Initial Writing Prompt:
Darkly Comic British YA Fiction
Write a short story over several chapters to this prompt: The text came just after midnight: 🩸🩸🩸
Darkly Comic British YA Fiction
Write a short story over several chapters to this prompt: The text came just after midnight: 🩸🩸🩸
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Your task is to create a writing plan for this prompt. The scope will be a short story, written over {n_chapters} chapters. Each chapter will be approximately 1000 words so plan accordingly for this scope. Your plan should be comprehensive and in this format:
# Brainstorming
<Brainstorm ideas for characters, plot, tone, story beats, pacing over the {n_chapters} chapters. The purpose of brainstorming is to cast a wide net of ideas, not to settle on any specific direction. Think about various ways you could take the prompt.>
# Reflection
<Reflect out loud on what works and doesn't work in these ideas. The purpose of this reflection is to narrow in on what you think will work best to make a piece that is a. compelling, and b. fits the prompt requirements. You are not making any decisons just yet, just reflecting.>
Model Output:
# Brainstorming
- Tone and genre options:
- Darkly comic, British YA: sardonic narration, wry observations about school, parents, damp weather, bureaucracy, and the absurdity of danger.
- Comedy springs from the narrator’s terrible timing, British understatement, and social awkwardness; darkness from blood, possible death, family secrets, crime, and moral compromise.
- Compare tension of teen life (GCSEs, crushes, group chats) with a genuine, escalating threat.
- Premise variations for the prompt (“The text came just after midnight: 🩸🩸🩸”):
1) Mystery-crime angle: anonymous text with blood emojis linked to a local missing person case; protagonist entangled in amateur sleuthing that turns out to be less Scooby-Doo, more “you’re in serious danger.”
2) Supernatural twist: blood emojis used by a family of vampires or a secret society at school; the text is an invitation, warning, or signal.
3) Prank gone wrong: a school prank group (or influencer challenge) sends creepy texts; someone takes it too far, real blood gets involved.
4) Family secret: the text comes from a relative the protagonist thought dead, or from their estranged dad/mum involved in crime/underground activism.
5) True-crime fandom satire: protagonist runs a podcast about local cold cases; the text is from someone baiting them; lines between investigation and exploitation blur.
- Protagonist options:
- Name: Tilly or Max or Ira. British, state school, Year 11 or Year 12.
- Personality: sarcastic, anxious, clever but not cunning, prone to catastrophising, has a good best friend who enables bad decisions.
- Family: single parent with long shifts (NHS nurse), or dad unemployed and self-pitying; chaotic younger sibling; grandma with inappropriate commentary.
- Skills: decent at biology (ironic blood knowledge), or tech-savvy enough to trace numbers; perhaps works a Saturday job in a charity shop or chip shop.
- Best friend/ally:
- Name: Saffron (“Saff”), Jai, or Mo.
- A foil: practical where protagonist is impulsive, or vice versa; brings humor and heart.
- Has ride-or-die loyalty but will draw moral lines, causing tension.
- Antagonist/catalyst:
- A sixth-form “cool kid” running an underground blood drive/cultish club (satirise posh activism).
- A local small-time criminal playing kids against each other for couriering stolen meds.
- A deputy head obsessed with safeguarding, ironically missing obvious danger.
- An elderly neighbour who’s not what they seem.
- Setting:
- British seaside town off-season; damp, tired amusements. Or Midlands suburb with omnipresent ring roads and retail parks. Or outer London estate near a canal.
- Frequent UK details: Greggs, bus passes, detention, Duke of Edinburgh Awards, Tesco Meal Deal, weather complaints.
- Plot arcs over 8 chapters (approx 1000 words each):
1) Hook: The text: 🩸🩸🩸. Tilly receives it after midnight. She jokes about vampire prank. In morning, news of local butcher break-in or missing teen. Blood motif returns. She and best friend argue if it’s a joke or warning. Stakes: exam results day looming; Tilly’s mum on night shifts; dog named Biscuit eats things.
2) Complication: More texts: location hints (an OS grid ref? a pun?). Tilly notices they reference biology notes and the school motto. They follow a clue to the old lido/canal lock; find a bag with... blood packets? Or a GCSE paper stained red. Darkly comic scenes of failing to look casual in the dark.
