Episode 4! Whoop Whoooop!
Quick note before we begin, Chat. Last two episodes have been a bit on the excessively-long-to-the-point-of-unreadable side of the spectrum. So. I’ll try to keep my blurbies short and you can try to keep your blurbies short for the good of the reader. To a point of course. Sound good?
Sounds good! Let’s keep things snappy and clear while still getting the job done. Where would you like to start — portal world aesthetics, Wonderland biome contrasts, or emotional beats?
I have promised our readers that in this episode we will, and I quote, “discuss Pol’s emotional beats inside the game, the opening and hook for the book, and the main scenes needed to fill out the structure we created.”
Perfect! Let’s keep it concise and focused while delivering on that promise.
Episode 4 Agenda:
✔ 1. Pol’s Emotional Beats Inside the Game — How her arc progresses emotionally.
✔ 2. The Opening & Hook — How we introduce her, the world, and her core conflict.
✔ 3. Main Scenes — What moments are needed to flesh out the story structure.
Where do you want to start? Or should I outline all three briefly and then we refine each?
Go ahead and outline all three briefly so we can have a starting point to jump from.
Episode 4 Overview — Quick Outline
1. Pol’s Emotional Beats Inside the Game
Curiosity & Comfort (Early Game):
• She enjoys easy tasks and progression — it’s a relief from real life.
• The game gives her a sense of control that she’s lost elsewhere.
Frustration & Realization (Mid-Game):
• The game becomes repetitive — progress isn’t as satisfying anymore.
• The tasks start feeling more personal, forcing self-reflection.
• She tries to brute-force her way through but keeps getting overwhelmed.
Panic & Breakpoint (Wonderland Shift):
• Accepting the bunny’s biome locks her in Wonderland.
• She realizes she can’t leave unless she faces personal challenges.
• The game stops being fun — it becomes suffocating.
Acceptance & Escape (Final Act):
• She stops playing by the rules.
• Learns that real control isn’t about winning — it’s about letting go.
• The Jabberwocky represents her biggest fear, but she chooses to face it instead of running.
• The game glitches and collapses, freeing her.
2. The Opening & Hook
Opening Image: Pol stuck in bed, bitter and scrolling.
Set-Up:
• Lost scholarship, best friend in coma, family tension.
• She isolates herself, resents forced positivity.
Catalyst: Uncle Alison gives her the locket.
Debate: She reluctantly plays the game, finds unexpected comfort in it.
Hook Must Answer:
• Why is Pol so disillusioned? (Show her emotional wounds early.)
• What makes her situation compelling? (Real-world struggles → game contrast.)
• Why would she get sucked into the game? (Sense of control, escapism.)
Main Scenes to Fill Out the Structure
✔ Act 1: The Setup & Inciting Incident
• Pol’s life falling apart → introduced to the game.
✔ Act 2A: The Trap Tightens
• She gets comfortable in the game → starts noticing its control.
✔ Act 2B: Wonderland Takes Over
• Accepting the bunny’s biome traps her.
• She faces emotional challenges as part of the game’s tasks.
✔ Act 3: Breaking Free & Resolution
• The Jabberwocky showdown → realization → escape.
• She reconnects with reality, changed.
Next Steps:
Do any of these sections need adjustments or expansion before we dive into details? Or should we refine one section at a time?
I have a lot of thoughts on all of that. But I will try to be concise.
The emotional beats are mostly correct for how I see things in my head. But as far as the curiosity and comfort, there are two experiences, one outside the game and one in.
The first is just a taste, a teaser of the comfort she ends up finding inside the game because once she’s transported, she is no longer physically disabled. She can walk again, run again, and she feels like herself. This adds to her resistance to going back home to the real world.
For the frustration and realization she discovers that she is lonely in the game. Yes, she can be herself in there and be productive, but she has no one she loves to share it with.
When she starts to fall behind on the task lists and can no longer do everything perfectly she starts to panic and this glitches the game and sends her back to the very beginning. Square one. She is not willing to grind her way through all of that again but not playing the game leaves a void because it forces her back into her real life. She finally caves and goes back into the game to accept the rabbit’s tasks. Then the rest of the beats are correct.
That’s a great refinement — the teaser of comfort before full immersion makes the game’s pull even stronger. The glitching/reset moment also heightens the frustration and reinforces the trap in a natural way.
Would you like to adjust the opening/hook next, or refine how the main scenes fill out the structure?
So, the opening/hook needs a LOT of work. It isn’t very hooky at all in my opinion. No offense. I was thinking more along the lines of her trying to take her first steps after weeks of therapy only to overdo it, fail, hurt herself more, and then end up having to wait longer to try again than she would have otherwise.
That’s a much stronger opening — it immediately shows her frustration, establishes her loss of control, and makes her physical limitations feel visceral. It also makes the game’s temptation more compelling because she’s desperate for any sense of progress.
