Save the Cat! Writes a Novel

by Jessica Brody

  8. Fun and Games (pages 100–189)

  The promise of the premise of this novel is the hunt for Halliday’s Easter egg, and Ernest Cline definitely delivers on that promise. The Copper Key is engraved with a riddle that leads Wade to the First Gate, which Wade quickly clears by reenacting a scene from one of Halliday’s favorite movies, War Games. At first it seems Wade is on an upward path, but his direction changes quickly as he struggles to solve the riddle leading to the Jade Key. And his Fun and Games quickly turns into a downward path. Art3mis clears the First Gate shortly after him, and, after a hint from Wade, his friend Aech’s name jumps onto the scoreboard too. Meanwhile, Wade can’t stop thinking about Art3mis (B Story), as the two exchange increasingly flirty messages.

  Despite Wade’s newfound fame as the first player to find the Copper Key, more players continue to clear the First Gate, and Wade soon finds himself back at square one, neck and neck with everyone else.

  Things take a dive for Wade when he receives an invite to the IOI offices, where the evil head honcho, Sorrento, makes Wade an offer. If he leads a team of Sixers to Halliday’s egg, they’ll pay him a crapload of money. When he refuses, they threaten to kill him.

  Scared, Wade logs out of the Oasis just as his trailer park explodes. If he weren’t in his secret hideaway, he would be dead. That’s when he realizes that IOI has access to confidential user information; otherwise they wouldn’t have known where he lived.

  Back inside the Oasis, Wade calls a meeting of the “high five” (the first five people to clear the gate) and warns them all to stay hidden. Even though they’re each working separately to find the egg, this is Wade’s Golden Fleece team: Art3mis, Aech, and two brothers from Japan, Daito and Shoto.

  After IOI finds the Copper Key and the First Gate, Sorrento and other Sixers’ names start appearing on the scoreboard. Wade knows he has to get out of Dodge and lay low. IOI can’t know that he’s still alive or they’ll come after him again. He uses money from an endorsement offer to secure a fake identity and move into a new apartment, where he locks himself inside and vows to abandon the real world until he finds the egg. At this moment, with this vow, Wade is further than ever from learning his theme. But as he continues his flirtation with Art3mis inside the Oasis, and they reveal small pieces of real information about each other, we know not all hope is lost for Wade. Their romance blooms through chats and emails, and soon Wade loses focus on the hunt (A Story) because his motivation is being clouded by his blossoming feelings for Art3mis (B Story).

  9. Midpoint (pages 180–189)

  When a party (Midpoint party) is thrown by Ogden “Og” Morrow, the former partner and cocreator of the Oasis, Wade can’t resist coming out of hiding to attend along with Art3mis and several other celebrities.

  Wade’s relationship with Art3mis reaches a peak, and the internal stakes are raised when he tells her he’s in love with her. She freaks out and calls it off, saying they shouldn’t speak until the hunt is over. This marks the start of Wade’s false defeat, which is only made worse when, less than half a page later, IOI crashes the party and attacks the guests (A and B stories cross). There’s an all-out war in the dance club. The external stakes are raised too when Wade realizes that IOI has come to the club specifically to kill him and Art3mis (they realized Wade did not die in the trailer park explosion).

  10. Bad Guys Close In (pages 190–238)

  After the catastrophe at Og’s party, Wade vows to put his focus 100 percent on the hunt. No more messing around. He throws himself into the Oasis, getting further and further away from learning the theme (internal bad guys). He also has virtually zero contact with Art3mis, who has blocked all communication with him. It’s now been half a year since Wade cleared the First Gate, and finally someone finds the Jade Key. It’s Art3mis.

  The Sixers (external bad guys) use an Oasis artifact to reveal that Art3mis was in Sector 7 when she found the key, and soon everyone converges on that sector. Wade follows a hunch that the key is on the planet of Archaide but soon realizes it’s a false lead. He’s about to leave when he stumbles upon a replica of a pizza place Halliday used to frequent as a kid. Inside, Wade decides to challenge himself to a game of Pac-Man to try to beat Halliday’s top score on the game’s scoreboard. After a few tries, he does it, playing a perfect game and earning himself a surprise reward: a strange quarter that he has no idea what to do with.