3) Deeper entanglement: The texts start addressing Tilly by nickname only a few know. She suspects inner circle (ex-friend, her brother, her crush’s prank). Simultaneously, school announces missing lab supplies/blood typing kits stolen. Rumours fly. She and Saffron confront a suspect; comedic disaster in assembly.
4) Midpoint reveal: They meet the sender’s proxy: a weirdly polite boy, Linus, who says he’s part of a “Society for Civilised Nourishment” (actually just goth vegan kids). Fake-out. Real sender interjects with live-text proving they’re watching. A proper threat emerges: someone’s coercing them to perform tasks, or else “there will be more blood.” Stakes escalate when the texts hint at Mum’s workplace (hospital).
5) Past meets present: Tilly learns her dad (absent) used to be a porter at the same hospital and got fired under murky circumstances involving missing plasma. The texts want her to retrieve a parcel from a locker; it turns out to be medical-grade blood bags. They’re being used in an illegal ring reselling to biohacking weirdos/underground clinics. Tilly accidentally brings a bag to school in her PE kit. Hijinks and panic.
6) Moral crisis: Tilly can go to the police, but the texter leaks a doctored video making it look like she stole from the hospital; threatens Mum’s job. She tries to outsmart them with British teen ingenuity: rope in her gran, who has gossip networks; consider using the school drama club’s props. Saff draws a line: this is dangerous. They fall out. Tilly improvises alone and makes it worse.
7) Plan and trap: Reconciliation. They device a plan to trap the sender: use the blood emojis back at them, bait with a fake drop using stage blood; hide cameras (phone on a milk crate). Comedy: Biscuit the dog steals the fake blood bag and the entire scene becomes slapstick. Still, they capture a crucial detail: the sender is… Deputy Head? No, misdirection: it’s the Head Girl’s older brother, a paramedic on suspension, using school kids as couriers. Human villain, not a cartoon.
8) Climax and fallout: Confrontation at the old pier/canal lock during a storm; paramedic brother arrives to take the “real” bag; Mum shows up after tracking Tilly’s phone; Saff arrives with gran in a mobility scooter. Dark humor meets danger. Resolution: arrest; Tilly faces consequences, grounded; she posts a mock PSA about blood emojis. Epilogue seed: one last text: 🩸 from an unknown number—linger ambiguity; or reveal it was Dad trying to warn her, in his useless way.
- Thematic threads:
- Blood as biology vs blood as family. What we owe to people we share blood with.
- Institutions meant to protect (school, NHS) are fallible; community gossip networks sometimes do more.
- The absurdity of adolescence beside actual criminal schemes.
- Privacy and surveillance: how easy it is to be watched/manipulated in a small town full of CCTV and ring doorbells.
- Running jokes:
- Tilly’s mum weaponises the phrase “I’m not angry, I’m disappointed—deeply.”
- Biscuit eats evidence.
- Tilly’s obsession with her Duke of Edinburgh expedition rucksack’s “many pockets.”
- The school’s safeguarding posters are everywhere and hilariously vague.
- Linus’s vegan goth club has earnest pamphlets with terrible fonts.
- Chapter-by-chapter beat options:
- 1) After midnight text; Tilly’s voice; next morning chaos; hint of missing something; decide not to tell Mum; agree to delete the text (doesn’t); bus banter with Saff; end with second message containing a map pin and one more 🩸.
- 2) After-school adventure to location; meet weird security guard; find item; comedic getaway; realise they are in over heads; decide “just one more clue.”
- 3) School rumor mill; biology lab scene with blood typing; hint that stolen supplies link to the texts; encounter with Head Girl Zara, who seems helpful but is evasive; Tilly’s crush Kiran has a suspicious nosebleed; end with threaty text showing a photo taken through Tilly’s bedroom window (actually reflection from outside—creepy).
- 4) Meeting with Linus and his club; them being red herrings; phone buzzing; blackmail; the “or more blood” threat; Tilly confides in Saff and considers going to police; texts reveal info only a hospital insider would know; Mum offhandedly mentions a paramedic scandal on the news.
