Cassie stared at the glowing laptop screen.
Okay, she thought, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. You've got the memories and the know-how. So... what's the first move?
This world was her blank canvas, and the contrast from her past life was staggering.
Almost every movie that made her cry or book that kept her up until dawn, and even song she'd belted out in the shower, most of it didn't exist here.
The great artists, the iconic voices, the cultural milestones that had defined her generation? Some were simply never born, and history itself had taken a different fork in the road.
In her previous life, she'd been a copywriter with a music addiction so fierce her headphones were practically a body part.
But knowing lyrics and making music were two very different beasts.
She couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, and the extent of her instrumental talent was a mean Hot Cross Buns on a recorder in fourth grade. So, music was out for now.
But writing was her weapon. Her mind was a library of bestsellers, a vault of stories that had moved millions.
The problem wasn't what to write; it was who was writing it.
She was Cassie, fifteen years old, with a goth aesthetic, living with her clumsy divorced cop dad in a quiet house that still remember the sound of the slammed door by the woman who used to be his wife.
Her mom had a lightbulb moment about her true self and ran off with a coworker to go find it, leaving Cassie with a dad who showed love by making sure her bike lock was secure and the front door was deadbolted by ten.
So, how does a fifteen-year-old goth chick, nursing a grudge against the world and abandoned by her mother, casually drop a book like Harry Potter or Jurassic Park?
Those were masterpieces of imagination and wonder, but they didn't fit her current brand at all. It would be like a mime suddenly break-dancing, which is technically possible, but deeply confusing.
That was when the genius part of her brain kicked into high gear.
Character development, she thought, a slow, wicked smile spreading across her lips. I just need to plan my own.
Phase One: Write a book that explores multiple perspectives. Something introspective, a little angsty. The kind of thing a sharp, observant, slightly wounded teen might actually write.
It would be her cover story. After pouring her soul into understanding different lives, different pains, different... attractions... she could organically 'evolve'.
Her writing would broaden her horizons. It would explain why, next year, she might want to 'try something new'.
Phase Two: Unleash the big guns. Under the guise of a maturing artist finding her voice, she could drop a masterpiece and no one would bat an eye.
"Yup," she whispered to the silence of her room, the single bulb casting dramatic shadows across her face. "Still a genius."
Her eyes dropped to the list she'd scrawled earlier, the titles staring back at her like a cheat code to a new life.
•••
The Fault In Our Stars
Eleanor & Park
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Thirteen Reasons Why
Speak
The Hunger Games
•••
"Oh, girl," she breathed, a giddy, almost guilty laugh escaping her. She tried to look conflicted, tried to look like this was a burden, but failed miserably. The grin splitting her face was pure glee. "What am I supposed to do with all these choices?"
Each one was a cultural atom bomb. Bestsellers, generation-definers. It felt almost like cheating. Almost.
But one title shone in her eyes with a brighter, more urgent light: The Hunger Games.
A global phenomenon and a series that sold over a hundred million copies. A story with a sixteen-year-old protagonist: age-appropriate, check. A gritty, survivalist premise that her cop dad's world-weary stories could accidentally inspire, it was the perfect storm.
It would be a direct launchpad towards the title of the youngest, most famous author in history. It wasn't just a dream anymore.
But there was a tiny problem.
Publishing house.
She was well aware of the horror stories from her old life: successful authors who hit it big but hit it wrong. They'd sign away film rights for a song because they couldn't do otherwise.
It was mostly about the contracts, designed to bleed them dry for decades.
A fifteen-year-old goth chick with no literary footprint walks in with The Hunger Games?
They'd eat her alive.
She could see it: a smiling editor in a cashmere sweater, sliding a contract across a luxury lunch. "Sweetheart, this is such a strong debut. Now, about the royalties, standard for first-time authors is eight percent, but we can go to ten if you're willing to let us handle the film negotiations..."
And she, high on the moment, drunk on the idea of seeing her name on a bookstore shelf, would sign. And then she'd spend the rest of her life watching other people get rich off her cheat-code brain.
