficult to understand, and so that makes it really easy to slip into the action going on. Can we talk about her descriptions for a moment? UGH I love them so much. I've read the Embassy Row novels and Heist Society #1, and I'm almost done with Gallagher Girls and every. single. time she has blown me away with her descriptions! It's just so easy to imagine what she's describing, in both setting and action. Sometimes I have a hard time imagining what characters' actions look like, but I have never had that problem (that stands out horribly) with her books. This time she constructed a wintry wonderland of snow and ice and trees. I could almost feel how cold it was (probably because I was most likely freezing my tail off somewhere while reading it, but oh well) and I could smell the pine and hear the crunch of ice underfoot. mmmMMMmmm. Good stuff, people.


I don't usually have any issues with the romances in her books, but I just wasn't feeling it here. It felt a bit forced, probably because the story was so fast-paced. The background info helped ease it a little bit, but I still feel like it could have come off slower and still been cute. Ice doesn't melt all at once, right? It thaws. (AHAHAHAHAHA it's okay you can kill me for my sucky jokes.) Anyway, yeah, I wasn't digging it and when it moves so fast like that, I usually tend to just roll my eyes and skim so I can get it over with. Also content advisory as mentioned above, and ugh—too many comments about his lips and her lips and just yadayadayadaya can we please NOT? Teenagers are NOT this dramatic. At least I'm not, which is probably why I have low patience levels for this type of stuff.




All in all, it was a good book. It could have been better, but I was still treated to Ally Carter's genius in thriller and that satisfied me. It wasn't as good as I had hoped, but I mean, y'all know how I rave about Embassy Row so nothing will ever beat that. (Except maybe Heist Society but I have yet to finish the series. The verdict is not yet settled! But oooooooh what do you think about a book battle?? Comment if you think that would be interesting!)

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4 stars (actually, 3.8 when I did the math but IT'S ALLY CARTER, Y'ALL. I'll round it off for her.)

Hi guys! I am really REALLY excited about today's post, because I'm collaborating with the wonderful Lila Kims @ The Red-Hooded Writer! We decided to talk about discovery writing, or "pantsing"—writing by "the seat of your pants" without any set outline to guide you—and our experiences with using this interesting method of writing. Over on her blog, she wrote part 1 about how she "pantsed" her first draft, and over here I'm focusing on methods of structuring to help you "pants" your story with few complications. And now the quotations are getting old so I'm going to start treating it like a real word.

To start, am I a pantser or a plotter? I'm a little bit of both. I like having a structure, but I've created outlines that eventually made me feel restricted and bored with my story. I don't think that starting a story with no clear direction is smart. I also believe that too much plotting will ruin the fun. So my solution is to find the perfect balance of just enough structure and just enough discovery to keep myself interested.


The short answer is no, but that would be a bit of a lie. From what I've observed about storytelling, I've noticed that a good story has a natural structure—a beginning, a conflict, and an ending. And maybe that seems kind of obvious, but you'll understand the simplicity when I apply it to pantsing a story. When I came up with the premise for my story Divided, I first came up with

"twelve of the same person exist in the same time-frame and one of them is a psychopath*." 

Maybe that sounds clear enough to begin writing, but it's not. It's too vague. It doesn't have a conflict, so it's not yet a story. I worked on this idea a little more and came up with

"twelve of the same person exist in the same time frame and the psychopath version wants to take revenge on the doctor who headed the experiment." 

After a little more thought, I knew that I would start the story with the psychopath's POV, and there would be four other major characters. (I would tell you the ending**, but if I ever publish it...#spoilers.) That's when I started writing. My point is that you only have to know the vaguest idea of your story, but that should be enough as long as you know the bare bones***. Why does this work? Because natural (good) story structure is embedded in storytelling.

*I swear, it's a G-rated story with just a little bit of crazy! Please don't send the cops after me. 
** If you must know, my original idea for the ending was, I quote, "'happily ever after' and someone important dies." I know, very specific.
***Or the very, VERY bare bones, as demonstrated in previous footnote (**).