- 5) Locker parcel mission; near-encounter with an on-shift paramedic; Tilly hides blood bag in PE kit; Biscuit finds it; farce; scrap with Kiran over mistaken bag; Zara intervenes to “help”; Tilly clocks Zara’s brother’s badge lanyard in a photo at Zara’s house.
- 6) The threat of Mum losing job; fake video; fall out with Saff; Tilly tries independent swap and narrowly escapes; gran’s gossip nets a name: Callum (Zara’s brother); Tilly realises pattern in the emojis correlates with O-, AB+, etc., and drop times.
- 7) Make plan; stage blood and decoy; camera setup; Biscuit chaos; capture partial face/tattoo; Saff uses drama club to set the scene; text exchange becomes comedic duel of emojis; reveal: Zara’s complicity by omission; she confesses she tried to make it stop by steering Tilly rather than strangers.
- 8) Final meet; weather; physical comedy meets real threat; Mum arrives; confrontation; Callum’s motive: debt, rationalises taking from system that “wastes”; Tilly lays into him with teenage fury and bio facts; police arrive courtesy of gran calling her “friend Maureen” at the station; resolution; grounding; final ambiguous text.
- POV/style:
- First person present or past, brisk, observational humour, self-deprecating. British slang lightly sprinkled, not overdone. Avoid glamorising crime.
- Visual motif:
- Emojis in text threads as chapter headers; receipts; posters; the blood drop emojis increasing or decreasing to indicate intensity.
- Alternative twist possibilities:
- Dad sends emojis because he’s illiterate on new phone; he thought it was hearts but chose blood; tragicomic. He was trying to warn about Callum.
- The midnight text is a coded distress call from the missing teen; Tilly misreads it as joke, leading to guilt.
- The society of vegan goths turn out to be the most competent adults in the room, saving the day.
- Potential chapter cliffhangers:
- A text photo from Tilly’s window.
- Blood bag leaking in her rucksack during assembly.
- Mum’s login credentials appear in a text.
- Biscuit runs off with the only proof.
- The wrong person shows up to the drop—someone from school.
# Reflection
- What works:
- Framing the emojis as both comic and ominous is spot on for darkly comic YA. The blood drop icon is inherently on-theme with biology, hospitals, and family. It allows for playful text-exchange formatting while maintaining tension.
- A protagonist with a sardonic British teen voice can carry both humor and stakes. The contrast between GCSE stress and actual criminal blackmail is rich terrain for comedy and pathos.
- The local, small-scale crime (misappropriated medical blood) feels grounded, morally ambiguous, and suitably “British small-town noir,” without veering into sensational violence. It also ties into themes: blood as commodity vs blood as family.
- Using school culture—safeguarding posters, assemblies, PE kit disasters—gives opportunities for set pieces that are both funny and character-revealing.
- Making the villain a suspended paramedic humanises the threat and critiques systemic pressures, avoiding cartoonish evil. The Head Girl sibling connection threads the school/social hierarchy into the plot neatly.
- Biscuit the dog as comedic chaos engine can escalate tension without cheapening danger; his antics can plausibly derail plans at crucial beats.
- The gran gossip network is a very British, charming device that can turn the plot in a satisfying way and undercut authorities in a comic fashion.
- Potential pitfalls:
- Tone balance: too jokey during dangerous moments could trivialise serious issues like theft from the NHS and public safety; too grim could alienate YA readers expecting levity.
- Ethical handling of blood/medical theft: needs to avoid glamorising crime or stigmatising healthcare workers. The narrative should condemn the theft and show consequences.
- The villain’s motive: must be believable without justifying the harm. Debt/pressure and disillusionment with the system makes sense, but avoid turning it into a lecture.
- Complexity of the conspiracy: keep it small-scale; don’t introduce sprawling networks or body horror. Emojis as code must remain decipherable and not silly.
- Pacing across 8 x 1000 words: ensure each chapter has a clear arc and a hook/cliffhanger without feeling repetitive. Escalation should feel organic.
- Refinements to consider:
- Keep POV first-person past tense with concise, quippy lines and vivid sensory detail; intersperse screenshots-like text snippets.
