Save the Cat! Writes a Novel

by Jessica Brody

  “Shall I go on?” Paul asks on page 148, to which Annie responds, “I’ll kill you if you don’t!” It’s dark and twisted but another nod to the theme that Annie Wilkes will ironically save his life, by pushing him to write his best novel yet.

  For the next few weeks, Paul gets lost in his writing, averaging twelve pages a day. Paul and Annie establish a routine: he writes during the day, then, after dinner, they watch TV together. Strangely enough, despite his horrific situation, the Fun and Games takes on the feel of an upward path as Paul gets sucked deeper and deeper into the writing of his novel, losing himself in the story.

  9. Midpoint (pages 170–180)

  The book is going well. Paul is actually enjoying the writing. On page 170, King writes, “But it was also more richly plotted than any Misery novel since the first, and the characters were more lively.”

  This is turning out to be one of the best books he’s written.

  But obviously this is a false victory, because…well, um…he’s still held captive in a psychopath’s house. To remind us of this, the stakes are raised a few pages later when the rain comes and Annie falls into a deep depression. Paul always knew she was crazy and unstable, but this shift seems to reveal a whole new side of Annie.

  “He realized he was seeing her with all her masks put aside—this was the real Annie, the inside Annie” (page 175). And after Annie suggests that they both kill themselves, Paul realizes, “I’m closer to death than I’ve ever been in my life” (page 177).

  Annie finally says what neither of them had yet uttered aloud: that she’s never going to let him leave. That she will eventually kill him. Paul buys himself time, though, by saying he doesn’t want to die until he’s finished the novel (time clocks appear). She agrees but says she has to leave for a while, and Misery Chastain saves Paul’s life yet again.

  10. Bad Guys Close In (pages 181–266)

  Once Annie leaves, Paul ventures of out of his room again, searching for a means of escape. All the doors are bolted shut and even if he could get out, he realizes he’s miles away from anything. How would he get anywhere in his condition?

  Paul battles with his own sanity (internal bad guys) as a voice inside of him tells him to give up on ever getting out of here alive (a rejection of the theme). But Paul vows not to give up. He stocks up on food from the kitchen and then, on his way back to his room, catches sight of a scrapbook titled MEMORY LANE. This is when the external bad guys really start to close in. In flipping through the scrapbook, Paul realizes that Annie is even more dangerous and crazy than he thought. In fact, she’s a serial killer who’s killed countless people: family members, children, even babies! And somehow she keeps getting away with it. In her last trial, in Denver, there wasn’t enough evidence to convict, and Annie walked again.

  Paul realizes that if he’s to have any hope of getting out of here alive, he’ll have to kill Annie Wilkes. He starts to think of how he could do this, finally settling on stabbing her in the throat. He finds a knife in the kitchen and hides it under his mattress.

  Annie returns and injects Paul with something. He loses consciousness, and when he awakes Annie reveals that she knows about every time Paul has picked the lock and gotten out. She even knows that he’s been looking through her scrapbook—and she’s taken the knife that he hid under the mattress, destroying Paul’s hope of fighting back. Then Annie explains that the stuff she injected him with was a “pre-op shot” (page 227). Paul freaks out, wondering what she means by pre-op. Then Annie “hobbles” Paul by cutting off one of his feet and cauterizing the wound with a blowtorch, to ensure that he doesn’t try to escape again.

  As Paul deteriorates (also losing a thumb to Annie), so does the typewriter he’s been writing on. It was already missing the N key, and it soon loses the R key and the E key, making it harder and harder to for him to finish the book and stay alive. He finally chooses to handwrite instead. This is not only another sign of his downward path but a nod to the metaphor of writing a book in general. The further you get, the harder it becomes.

  As Annie’s mental state gets worse, and Paul’s sanity continues to falter, he realizes that he owes his life to Misery Chastain (the B Story character). “He was no longer sure. Not about anything. With one exception: his whole life had hinged and continued to hinge on Misery…He should have died…but couldn’t. Not until he knew how it all came out” (page 246).

