Скачать или смотреть [Audio only] Episode 47: Climax, Craft, and Character Wounds in Twisted Love

Welcome to Story Deep Dive!


In this episode, Rachel and Dana dive into Twisted Love by Ana Huang from an editor’s lens—zooming in on wounds, lies, POV choices, and how to build a dark, steamy romance that still feels emotionally grounded.


Whether you’re a romance writer, storyteller, or editor, you’ll gain valuable insights on crafting devastating climaxes, earning your HEA, and writing with both marketing and craft in mind.


You can also watch the video version of this podcast on YouTube!


Estimate Timestamps


00:00 – Year-End Vibes & What’s Coming in December


Rachel and Dana open with their trademark banter about late-night recording energy and end-of-year brain fog. They share that Twisted Love is their final book pick for 2025 and introduce their plan for December: shorter “Best Of” episodes spotlighting the standout moments, patterns, and lessons from all their 2025 reads. They also frame December as intentional downtime—modeling rest and refuel for writers and business owners while still “keeping the party going” with weekly episodes.


06:30 – Kicking Off 2026 with Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson


Rachel announces her January 2026 pick: Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. She explains why it’s her go-to teaching text for four-act structure, tightly nested plots, and hard magic systems. They talk about Sanderson’s career, his massive epics like The Way of Kings, and what writers can learn from watching a prolific author evolve over time. Dana marvels at the sheer commitment behind thousand-page books and the systems required to sustain them, and they riff on the joy of fully exploring character growth over enormous story canvases.


18:25 – Why Read Widely (Even If It’s Not “Your” Genre)?


They pivot from Sanderson back to the broader purpose of the show: studying books as writers. Rachel and Dana emphasize the value of reading outside your comfort zone—epic fantasy, dark romance, suspense—not just for entertainment, but as “creative cross-training.” Big, structurally ambitious books help writers understand emotional pacing, multi-layered plots, and character journeys in ways that can be applied to any genre.


19:10 – Story Summary: Twisted Love by Ana Huang


Dana delivers an evocative summary of Twisted Love: a steamy, emotionally charged contemporary dark romance about opposites bound by family secrets and obsession. When Ava Chen’s older brother leaves town, he asks his best friend—cold, calculating Alex Volkov—to look after her. Reluctant guardianship becomes forbidden attraction as both are forced to confront buried trauma. Their relationship becomes a collision of control and compassion, guilt and desire, light and darkness. The book reimagines grumpy/sunshine, brother’s best friend, and good girl/bad boy tropes for a modern, TikTok-era romance audience.


22:40 – High-Level Editor’s Takeaways: Balance, POV, and Marketing Awareness


Dana outlines the major craft angles she wants to explore:


The balance between a brutal climactic fallout and a fully earned HEA, including why a longer post-climax section works here.


POV selection as a power move—how Huang’s choices shape our experience of Alex, Ava, and key emotional beats.


Deciding what makes it onto the page vs. what’s summarized, and where Dana felt a few key moments might have landed harder as full scenes.


Writing with marketing in mind—how the tropes, trauma elements, and emotional intensity feel tailor-made for virality and BookTok, without sacrificing story integrity.


The way the book straddles contemporary, dark romance, and light suspense while still feeling firmly like a romance.


27:00 – Nested Plots & Character Problem Sets


Rachel picks up two big craft lessons:


Nested Plot Loops: Huang closes the suspense/revenge loop before the romance loop, keeping the HEA as the final emotional payoff. This honors romance genre priorities while still delivering satisfying external stakes.


Characters Built Around a Shared Problem: Drawing on John Truby’s The Anatomy of Story, Rachel explains how giving multiple characters variations on the same core problem (trauma, control, safety) creates thematic cohesion. Ava and Alex are opposites on the surface but united by similar wounds processed in different ways, making them uniquely right for each other.


31:00 – Wounds, Lies, and the Romance Arc


They dive deep into how wounds and lies function in romance:


A painful event creates a wound.


The character forms a lie about themselves, others, or the world.


Life then reinforces that lie until the story rips it apart.


Dana connects this to Michael Hauge’s teaching: characters build their lives around a false belief that must be dismantled for true transformation. In Twisted Love, both Ava and Alex have trauma-rooted lies; the romance doesn’t magically heal them, but it becomes the catalyst that makes them willing to face hard truths. They highlight how Huang avoids the trap of “good sex cures everything” and instead lets ...