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The thing about pantsing, or discovery writing, is that the author figures out everything else as he/she goes along, with no previous in-depth planning. I came up with some pretty surprising stuff (at least it was surprising to myself) and I really enjoyed pantsing the story.

• My MC was female and biracial and almost the exact opposite of me 
• She was very spontaneous and quick to solve unexpected problems, probably because that's how I was writing the story. Interesting, right? 
• My love interest was British (surprise, surprise)
• He also apparently wears rumpled blazers
• It took place in New York City and Chicago
• There's a murder plot that was completely unintentional
• The chaperone happened to be an immature thirteen-year-old with a "save the turtles" tee shirt
• Apparently now the futureness is involved in the presentness and the pastness is all scrambled and I'm confused but it works with surprisingly few plot holes
• These things just happened, people

The problem I ran into was getting to a scene and then not knowing where to go from there. Natural story structure can only take you so far—so I decided to use additional methods to structure my story and spur along the action. I took a break and outlined the main points. However, I made this one of the loosest outlines I've ever done, so I'm calling it a structure rather than an outline.


I literally wrote "inciting incident:...; act 1:...; act 2:...; act 3:...; plot twist:..; conclusion:...." This is now my lazy go-to outline, the one that I write just so I can have a visual of my story's direction (because I forget really easily, it's ridiculous). I filled these in with strict, set points (no wiggle room here!) and left the space in between the points empty.

HAHA but I wasn't done yet. I had to come up with a second method to fill in these blanks...with something. I needed a method to kick my imagination into gear. The logical thing was to use my current favorite method of escaping writers blank. Introducing, the


This works for any size chasm in your story, as long as you know where you are and where you need to be. This helps me work out the little details of a scene that I've only generalized before. I usually do this by writing out in a paragraph or two what is going to happen next (within the next few scenes, chapters, etc.). But believe me, it is by no means neat or organized. Or even sane sometimes. There's a lot of scribbling out, writing in margins, and capital letters. I used to do this on paper, but now I insert them into my manuscript while I write and mark it with an XXX before. You've seen a sample before.

Pantsing a story is really fun, but having one (or more) structuring methods handy to help you along while you write will enhance the experience. You don't have to have everything planned beforehand. You can discover it as you write, but finding your perfect dose of structure will make it about a hundred times easier to let your creativity flow on paper.

I'm a big believer in finding the right balance for yourself, so below I've listed some other handy-dandy (fun and creative) methods of structuring that you can use as you write. Each one can be altered to fit your needs, in case the methods I used don't work for you like they do for me.

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If you're a visual person, this might work for you. The way I work on my filmstrips is by choosing pictures (from google or unsplash.com) that communicate the vibe I want for each chapter of the story. (One picture counts as one chapter.) Then I write a short synopsis of the chapter with as few or many details as I want beside the picture. The picture reminds me of the main idea of the chapter so I can know how to connect all of the story points at a glance. I've found that this method helps my story flow while still giving me the creative wiggle room I enjoy. For me, this is like watching the movie I wish I could make for my story.


Similar to the filmstrip, I know many people like to use Pinterest to plan their story. I like to stick to just making story aesthetics on this platform because I find it hard to organize. However, you might enjoy it and the constant flow of inspiration that pops up with the feed.


If you enjoy writing snippets, use those snippets to chart the flow of your story. You can use the emotions in a dialogue snippet to pinpoint plot twists or other significant events, or you could use description snippets to map out your setting/time and action scenes. That way you also don't forget to include these snippets somewhere (like me).


This is basically a list of events that I write down and check off as I go. This is great if 1) I already know where my story is going, and 2) the plot is pretty straightforward and not particularly complex. I write it down, and then check them off as I go. This method leaves me a lot of room to alter the story, change the direction, subtract scenes, add scenes, etc. The checklist itself does not have to be detailed. Sometimes I write as little as "Kendra eats breakfast." Just little things like that. It also works as a good way to remind myself of scenes that I've imagined for the future, but will probably forget by the time I actually write them down (I'm a chronological writer).





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DISCLAIMER: I am in no way a professional. All of what I've written in this post is based on observation and personal experience.