Plotting to Win by Tara Chevrestt Read Free Book Online Page B

Ophelia’s suit was a soft yellow this time, but her gaze was just as hard as usual as she surveyed the contestants in front of her. “The winner of the query challenge, Tiffani, will be able to manipulate this challenge. Whoever does the worst on this challenge will be closing their manuscript and going home. One of you will continue on to become the next bestseller, 100,000 dollars richer, with a Bright House publishing contract in hand.”
    Do we have to listen to the same spiel every time? Victor shifted from one foot to the other. He guessed they had to explain everything in every episode for new viewers. It didn’t make it any less tiresome to hear though.
    “Your first elimination challenge is to write a 3,000 word short story to a sentence prompt. This will be judged by Allen Brown, Nicole Roberts, and myself, plus the viewers later in the week. The viewers’ votes on any stories penned through this show do not affect elimination, but the people’s top choice does help us determine the winner.” Ophelia paused, allowing this to sink in. “We will keep the viewers’ votes and comments in mind when the last challenge comes around.”
    There was a loud groan, and someone else sighed, but Victor nodded. He liked this idea. This contest should be about writing.
    “Each story must be in a certain genre. You will receive a piece of paper. On one side is the prompt. This sentence must be the sentence used to start your story, the very first. On the other side is the genre this story must be penned in. Tiffany, you will be allowed to assign the prompts slash genres to the authors of your choice.”
    “Oh shit,” he muttered. Tiffani was going to hang them all out to dry. She was going to give them genres they knew nothing about, making sure she rose to the top. But wouldn’t he do the same in her position?
    Tiffani was beaming as she accepted the little pieces of paper from Mr. Brown.
    “When you receive your paper, please read the prompt and the genre to us aloud,” Mr. Brown instructed.
    Victor tried to catch Felicity’s eye, but Carmen and Arnold stood between them. It was hard to believe, but she’d managed to skillfully avoid him since their conversation on the balcony, despite their confined space. He’d tried to talk to her after lights out, but after a few attempts at quietly hissing her name and her lying there with her back to him, he’d given up.
    He was an ass, and he was sorry. But when she talked about love and happy-ever-afters, he just couldn’t buy it. He’d watched his mother suffer, give her heart and body to man after man.
    “Victor,” she would say, a beatific smile stretching across her face, “this one is it. I know it. He’ll take care of us. You’ll see.”
    By the time he was fourteen, Victor knew the drill by heart. A handsome man entered the picture, swept his mama off her feet, spent her money, used her body, smacked him upside the head, and was gone, leaving tears and black eyes in his wake.
    Victor didn’t want to be like those men, but he knew nothing else.
    That was romance in real life.
    A piece of paper was shoved into his hand. Tiffani smirked at him as she moved on to the next person. He glanced down at the sentence in front of him.
    I loved him so much I would do anything for him, even …
    He cursed under his breath and flipped it over. Just as he feared, he had to write a romance. Ironic given his recent train of thoughts.
    Damn you, Tiffani!
    One by one, the contestants read off their sentences and genres. Carmen had historical, Arnold literary — poor kid — Roy had young adult, Felicity was assigned military — he wondered how she was going to throw a happy ending in that — Dez had women’s fiction — Victor had to laugh at that — and Tiffani, of course, had erotica.
    “You have five hours to retreat to your writers’ caves and pen a 3,000 word short story beginning with the sentence on your paper in the genre you’ve been assigned. This will test