  An alert that Aech has found the Jade Key jolts Wade back into the egg hunt. As thanks for his hint with the Copper Key, Aech sends Wade a hint of where to find the Jade Key. Things are finally looking up again for Wade as he obtains the key (by playing an old game called Zork). But the Sixers soon locate the Jade Key as well and a war breaks out, during which Daito’s avatar dies and disappears from the scoreboard—our first whiff-of-death moment.

  11. All Is Lost (pages 237–238)

  As Wade struggles to decipher the next clue and find the location of the Second Gate, Sorrento successfully clears it, putting him at the top of the scoreboard. Two days later, Sorrento’s score jumps again when he obtains the final Crystal Key. IOI is now only one gate away from finding the egg and having total control of the Oasis. All definitely seems lost. Or as Wade puts it on page 238: “This story was not going to have a happy ending. The bad guys were going to win.”

  12. Dark Night of the Soul (pages 239–266)

  Wade wallows and laments as more Sixers acquire copies of the Crystal Key and move up the scoreboard. In reaction to the All Is Lost, Wade plans a virtual and real-life suicide, in a second whiff-of-death moment.

  He’s prevented from ending both of his lives when Shoto calls him, saying that Daito left Wade something in his will. The two decide to meet in Wade’s Oasis stronghold, and in a third whiff of death, Shoto reveals that Daito is dead in real life too, at the hands of IOI.

  This encourages Wade to take an important step toward learning the theme: he and Shoto exchange real names and talk about their real lives. Shoto says that he’s giving up on the egg hunt and has a new quest: avenging Daito’s death. He wishes Wade luck in finding the egg and gives him Daito’s bequeathal: a Beta Capsule that turns you into a 156-foot-tall Ultraman superhero.

  Wade figures out where the Second Gate is. He plays Black Tiger to clear it, and soon afterward finds the Crystal Key. He’s warned by the accompanying riddle that the Third Gate cannot be unlocked alone—a hint that he’ll have to get help if he wants to win this thing.

  Wade figures out that the Third Gate is inside Castle Anorak, Halliday’s impenetrable stronghold. When he gets there, the Sixers have already installed a force field over the entire castle, preventing anyone from getting in. Gunter clans are already trying to break down the shield, but to no avail. It seems hopeless. The end is certainly near, and soon IOI will have control of the Oasis.

  Unless…

  13. Break Into 3 (page 266)

  Wade formulates a plan. Although he doesn’t tell us what it is, he does hint that it’s bold and incredibly dangerous. As he enters Act 3, he tells us, “I was going to reach the Third Gate or die trying” (page 266).

  14. Finale (pages 266–368)

  POINT 1: GATHERING THE TEAM. To kick off his secret plan, Wade emails Art3mis, Aech, and Shoto, telling them exactly where to find the Second Gate and how to obtain the Crystal Key.

  POINT 2: EXECUTING THE PLAN. Although we still don’t know exactly what the plan is, we’re on the edge of our seats waiting to find out. It starts when IOI comes to arrest Wade for not paying his credit card bill. They take him into their indentured servitude program at IOI headquarters and give him a job in Oasis tech support, where he will work off his debt. Wade uses his new job to hack the IOI intranet to figure out how to bring down the Sixers’ force field around Castle Anorak. He finds IOI’s file on Art3mis and sees her real picture. Despite a birthmark covering half of her face, Wade still finds her beautiful (B Story). After copying data
from the Sixers’ database, he escapes the headquarters and logs back into the Oasis, sending a warning message to his team: Leave now. The Sixers know where you are.

  Then Wade emails the major news feeds with proof (that he stole from the database) that IOI tried to kill him and did kill Daito.