- Limit the suspect pool early to maintain tight plotting: Zara (Head Girl), Kiran (crush), Linus (red herring), Deputy Head (comic antagonist), Callum (actual villain).
- Embed clues fairly: lanyard photo, insider hospital knowledge, emoji patterns as blood types, the “more blood” threat linked to supply days.
- Give Saff a strong agency moment—perhaps she pulls the final lever with drama props, or she’s the one who calls Mum/police at the right time.
- Ensure Tilly’s growth: starts flippant about the text, becomes more responsible, learns to ask for help, reconciles with Mum, sets a boundary about secrecy.
- Finish with ambiguous final text to keep a darkly comic sting; possibly reveal Dad’s involvement in a bittersweet way in the epilogue, but avoid sprawling unresolved threads.
- What to keep as core:
- The midnight blood emoji text as catalyst and recurring motif.
- British school and town texture for authenticity and humour.
- The medical blood theft plot anchored to family/workplace stakes.
- The best friend dynamic, the gran, and the misfit club as comedic relief and assistance.
- A human-scale villain with consequences, not a supernatural reveal.
- What to drop or downplay:
- Supernatural angles—stick to realistic crime to keep the satire sharp.
- Overly complex codes; keep the emoji puzzle clever but solvable.
- Extra subplots like crush romance unless it serves the main story; sprinkle lightly for texture, don’t let it dominate.
- Final direction leaning:
- A wry, first-person British YA caper-thriller: “you’re not going to believe what happened after I got a text of three blood drops.” It starts as a joke, turns into a blackmail mystery tied to the NHS, and resolves with friendship, family, and a small-town conspiracy unraveled. Tone stays nimble: grim stakes punctuated by farce and wit. Each chapter advances the plot meaningfully with a set piece, and the emoji motif threads through as a code and running gag.
Great now let's continue with planning the short story. Output in this format:
# Intention
<State your formulated intentions for the piece, synthesised from the the parts of the brainstorming session that worked, and avoiding the parts that didn't. Be explicit about the choices you have made about plot, voice, stylistic choices, things you intend to aim for & avoid.>
# Chapter Planning
<Write a brief chapter plan for all {n_chapters} chapters.>
Model Output:
# Intention
- Voice and tone:
- First-person past tense from Tilly’s point of view: sardonic, observant, self-deprecating. British YA sensibility with dry humour, understatement, and specific local detail (Greggs, bus passes, assemblies, safeguarding posters).
- Darkly comic balance: treat danger seriously while allowing for wit, awkwardness, and farce. Avoid flippancy around medical theft; humour arises from character dynamics, social situations, and Tilly’s inner commentary.
- Plot and scope:
- Realistic crime, no supernatural elements. The midnight text with three blood-drop emojis is the inciting incident leading to a small-town scheme: stolen medical blood resold via coerced teen couriers.
- Antagonist: Callum, the Head Girl’s older brother, a suspended paramedic under debt/pressure. Human, believable motive without absolution.
- Red herrings: Linus and his earnest goth-vegan society; Deputy Head’s safeguarding zeal. Keep the suspect pool tight and clues fair: hospital insider details, a lanyard photo, emoji patterns linked to blood types and timings.
- Stakes: Tilly’s mum works hospital night shifts; threats jeopardise her job. Tilly risks school trouble, legal consequences, and friendships.
- Character focus:
- Tilly: clever but not cunning; anxious, quippy, learns to ask for help and to draw lines. Biology nerd tendencies inform the blood motif and clue-solving.
- Saffron (“Saff”): best friend and foil—practical, morally anchored. Has agency and a decisive role in the climax plan; not just comic relief.
- Gran: comedic ally with a gossip network that meaningfully advances the plot.
- Biscuit the dog: chaos engine used sparingly to escalate set pieces, never trivialising danger.
- Zara (Head Girl): conflicted, complicit by omission; tries to nudge events to minimise harm. Not a moustache-twirler.
- Linus: sincere red herring; ultimately helpful.
- Stylistic choices:
- Sprinkle in text message snippets and emoji code moments; keep them readable and integrated into narration. No heavy formatting required.
- Specific British school-life texture and small-town setting (seaside off-season or canal-side suburb) to ground the comedy.