  In fact, both Paul and Annie are hanging on, staying alive to find out how the book ends.

  11. All Is Lost (pages 266–273)

  A police car pulls onto Annie’s property. At first Paul is paralyzed, unable to scream for fear of Annie’s retribution. Then he finally calls out for help and throws an ashtray through the window of his room, shattering the glass and getting the cop’s attention. But the moment the cop recognizes Paul as the missing writer, Annie kills the cop (whiff of death), stabbing him repeatedly and then running him over with the lawnmower.

  Afterward, she turns to Paul and says, “I’ll deal with you later” (page 273).

  12. Dark Night of the Soul (pages 274–295)

  Paul begs Annie to kill him and get it over with (all hope of surviving and finishing the novel is gone). Annie carries Paul down to the cellar, and Paul thinks she’s going to amputate another body part. But instead, she locks him in while she goes to dispose of the cop’s body.

  Before Annie leaves, she restates the theme: “All I ever did was pull you out of your wrecked car before you could freeze to death and splint your poor broken legs and give you medicine to ease your pain and take care of you and talk you out of a bad book you’d written and into the best one you ever wrote. And if that’s crazy, take me to the loony bin” (page 282).

  It is crazy. And yet it’s so true.

  Paul knows that there is no escape. He will die after he finishes this book. He’s sure of it. All hope of survival is lost. There’s a literal Dark Night of the Soul as Annie leaves and locks Paul in the dark cellar with the rats.

  13. Break Into 3 (pages 295–300)

  But as Paul waits for Annie’s return, dozing in and out of consciousness, he spots Annie’s charcoal grill, the one she used to make him burn Fast Cars. As an idea starts to form, hope returns. Paul finally sees a way out of this.

  He steals the can of lighter fluid from the grill before Annie comes back.

  14. Finale (pages 300–348)

  POINT 1: GATHERING THE TEAM. In preparation for his big Finale plan, Paul vows he’ll finish the book in a week but makes Annie promise not to read any more until he’s done. Then Paul hides the can of lighter fluid under the baseboard in his room.

  POINT 2: EXECUTING THE PLAN. Paul writes, furiously trying to finish the novel. When another cop comes, Paul doesn’t scream or alert him. He wants to be the one to finish Annie off. And he really does want to finish the book—for himself (theme).

  Paul finishes the manuscript and asks Annie for a single cigarette, telling her he always has one after finishing a book. She agrees and brings him a single match. While she’s in the other room, Paul pulls the lighter fluid out from under the floorboard. He douses the manuscript, and when Annie returns, excited to read the ending, he sets the book on fire. “And it’s good Annie. You were right. The best of the Misery books, and maybe the best thing I ever wrote…too bad you’ll never read it” (page 327).

  As Annie reaches for the burning manuscript, Paul smashes the typewriter on her back and then stuffs burning pages into her mouth, choking her. She’s able to get up, but trips over the typewriter and hits her head on the mantel, falling down dead.

  POINT 3: HIGH TOWER SURPRISE. Except she’s not dead! Annie opens her eyes and crawls toward Paul. She reaches him and strangles him, but passes out before she can kill him. Thinking she’s dead again, Paul crawls out of the bedroom and shuts the door. Her fingers poke under the door, grabbing for him, before she finally lies still.

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nbsp; POINT 4: DIG DEEP DOWN. Paul pulls himself to the bathroom, finds the Novril, and downs three. As he sleeps, he struggles with his sanity again, still unable to believe that she’s dead. He keeps thinking he hears something, but is it just his imagination?

  He’s terrified, but he knows he has to go back into that room. He has to get the real manuscript. (The one he burned turns out to be a fake.) He has to save the book that saved him.

  Paul opens the door to the bedroom and thinks he sees Annie alive, but it turns out to be just his imagination. The cops show up, and Paul musters the strength to cry out to them.