  He meets his team in a chat room and reveals that the Sixers haven’t figured out how to open the Third Gate yet; the team quickly figures out it’s because three copies of the Crystal Key are needed to open it. It’s no longer every gunter for themselves; the four of them will have to work together! Wade reveals that he hacked the Sixer database and triggered the force field to drop the next day at noon. They’ll be able to walk right into Castle Anorak. Then he emails every Oasis user and asks them to join in the fight against the Sixers.

  Ogden Morrow suddenly appears, offering to help them in their quest by inviting them all to Oregon to launch their attack from there. Which means they’re all going to meet…in real life! (Theme!)

  Aech picks up Wade in his RV on his way to Oregon—and, surprise! Aech’s gender and race are completely different from her avatar’s! Wade proves he’s already learned the theme when he says to her, on page 319, that it doesn’t matter what she looks like or who she is in real life. “You’re my best friend, Aech. My only friend, to be honest.”

  When they arrive at Og’s house, they log in to the Oasis. It’s go time!

  The battle against the Sixers begins. And Wade’s plan seems to be working. The force field comes down at noon, and everyone has shown up to fight, resulting in the largest battle in Oasis history. Shoto makes a sacrifice for the team when his avatar dies, and Wade uses his Beta Capsule to become Ultraman, destroying Sorrento’s avatar, who disappears from the scoreboard.

  Victory!

  Or is it?

  POINT 3: HIGH TOWER SURPRISE. As soon as Wade, Art3mis, and Aech step through the gate, a huge booming sound rings out, and all three of them die.

  It’s revealed that the Sixers have detonated a powerful weapon called a Cataclyst, killing everyone in the sector. But Wade is surprisingly given an “extra life” because of the quarter he won when he beat Halliday’s Pac-Man score. It’s the first time in the history of the Oasis that anyone has ever received an extra life.

  The rest of the team members are “dead,” but Og patches them into Wade’s feed so they can all talk to each other. Wade admits that he needs their help to finish this thing.

  POINT 4: DIG DEEP DOWN. As proof that he’s learned the theme and values his real-life friends more than the prize, Wade broadcasts a public message to the entire Oasis, revealing his true identity and vowing to split the prize money among his four friends.

  POINT 5: THE EXECUTION OF THE NEW PLAN. To pass the Third Gate, Wade has to play Tempest, another ’80s video game. Art3mis tells him about a bug in the game that gives him extra lives. Thanks to her help, he wins the game and enters stage 2 of the Third Gate, where he has to reenact another one of Halliday’s favorite movies, this time Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Meanwhile, the Sixers are right behind him, playing Tempest and closing in. He successfully finishes the movie test and ends up in a replica of Halliday’s office.

  But where is the egg?

  He tries to talk to his team, but there’s no answer. As often happens at the end of the Finale, the hero is completely alone and must prove that he can do this on his own. Because of his extensive knowledge of Halliday, Wade passes the final test and reaches the egg. His avatar turns into Anorak, and his level and hit points max out at infinity. He is now immortal and all-powerful—in the game, that is.

  But the game isn’t real life.

  A virtual Halliday appears to remind Wade of that and to restate the theme, which Wade has now learned: “I created the Oasis because I never felt at home in the real world.…as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real.” Then he warns Wade, “Don’t make the same mistake I did. Don’t hide in here forever” (page 364).

  With his new powers, Wade kills the surviving Sixers and resurrects his friends. It’s soon revealed that Sorrento was arrested for murder.

  15. Final Image (pages 369–372)

  Back in Og’s mansion, Wade logs out of the Oasis and goes to find Art3mis in the backyard. Outside, in the real world, he finally meets her in person. She introduces herself as Samantha, and Wade declares that he’s in love with her. She kisses him, and Wade admits that, for the first time, he has no desire to log back into the Oasis. Not when real life is this good.

  WHY IS THIS A GOLDEN FLEECE?

  Ready Player One contains all three elements of a successful Golden Fleece story:

  A ROAD: Demarcated by the three keys and corresponding gates, the hunt for the egg across the universe of the Oasis is the road that Wade must travel to find what he’s looking for.