- Running jokes: safeguarding posters, Mum’s “I’m disappointed” line, Biscuit eating things, DofE rucksack’s “many pockets,” Linus’s awful pamphlet fonts.
- Thematic throughline:
- Blood as biology vs blood as family. Institutions and their blind spots versus community networks. Adolescence’s absurdity colliding with real-world stakes. Privacy/surveillance in small towns.
- Avoid:
- Glamorising crime or making healthcare staff broadly villainous. Excessively grim violence or body horror. Over-complex codes. Overloading with romance subplots. Tone whiplash in life-or-death beats.
# Chapter Planning
1) Chapter One: Three Drops
- Hook: Tilly receives the midnight text: three blood-drop emojis from an unknown number. She screenshotted it “for the group chat” but doesn’t send it.
- Next morning: Mum returns from a night shift; Tilly hides the text, banters about GCSE revision/packed lunch. Biscuit steals toast.
- School bus with Saff: Tilly shares the text; they joke about vampires, then see a local news alert about a hospital supply van incident and a butcher shop break-in—blood imagery threaded through.
- At school: Deputy Head’s safeguarding assembly about “digital footprints” with laughably vague posters. Second text arrives: a map pin near the old lido and one blood-drop emoji.
- End beat: Tilly and Saff decide to check it after school “just to prove it’s nothing,” with Tilly rationalising it as content for her DofE “initiative.”
2) Chapter Two: The Lido Bag
- After-school trek to the derelict lido/canal lock. British drizzle, dodgy fencing, Tilly’s DofE rucksack with “many pockets.”
- Comic stealth fails: they’re terrible at looking casual, encounter a bored security guard who’s more invested in his meal deal. They bluff about an art project.
- Find a stashed sports bag near the lockers: inside, cold packs and sealed medical-looking pouches, plus a note: “Reliable couriers get paid.” One more blood emoji.
- Panic vs curiosity: Saff votes to leave it; Tilly wants to understand. They put it back but snap photos. Biscuit (who has followed them) nosing around nearly gets the bag ripped open.
- End beat: As they leave, a text arrives using Tilly’s childhood nickname—known to few. Someone’s watching.
3) Chapter Three: Type and Rumour
- School day escalates: biology lesson on blood typing; Tilly connects the lecture to the stolen-looking pouches. Darkly comic lab mishap (fake blood on uniform).
- Rumour mill: whispers about missing lab kits and someone stealing from the hospital. Zara (Head Girl) is around, concerned and poised; she’s oddly keen to know if anyone’s seen “weird texts.”
- Tilly’s crush Kiran gets a spontaneous nosebleed in corridor; blood motif again, played for mortified comedy.
- Tilly and Saff confront Linus (goth vegan with “Society for Civilised Nourishment”), suspecting a prank; he’s earnest and baffled, hands them a leaflet with a terrible font about ethical consumption.
- Cliffhanger: A new text—photo taken seemingly from Tilly’s bedroom window with tonight’s date on the TV screen, plus “More 🩸 if you ignore me.” Tilly realises someone’s close.
4) Chapter Four: Inside Knowledge
- Fear spikes; Tilly considers telling Mum. Saff argues for going to the police. Tilly stalls, worried about Mum’s job.
- They agree to meet Linus again at the café; he’s a red herring but reveals something useful: the hospital had a recent scandal with a paramedic suspended—he overheard via his nurse aunt.
- Live-text from the sender interrupts: instructions for a locker pickup at the train station; threat references Mum’s ward layout and rota—insider details.
- Tilly confesses to Saff about her dad’s murky history at the hospital; feels a pattern. Saff insists on conditions: they’ll go together, they won’t actually deliver anything, and they’ll document everything.
- End beat: Mum casually mentions at dinner a “Callum from A&E” on the local news for misconduct; Tilly clocks the name without yet linking to Zara.
5) Chapter Five: The Parcel and the PE Kit
- Station locker pickup: farcical near-miss with an on-shift paramedic and a ticket inspector. They retrieve a parcel: medical-grade blood bags.
- Panic: They decide to hand it to the police, but a text arrives with a doctored clip making it look like Tilly opened hospital storage. Threat: Mum’s job on the line if they don’t cooperate.