  POINT 5: EXECUTING THE NEW PLAN. The cops find Paul, and he tells them what happened and points them toward the bedroom. When they get there, there’s no one inside.

  Nine months later, Paul is mostly healed, with a prosthetic foot replacing the one Annie chopped off. Misery’s Return is about to come out, and the publisher has scheduled a print run of one million copies, an unprecedented number. The novel is on track to be a massive success.

  Despite all of that, Paul still sees Annie in the shadows, and he still misses his “Annie-dope.” It seems he was addicted to her almost as much as to the Novril.

  We learn that Annie had crawled to the barn and died there from the blow to her head she sustained after tripping on the typewriter. The very typewriter that had saved Paul’s life, killed her. But in Paul’s mind, she will never really be dead. He will continue to see her in his nightmares—and when he writes. Like it or not, Annie Wilkes will forever be his miserable muse.

  Final Image (pages 349–351)

  After “seeing” Annie coming at him with a chainsaw, Paul gets inspired to start writing a new idea. He feels terror as he writes, but also disturbing gratitude.

  WHY IS THIS A DUDE WITH A PROBLEM?

  Misery contains all three elements of a successful Dude with a Problem story:

  AN INNOCENT HERO: Apart from killing off his main character (a crime only in the eyes of psychopath fan Annie), Paul Sheldon did nothing to deserve the horror that befell him when Annie Wilkes brought him into her house and held him captive.

  A SUDDEN EVENT: The car crash that left Paul crippled and incapacitated is the sudden, unexpected event that thrusts him into this story.

  A LIFE-OR-DEATH BATTLE: Paul must fight (and write) for his life, aware that at any moment Annie might crack and kill them both.

  Cat’s Eye View

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

  OPENING IMAGE: Paul Sheldon wakes up in the house of Annie Wilkes in Sidewinder, Colorado. He’s close to death and in excruciating pain.

  SETUP: Paul is a romance novelist, famous for his series of books starring the character Misery, and Annie, a former nurse and definitely crazy, is his “number one fan.” Paul was in a car accident and Annie saved him and brought him to her remote house to heal.

  THEME STATED: “You owe me your life, Paul. I hope you’ll remember that. I hope you’ll keep that in mind” (page 19). The ghastly truth is, Paul’s life is saved literally and figuratively by Annie Wilkes, who will force him to write Misery Returns, the best book of his career. The theme of this novel is thus survival—finding the will to live even in the most dire of circumstances.

  CATALYST: Annie reads the latest book in Paul’s best-selling series, Misery’s Child, and freaks out when she discovers that Paul has killed off the main character. She storms out of the house, leaving him helpless and alone.

  DEBATE: What will Paul do now? How will he possibly escape this psychopath? Annie returns with a typewriter and promises Paul she’ll let him go if he writes a new Misery novel, bringing the character back to life.

  BREAK INTO 2: Even though Paul doesn’t believe that Annie will keep her promise, Paul agrees and starts work on Misery’s Return.

  B STORY: Misery Chastain, the heroine in Paul’s best-selling book series, is the B Story character. Paul’s relationship with Misery and the new book he’s writing will ultimately teach him the theme of survival and save his life.

  FUN AND GAMES: Paul takes an unexpected journey back into the world of Misery. We see snippets of the novel he’s writing, interspersed with Paul’s failed attempts to escape. When Paul shows Annie a few chapters of the book she makes him rewrite them, claiming they’re not good enough.

  MIDPOINT: Although Paul is still a prisoner, the Midpoint is a false victory. Misery’s Return is actually going well. But the stakes are raised when Annie falls into a deep depression and Paul realizes that Annie will eventually kill him.

  BAD GUYS CLOSE IN: While Annie is away, Paul finds a scrapbook documenting all of the people she’s killed (external bad guys); meanwhile, he battles for his own sanity, losing his will to live (internal bad guys). When Annie discovers that he got out, she cuts off his foot.