The thought made her feel like she'd rather die. It would be disgusting.
She closed her eyes and forced herself to think like a businesswoman instead of a greedy little gremlin.
Anyway, The Hunger Games wasn't going anywhere. It would still be there in two years, three, or even five, because the books weren't expiring, and even less so was the audience going to forget how to read.
But she needed to be ready when she finally dropped that bomb.
Which meant she needed something she was willing to sacrifice.
She looked back at the list, and this time she saw it differently.
•••
Thirteen Reasons Why — Pros: Commercial potential, conversation-starter, makes people talk.
Cons: Controversial as hell. The suicide stuff and the tapes might land differently here and could brand her as 'the girl who writes about death,' which is fine for her aesthetic but maybe not for long-term empire-building.
Also, she'd have to defend it forever.
The Fault in Our Stars — Pros: So many cries, beloved and quotable.
Cons: She's fifteen, writing a love story this profound between two dying teenagers would raise questions. "How does a child understand grief like this?" People dig into her life, find her mom ran off (not died, ran off), and suddenly she's a fraud before she even starts.
Eleanor & Park — Pros: Gorgeous, real, and the '80s setting gives her cover: "Dad's old records, his high school yearbooks, I just imagined my way in."
Cons: The racism subplot, the body image stuff, and the ending that makes people throw books across rooms. Also, writing a mixed-race relationship as a white girl from nowhere?
Perks of Being a Wallflower — Pros: Epistolary format feels young, very authentic; the 'dear friend' voice is exactly what a lonely teen would write.
Cons: The abuse reveals at the end, the molested uncle—and how does she know again? People would ask.
Speak — Literary darling and her current inclination.
Pros: Award bait. National Book Award finalist in her old world, which means credibility. The voice is sharp, wounded, fifteen. It's the kind of book people say 'how did someone so young write something so raw?' but in a good way.
Cons: It's not a franchise; it's not The Hunger Games. The money is smaller, and the spotlight, while bright, isn't blinding.
•••
She stared at the last one for a long time.
Choosing Speak meant admitting she wasn't ready for the big score yet. It meant playing the long game while her greedy little heart screamed BUT KATNISS. It meant writing a book about trauma she hadn't experienced, which felt... weird.
But it also meant building something real.
If she published Speak at fifteen, she'd be a phenomenon. 'Teenage author captures voice of surviving with startling authenticity.'
The interviews would be gentle. But then again, it's media, it's better to trust a politician than them, mostly?
Still, people would want to know about her: the goth girl, the cop's daughter, the kid whose mom walked out.
"My mom left. I was angry. I watched people, and I wrote."
Then, with awards on her shelf and a reputation for literary depth, she could drop The Hunger Games at seventeen or even something better depending on her character development. And when she did, she'd have leverage, and she'd have publishers bidding against each other.
Most importantly, she'd have control.
The idea alone was so exciting that she took a notebook to write her plan, not even daring to use the laptop because God knows what kind of things technology can pull. And even after, she had already made up her mind to burn the notebook.
•••
Phase One: Build the Brand
1. Look the part. Start carrying real books around. Poetry, even. Let teachers see her reading, her dad see her reading, and the world see her thinking.
2. Learn the craft. Not because someone with a whole damn library in her head needs it, but because it creates a paper trail. Library cards, notebooks filled with 'character sketches.' A blog where she posts 'practice pieces' that are actually just... scenes. Things that look like homework.
3. Collect inspirations. Find someone who reminds her of Melinda. Not to exploit—god, no—but to observe. To listen and let life inform art, so when the questions come, she can say 'I knew someone like that' and mean it instead of being a hypocrite.
•••
It was delicate because she couldn't just go hunting for traumatized teenagers. That would be weird. She had the idea because, in the school, she did think of someone who might fit the criteria.
(END OF THE CHAPTER)
Honestly, it feels weird choosing the right book and I feel many wouldn't like my choice, but I just can't see my 'smart' mc dropping something because it's popular without consideration of her situation, like that story of a seven years old or something dropping Jurassic Park.
If you appreciated it, don't forget to let a power stone.