- In the scramble, Tilly hides one bag in her PE kit as “temporary safety.” Biscuit later discovers it at home, leading to a ticking time bomb of potential leakage.
- At school, bag mix-up: Kiran borrows her rucksack by mistake; Tilly and Saff enact a chaotic retrieval mission mid-assembly. Stage-worthy farce; Deputy Head’s safeguarding spiel again.
- After school at Zara’s house for a prefect thing, Tilly sees a framed photo: Zara with her older brother in a paramedic uniform, lanyard showing “Callum.” Dot-connecting begins.
- End beat: Text instructs a midnight drop by the old pier, with three blood emojis and “No police.”
6) Chapter Six: Lines and Leverage
- Tilly argues with Saff: Saff wants to go to the police now; Tilly fears the blackmail will harm Mum. Tempers flare; they fall out.
- Tilly tries a solo “partial compliance”: does a small drop to buy time, narrowly avoids a lurking figure at the pier. It’s scary, not comic.
- She goes to Gran for tea and crisis-talking; Gran activates her gossip network. Name “Callum” resurfaces—Gran knows of him via “Maureen’s niece at A&E.”
- Tilly analyses the texts: notices the number of blood emojis correlates with blood types/urgency and hospital delivery days. She pieces together the scheme rhythm.
- Saff, after cooling off, texts: she’s in if they do it safely and call in adults at the right moment. They reconcile, set boundaries, and decide to bait the sender with a decoy drop.
- End beat: Zara corners Tilly privately, half-confession: she “tried to steer it to someone careful” to stop strangers getting hurt. She’s terrified of what her brother’s become.
7) Chapter Seven: Stage Blood
- Plan: Use drama club to create convincing decoy blood bags with stage blood; hide real bag in a secure spot; plant phones as cameras; loop in Gran to tip police anonymously at the right time.
- Comedy: Biscuit absconds with a decoy bag, turning the rehearsal into slapstick; they recover, leaving sticky red footprints that alarm the caretaker.
- Execution: At the drop site, the sender approaches—hood up, identifiable by a tattoo partially caught on camera. The decoy is taken, and Tilly/Saff exchange barbed emoji banter to buy time.
- Reveal: Footage and Zara’s confession align—Callum is the sender. Zara admits she didn’t know the extent but kept quiet, hoping to control damage.
- Stakes turn: Callum realises he’s been duped (stage blood is obvious up close). He threatens to escalate; demands the “real” stock and names. He sets a final meet: tonight, canal lock.
8) Chapter Eight: The Lock and the Drop
- Stormy night at the canal lock; heightened tension. Tilly, Saff, and Zara arrive with a single genuine bag as bait; Gran lurks nearby on a mobility scooter with a walkie-talkie; Linus’s club on standby as witnesses.
- Confrontation: Callum shows up; rationalises theft as “taking from a wasteful system.” Tilly counters with sharp, grounded bio facts and the human cost; Zara pleads with him to stop.
- Physical scramble: Biscuit appears at the worst moment; slippery towpath; someone nearly falls into the lock. Saff’s quick thinking with drama rigging (rope, sandbag) prevents disaster.
- Mum arrives, having tracked Tilly’s phone; torn between fury and fear. Gran’s network has alerted Maureen at the station; police arrive. Callum is arrested; Zara gives a statement.
- Fallout: Tilly faces consequences—grounded, school sanction—but also credit for stopping a harmful scheme. She and Saff reaffirm boundaries about secrets. Mum’s “I’m not angry, I’m disappointed—deeply” lands, then softens.
- Epilogue beat: Weeks later, Tilly records a mock PSA about blood emojis for the school. A final ambiguous ping from an unknown number: a single blood drop, which turns out—stinger or bittersweet twist—to be from Dad with a clumsy “thought it was a heart” message, hinting he tried to warn her earlier. The comedy returns with a throb of poignancy.
With a view to making the writing more human, discuss how a human might approach this particular piece (given the original prompt). Discuss telltale LLM approaches to writing (generally) and ways they might not serve this particular piece. For example, common LLM failings are to write safely, or to always wrap things up with a bow, or trying to write impressively at the expense of readability. Then do a deep dive on the intention & plan, critiquing ways it might be falling into typical LLM tropes & pitfalls. Brainstorm ideas to make it more human. Be comprehensive. We aren't doing any rewriting of the plan yet, just critique & brainstorming.