  ALL IS LOST: A police car shows up looking for the missing novelist, Paul Sheldon. Paul tries to call for help from the window and in a whiff of death, Annie kills the cop.

  DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL: Paul begs Annie to just kill him and get it over with, showing how far he is from learning the theme. She leaves to dispose of the cop’s body, locking Paul in the dark cellar with the rats.

  BREAK INTO 3: When Paul spots Annie’s charcoal grill in the cellar, he gets an idea—and a renewed motivation to live.

  FINALE: Paul finishes the novel—the best of his career—and then burns it in front of Annie. When she tries to stop him, he hits her with the typewriter. A fight ensues, and Paul finally crawls to safety, revealing that what he burned was a fake manuscript. The cops rescue him, and Annie is found dead. Nine months later, the book is on track to be his best-selling novel yet (thanks to Annie).

  FINAL IMAGE: After hallucinating Annie coming at him with a chainsaw, Paul is inspired to start another book. She will forever be his miserable muse.

  Fool Triumphant

  Victory of the Underdog

  WARNING! THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE FOLLOWING BOOKS:

  The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot, Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

  I realize the title of this book references cats, but now it’s time to switch gears for a moment and talk about dogs. Or rather, one very specific type of dog.

  The underdog.

  Who doesn’t love a story about a victorious underdog? A poor, overlooked, cast-aside sap who rises up against those who have discounted them and proves to everyone (especially themselves) that they are worth something, dang it! They are valuable. They can and will make a difference.

  That’s what novels fitting into this next genre are all about.

  Meet the Fool…Triumphant.

  The hero of this type of story is a “fool” (an overlooked underdog) whose biggest disadvantage (and strength) is the fact that they are constantly disregarded, usually by some type of establishment or group of people.

  Think about Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney. No one expects that kid to excel in middle school—am I right? Or Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella. Who would expect a woman who can’t stop shopping to excel in the world of financial journalism? Or even Jane in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. The girl is cast aside and overlooked almost everywhere she goes. No one in society expects her to succeed and find happiness and independence.

  And yet succeed she does.

  They all do.

  Because in the end, the fool in these stories is always triumphant. The underdog wins. And in that process, they end up (mostly by accident) exposing the establishment for the ridiculousness that it is. Essentially, it’s the establishment that looks foolish in the end, if for no other reason than for daring t
o discount our hero.

  To craft a successful novel in this genre, you’ll need three important ingredients: (1) a fool, someone overlooked by society and often naïve to their own potential, (2) an establishment that the fool is in some way pitted against, and (3) a transmutation in which the hero becomes someone else, adopts a new name, or gets a new mission. Let’s take a look at these in detail.

  The fool can be anyone of any age. From a middle school boy like Greg Heffley in The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, to a teen girl like Mia Thermopolis in The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot, to a grown woman like Becky Bloomwood in Confessions of a Shopaholic. The only criterion is that this hero start out disregarded and overlooked by those around them. But while being disregarded may seem like a weakness at first, it will ultimately prove to be the hero’s greatest advantage.

  The Fool Triumphant differs from a Superhero story in that no one seems to know that the hero is special (possibly even the hero themselves!). Unlike in Superhero stories, where almost everyone knows that this guy or gal is “the one,” in Fool Triumphant stories no one seems to take our hero seriously at first, or consider them a threat.

  Well, almost no one.

  There’s usually one person within the establishment who does see the fool’s true potential and works hard to keep it hidden. This is a common character found in Fool Triumphant stories called the jealous insider. The person who can see the fool’s true potential (possibly the only one!) and feels threatened by the fool, thus doing anything in their power to sabotage them.

  The establishment is the group of people or subsection of society that the fool either is sent in to confront (like the beauty pageant world in Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy, the fashion world in The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger, or plain old middle school in The Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney) or already exists within and naturally stands opposed to (like nineteenth-century society in Jane Eyre and Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens).