I've been having some difficulty in understanding the source of a problem. Below is a listing of the model classes. Essentially the goal is to have the ability to add sentences to the end of the story, or to add stories to an existing sentence_block. Right now, I'm only attempting to allow users to add sentences, and automatically create a new sentence_block for the new sentence. class Story < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :sentence_blocks, :dependent => :destroy has_many :sentences, :through => :sentence_blocks accepts_nested_attributes_for :sentence_blocks end class SentenceBlock < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :story has_many :sentences, :dependent => :destroy end class Sentence < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :sentence_block def story @sentence_block = SentenceBlock.find(self.sentence_block_id) Story.find(@sentence_block.story_id) end end The problem is occurring when using the show method of the Story. The Story method is as follows, and the associated show method for a sentence is also included. Sentence.show def show @sentence = Sentence.find(params[:id]) respond_to do |format| format.html {redirect_to(@sentence.story)} format.xml { render :xml => @sentence } end end Story.show def show @story = Story.find(params[:id]) @sentence_block = @story.sentence_blocks.build @new_sentence = @sentence_block.sentences.build(params[:sentence]) respond_to do |format| if @new_sentence.content != nil and @new_sentence.sentence_block_id != nil and @sentence_block.save and @new_sentence.save flash[:notice] = 'Sentence was successfully added.' format.html # new.html.erb format.xml { render :xml => @story } else @sentence_block.destroy format.html format.xml { render :xml => @story } end end end I'm getting a "couldn't find Sentence_block without and id" error. So I'm assuming that for some reason the sentence_block isn't getting saved to the database. Can anyone help me with my understanding of the behavior and why I'm getting the error? I'm trying to ensure that every time the view depicts show for a story, an unnecessary sentence_block and sentence isn't created, unless someone submits the form, I'm not really sure how to accomplish this. Any help would be appreciated.