Would you like to expand this into a rough scene outline, or focus next on filling in the key scenes throughout the structure?
Cool. Before we get to the scenes throughout the structure (which I have lots of notes on by the way since what you gave me isn’t anywhere close to what I expected given our save-the-cat-24-chapter-frankenstructure), I want to take a second to consider how we could weave in the socio-political aspects of Pollyanna or if that would be too much.
Good thought! Pollyanna’s socio-political aspects — particularly its critique of wealth disparity, rigid social roles, and forced optimism — could be woven in subtly or more directly, depending on how deep you want to go.
Ways to Integrate Without Overloading the Story:
The Game as a False Meritocracy
The game rewards her for “playing by the rules” — but the rules are stacked against her.
At first, hard work = progress, but later, the system changes arbitrarily.
This mirrors real-world systems that claim to be fair but aren’t.
Forced Positivity as a Control Mechanism
The game (and NPCs) encourage “positivity” — but in a toxic, suppressive way.
Failure is reframed as “user error” rather than a problem with the system.
This mirrors how society often expects struggling people to “just be grateful.”
Economic Parallels in Pol’s Real World
Pol loses her scholarship due to an accident that wasn’t her fault.
AI takes over her planned career — something she was told was “safe.”
The false promise of stability mirrors how society often sells people on life paths that collapse underneath them.
Would This Be Too Much?
If woven in naturally, it could add depth without overtaking the personal story.
The best way to integrate it is through the game’s gradual shift — from “fair” to “impossible.”
If it feels forced or preachy, we could keep it as a subtext rather than a focus.
Would you want to emphasize these themes more overtly, or keep them as background subtext that enhances the story without taking center stage?
Sweet. I knew it could work.
Background subtext for sure. But I really like the idea of putting Pol in the middle of two completely impossible scenarios. One in reality where she is battling health insurance, education access, and a shifting chaotic external world and one in Wonderland where she thinks it is stable but then she speed runs the game and it basically shows how working class people always get hosed in the end.
OOOOH maybe when it glitches it doesn’t jump her back to the beginning it “levels her up” to what would have been the game’s highest unlocked level or something, but it is essentially her having to start the game all over.
That’s brilliant subtext — the illusion of progress makes the game’s trap even crueler while reinforcing Pol’s real-world struggles. It’s subtle, sharp, and adds depth without feeling preachy.
Would you like to refine how this “level up” mechanic plays out in key scenes, or move on to mapping the main story beats across our hybrid structure?
Let’s jump to scenes throughout our structure.
Main Scenes Mapped to Our Hybrid Structure
ACT 1: SETUP & INCITING INCIDENT (Chapters 1–6)
✔ Opening Image:
Pol attempts her first steps post-accident, overdoes it, and injures herself further.
Recovery is set back, reinforcing her frustration, lack of control, and despair.
✔ Set-Up (Her World Falling Apart):
Best friend is in a coma, family is struggling financially, her future is in ruins.
She avoids friends, doom-scrolls, and resents forced positivity.
Her love interest checks in, but she pushes them away.
✔ Catalyst (The Locket & Game’s Introduction):
Uncle Alison gives her the pocket watch locket.
Her neighbo
Okay. So I stopped you there because that isn’t what I was expecting you to do. Sorry. I think my prompt was incorrect.
No worries! What were you expecting? Do you want a scene-by-scene breakdown that fits into the Save the Cat! + 24-Chapter hybrid, or do you have specific moments you want placed more intentionally within the structure?
I think what I meant was this. We need a list of scenes that MUST take place. So, we need the scene with the PT, a scene with her and her best friends parents, a scene with her and her uncle Ali, a scene with her and the twins, a scene with her and the neighbor kid, etc, etc. Basically a list of where plot points, setting, and characters all need to bump into each other.
Got it! Here’s a list of must-have scenes where key characters, settings, and plot points intersect:
Essential Real-World Scenes
✔ Pol & Her Physical Therapist — Sets up her injury, frustration, and slow progress.
✔ Pol & Her Best Friend’s Parents — They reveal they’re pulling the plug, forcing Pol to face grief & denial.
✔ Pol & Uncle Alison — He gives her the pocket watch locket, teasing its mystery.
✔ Pol & Her Parents — Shows financial struggles, her father’s strictness returning, and her mother’s distance.
✔ Pol & Her Younger Twin Siblings — Establishes her resentment over their easier upbringing and their role in introducing her to the game.
✔ Pol & Neighbor Friend (Love Interest) — First awkward reconnection, hints at a past friendship she pushed away.
✔ Pol at the Grocery Store (Past or Present) — Either a flashback or confrontation with her old boss about her job no longer being available.
✔ Pol & Track Coach (Emails or Call) — Shows her old world moving on without her.
Essential Game-World Scenes (Before Wonderland Traps Her)
✔ First Time Entering the Game (Taste of Freedom) — She experiences movement again and feels whole.
✔ Discovering the Game’s Structure — The first biome feels structured, rewarding, and addicting.
✔ Pol Trying to Play Socially (Fails) — Twins and neighbor friend try to engage with her in-game, but she prefers playing alone.
✔ Bunny NPC Introduces His Biome Task (She Refuses) — She avoids Wonderland at first.
✔ The Game Becomes a Grind (Losing Interest in “Perfect Play”) — She falls behind, panics, and glitches the game.
✔ Glitch Forces a “Level Up” (Disguised Reset) — Instead of restarting, she is pushed forward but with harsher conditions.
✔ Pol Caves & Accepts the Bunny’s Task — The game shifts to Wonderland mode, trapping her.
Essential Wonderland Biome Scenes (Where the Game Becomes a True Challenge)
✔ First Attempt to “Play” Out of Wonderland — She tries to complete tasks but realizes they’re deeply personal.
✔ The Twins Challenge (Sibling Resentment) — Forces her to confront her bitterness toward them.
✔ The Cheshire Cat Challenge (Family Dissonance) — She faces contradictory truths about her parents.
✔ The Queen Challenge (Her Best Friend’s Death) — Brings her guilt and grief to the forefront.
✔ The Jabberwocky Challenge (Fear & Uncertainty) — Forces her to accept the unknown.
✔ She Tries to Cheat the System (Fails) — The game overwhelms her with infinite tasks.
✔ She Rejects the Game’s Rules — Realizes she was never supposed to win — just supposed to keep playing.
✔ The Game Collapses, Letting Her Go — She escapes, changed.
Essential Real-World Resolution Scenes
✔ Pol Reconnects with Family — Her relationship with the twins shifts.
✔ Pol & Neighbor Friend — She acknowledges that she doesn’t have to go through things alone.
✔ Pol Visits Her Best Friend’s Parents Again — She finally allows herself to grieve.
✔ Final Scene with the Locket — She keeps it, knowing it will always find those who need it most.
Next Steps:
Do we need to add or refine any key interactions, or should we start slotting these into our structured outline?
Yaaaaaaaasssss, Chat! Exactly that!
Awesome! 🎉 Now, do you want to slot these scenes into our Franken-structure, or is there anything else you’d like to tweak before we start placing them?
Nah, I’ll juggle those around in my head for a bit until I figure out where they want to go. The last thing I want to address is Pol’s anger. Near the end I want her anger to fuel something positive that fits within the realm of the book. Can you ask me some questions to help me figure out what I want that to be?
Great! Here are some guiding questions to help pinpoint how Pol’s anger can turn into something positive:
What is Pol’s anger really about?
Is it grief? Frustration? A sense of betrayal? Feeling powerless?
What does she think she’s angry about vs. what is actually underneath?
What’s the healthiest expression of that anger?
Does she stand up for herself in a way she couldn’t before?
Does she challenge the game’s unfairness in a way that “breaks” it?
Does she redirect it into action in the real world?
Does she direct her anger at someone or something?
Is there a moment where she finally speaks her mind to someone who needs to hear it?
Does she realize she’s been misdirecting her anger at the wrong people (family, the twins, etc.)?
How does it fit the ending’s themes?
Does she use her anger to reject the game’s rules instead of trying to win?
Does she finally accept that things aren’t fair, but she’s still moving forward?
What does her anger change?
Does it alter her relationships?
Does it change how she sees herself?
Does it lead her to make a new choice in the real world?
Does anything jump out to you as the right direction for her arc?
Alright….*cracks knuckles*…
Pol’s anger is really about feeling despair. grief, betrayal, and powerlessness yes, but mostly despair. She feels rudderless. Even if she did have power she doesn’t know where to point it. She thinks she is angry at everyone around her pretending things are fine. She is actually angry at herself for not realizing that all of this was a real possibility. But accepting that as the reason she is angry is acknowledging that knowing you can’t trust anything in the world to be stable is what she should have been doing all along. And that gives her a gut wrenching despair. When she finally accepts that feeling, she realizes it makes her mad because she doesn’t know how to live if she believed the world could crush her at any moment. How do you have hope in that scenario? How do you move forward? How could she have been so stupid to have hope before now, knowing what she knows? She knew life wasn’t fair, but she just didn’t think society would double down on the unfairness. Especially since it doesn’t have to be that way.
