Chapter 2:
313 Words
Chapter 2:
Two days passed with no word from Black Publishing.
Amara stopped checking her phone every five minutes. She stopped eating properly. Her landlord had knocked twice already, and she was two weeks behind on rent. If this didn’t work, she didn’t know what she would do.
Then the email came at 3:47 AM. Subject line: RE: Manuscript Submission.
One line inside: Come to the office tomorrow. 9 AM. Don't be late this time.
Her hands shook so badly she dropped the phone on the floor. She read the email three times to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.
When she arrived at the office, Ethan didn’t even look up from his computer screen. “Sit,” he said, pointing to the chair across from him.
She sat, back straight, heart pounding.
“It’s messy,” he said finally, after what felt like an hour. “The pacing dies in Chapter 4. Your dialogue is overwritten. And the heroine is too passive. She doesn’t make decisions, things just happen to her.”
Amara’s hope crashed down. “So you hate it.”
“No,” he said, and for the first time, he looked at her directly. “I hate that it could be good and isn’t. Yet.”
He pushed the manuscript back across the desk. Red marks bled across every page like a battlefield.
“Rewrite Chapter 1-5. Two weeks. If it’s better, we’ll talk contract. If not, don’t come back.”
Two weeks. She had two weeks to save everything.
“Why are you helping me?” she asked before she could stop herself. “You could have just rejected me.”
Ethan leaned back in his chair. “Because I haven’t felt this angry about a book in a year. And anger means I care.”
That wasn’t an answer. But it was something. Something she could hold onto.
- Writer