  A TEAM: Even though they don’t actually team up until the very end, Art3mis, Aech, Shoto, and even Daito form Wade’s team. They each help him out in some way during his journey.

  A PRIZE: The Easter egg is the prize from page one. Wade spends the entire book trying to get to it, along with every other player in the Oasis.

  Cat’s Eye View

  For quick reference, here’s a brief overview of this novel’s beat sheet.

  OPENING IMAGE: Wade introduces us to the world of 2045 and the ultimate quest: the hunt for a billion-dollar “Easter egg” inside a virtual reality video game called the Oasis.

  THEME STATED: “You both obviously need to get a life.” I-r0k, Wade’s nemesis, states the theme of “reality versus virtual reality.” Reality is where true happiness is found.

  SETUP: Wade (aka “Parzival”) lives a crummy life in the stacks. He spends almost all his time in the Oasis with his BFF, Aech. His only purpose in life for the past five years has been searching for the Easter egg so he can win $40 billion and control of the Oasis.

  CATALYST: Wade stumbles upon a clue that he believes will lead him to the first key in the hunt.

  DEBATE: How will he get there? Wade quickly solves this problem by using his gift of ingenuity.

  BREAK INTO 2: Wade enters the Tomb of Horrors and wins the Copper Key by playing Joust (an ’80s video game).

  B STORY: After winning, Wade meets Art3mis, his longtime crush, who is also close to finding the Copper Key. Art3mis will eventually teach Wade it’s better to live in the real world than the virtual one he’s been hiding in.

  FUN AND GAMES: Wade becomes famous as the first player to find the Copper Key, but soon others catch up on the scoreboard, and I0I (the evil corporation that wants control of the Oasis) blows up Wade’s trailer park.

  MIDPOINT: (False defeat) During a Midpoint party, Wade confesses his love to Art3mis, who freaks out and breaks up with him. Then, shortly afterward, I0I crashes the party and a virtual war breaks out.

  BAD GUYS CLOSE IN: Wade throws himself into the Easter egg hunt, but Art3mis and Aech find the second key first.

  ALL IS LOST: Sorrento (the head of I0I) clears the Second Gate, putting him at the top of the scoreboard, and then finds the third key. It looks like I0I will win control of the Oasis.

  DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL: Wade wallows and plans a virtual (and real-life) suicide. But then he figures out where the Second Gate is, clears it, finds the third key, and discovers the location of the Third Gate. But I0I has built an impenetrable stronghold around it.

  BREAK INTO 3: Wade formulates a plan, which he hides from the reader.

  FINALE: Wade enacts his plan, which includes hacking into the I0I system, bringing down the stronghold, and joining forces with his team to clear the final gate and find the Easter egg.

&nbs
p; FINAL IMAGE: Wade meets Art3mis (aka Samantha) in real life, claiming he has no interest in going back into the Oasis. Real life is good.

  Monster in the House

  More Than Just a Scary Story

  WARNING! THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE FOLLOWING BOOKS:

  Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Prey by Michael Crichton, The Deep by Nick Cutter, Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

  There’s nothing scarier than being trapped in an enclosed space with a monster who wants to kill you—and it might be your fault.

  This describes the Setup of one of the most popular story genres of all time: the Monster in the House. This is where you’ll find most of your favorite horror, slasher, and haunting novels, as well as some thrillers. The “scary story” is as primal as primal can be. Because even a caveperson (especially a caveperson!) can understand the concept “Kill the beast before the beast kills you!”

  And the genre keeps expanding, with more successful novels being released each year, because there’s always a new and exciting way to take the classic nightmare scenario of being stuck with a monster in the house and give it a fresh twist.

  But as we study the three essential ingredients for this genre, we’ll soon come to see that the key to cracking this frightening story archetype is not necessarily the scariness of the monster (although that helps!) or the claustrophobic nature of the confined space (also helps!), but the reason the monster is here. The beast’s raison d’être (as the French would say) is what makes these tales truly scary and, more important, what makes them resonate with readers long after the final page is turned and the monster is destroyed (or not!).