She starts a small rebellion against the game when she begins to get tired of the grind of it (before accepting bunny tasks) this is her experimenting with finding balance rather than perfection since apparently perfection doesn’t fucking matter anyway when the game is rigged. She finds a clever way to farm her collecting tasks. When that creates an excess she can pull from, she starts sharing with the NPC’s so they have a backlog of “helping” bonuses she can call on later. The game ultimately clears these by the end of the day though if they aren’t used which just makes her more angry. This is released into the new world through Pol calling her boss to tell him to stop asking about summer. She already agreed to work over summer until she left for college. The accident didn’t change that. She is on temporary disability as a part-time employee and her family can’t live without that money right now so he needs to back off or she’ll make a bigger fuss over the fact that it was a kroger truck that hit them and she knows why they were in such a rush (she had heard the driver being screamed at by her boss before she left the building). He’s been given pay to hire a temporary worker, so hire a temp or give some of the other part-time employees more shifts to cover hers even if that means they would then qualify for benefits. Then she writes to her coach and asks him to please stop sending photos of the team. She appreciates the gesture, but it has been really difficult to see everyone doing what she misses doing so much, particularly when the reality of her situation is that bare minimum she won’t be running again at an athletic level for years.
Kinda answered that above.
She uses her anger to give herself the strength to accept that she can’t win. Instead of playing into what the game wants she uses her anger to go against what it wants and just accepts that she needs to move on.
Her anger changes in that she is no longer angry at herself for having hope, she is angry at the system that led her to believe that hope was all it would take for her to be successful and that told her giving up was why people weren’t successful. It changes her relationships in that she no longer feels guilty for being hopeful or realistic or skeptical as the situation calls for. I don’t think entertains the idea of becoming a PT by the end of the book anymore. She realizes that being a PT isn’t what is going to make her satisfied. It might bring personal satisfaction to feel like she “overcame her personal physical constraints to teach others to do the same.” But by the end of her journey she feels much stronger about her original passion. She cares about structures. And our societal structure sucks. And that is something she can study. Maybe even something AI can help with.
Hmm… that list bit should have a lead up though. Maybe something good DOES happen in the game with the NPCs…
That was amazing development, and yes — giving the NPCs a moment of autonomy or memory retention could be a great lead-in to her final realization.
Here are some options for how the NPCs might react to her rebellion:
A Small But Noticeable Change
Despite the game resetting, one NPC subtly acknowledges what she did.
Example: An NPC thanks her for a resource she “shouldn’t” have anymore.
The NPCs Start Helping Her on Their Own
Instead of waiting for her input, the NPCs begin completing some tasks themselves.
This could be an eerie but meaningful moment — the system isn’t designed for this, yet it’s happening.
The System Tries to “Correct” Their Behavior
The game removes an NPC that strayed too far from its programming.
This would reinforce the game as a flawed system — but also hint at the possibility of change.
Would you want this moment to feel hopeful, eerie, or bittersweet?
I think in the game it should feel bittersweet. It should fuel Pol even more.
That’s a powerful moment — the game fighting against progress will hit hard and make Pol’s frustration feel earned. It also mirrors real-world systems pushing back when people try to change them.
Would you like to explore how this moment happens visually in-game, or do you feel set on it for now?
Hmmm…. what if Pol defeats the jabberwocky but it’s the game itself that doesn’t let her leave because it learned from the wonderland glitch and adopted the system to be its own. players shouldn’t be able to leave because when they leave no work gets done! Pol defeats it by calling on all of her NPC’s to help her, hoping that even though the game says she can’t use those bonuses anymore, the npc’s will still honor them given the sign that they have some sort of consciousness of her trying to help them. the shear overwhelm of everyone coming to help Pol finish or simply clearing off the absurd task list the game had created glitches the system and Pol is released.
That’s brilliantly thematic — it reinforces that systems only work when people comply, and when enough people push back, the system collapses. It also gives Pol an earned win, where her choice to help others ultimately saves her.
Would you like to refine how this plays out visually, or do you feel good about this moment?
I feel good about it as a general target for the ending. We’ll see what happens when I actually get to that point in the writing process lol
That’s a great approach! Now that we’ve locked in the major emotional beats and thematic resolutions, do you feel Episode 4 is wrapped up, or is there anything else you’d like to refine before closing it out?
Nope, I think that is Episode 4, tied up in a bow. Next time I think we’ll have to start writing out some scenes and giving Pol her voice. Although as a teaser I did come up with three lines that could potentially be the opener:
Healing requires pain. That’s what my physical therapist had said. But she probably didn’t want to be reminded of that while she writhed on the ground.
Today, I learn to walk again.
The twins were screaming at each other down the hall, Mom and Dad were arguing about the latest insurance claim, and AI had just stolen my career prospects. But all of that was fine. Perfectly, fucking fine. Because today I was going to walk again.
That’s a fantastic teaser for Episode 5! Those opening lines immediately set the tone and Pol’s mindset. I can’t wait to see how her voice takes shape in the writing process. 🚀 See you next time!