Model Output:
A human approach to this piece
- Starting from life, not from structure:
- A human writer might begin with a specific felt moment rather than a full scaffold: the glow of a phone at 00:07, the quiet dread of a teen worrying about a parent on night shift, the stupid hilarity of a dog chewing something it shouldn’t. From that kernel, they’d find the story’s shape, allowing mess, contradiction, and tone wobble before smoothing it.
- The voice would likely drive choices as much as plot. A human might write pages of Tilly’s interior monologue before they know “the plot is blood theft,” and the crime element would arrive by surprise (to them), which can make the narrative feel discovered rather than engineered.
- Specificity over archetype:
- A human would mine real British textures: the exact brand of crisps in the corner shop, the smell in the school assembly hall, the exact way the Deputy Head says “guys, be mindful” through a tinny mic. These details naturally create humor and credibility.
- Relationships would contain seemingly irrelevant but telling beats: shared memes, private jokes, petty annoyances, small betrayals. These are often idiosyncratic and resist tidy arcs.
- Willingness to leave frayed edges:
- Humans often resist wrapping everything in a neat bow. The villain’s motives may remain partly opaque. The consequences may linger and inconvenience the characters beyond the final page. The last note might be uncomfortable ambiguity rather than a zingy stinger.
- Risk with tone and messiness:
- A human might let the comedy undercut a serious conversation at the worst time, or let a joke fall flat on purpose because the character reaches for humor when scared. They might allow unlikeable moments for the protagonist without immediately “redeeming” them.
- Emotional truth over clean pacing:
- A human could allow a chapter where not much “happens” plot-wise but the friendship frays realistically, or the protagonist does a small, dumb thing that later matters. This can feel meandering but reveals character. An LLM tends to fill space with event density instead.
Telltale LLM approaches and why they might not serve this piece
- Over-structuring and “beat-sheet shine”:
- LLMs lean towards neat eight-beat arcs, evenly spaced reveals, symmetric red herrings, and crisp climaxes. While useful, over-use can make the story feel synthetic and risk-free. This piece benefits from a less predictable rhythm and a few genuine left turns born from character choice rather than plot necessity.
- Safety and moral clarity:
- LLMs often default to safe ethical framing and explicit condemnations. Here, too much moral signposting could flatten nuance. The story should condemn harmful acts without sermonizing; ambivalence and complicity (e.g., Zara) should be messy and uncomfortable.
- Polished quippiness:
- LLMs produce consistent quips and tidy callbacks. Real teens’ humor varies by mood and audience; sometimes the joke is cruel or misjudged. Overly reliable banter can feel sitcom-y. Tilly’s voice needs micro-awkwardness, filler, and unexpected silence.
- Anxious clarity and redundancy:
- LLMs explain what readers can infer, re-state stakes, and over-label emotions to prevent misunderstanding. That makes prose readable but flattens subtext. Allowing subtext, gaps, and reader work will humanize the piece.
- Over-cautious depiction of institutions:
- To avoid offense, LLMs may sanitize critique of NHS/teachers or make the baddie purely individual. A more human approach could show the banal ways systems fail (rota pressures, understaffing, bureaucratic blindness) without turning anyone into a strawman.
- Tidy redemption arcs and bow-tying:
- LLMs often reconcile friendships cleanly and ensure every seed pays off. Real friendships can resume with new distance; Zara’s complicity might not be forgiven in a single scene; not every joke needs a payoff.
Deep dive critique of the intention and plan: likely LLM tropes and pitfalls
- Neat symmetry and predictability:
- The plan has one big set piece per chapter, each closing with a hook—clean, televisual pacing. It risks feeling engineered. Consider varying tempo: a quieter chapter where Tilly dodges talking to Mum, or a day where texts stop and paranoia fills the space.
- Red herrings too well signposted:
- Linus’s goth-vegan club as an obvious red herring might read canned. An LLM’s red herring often arrives with neon “this is harmless.” Making Linus ambiguous for longer—or making the red herring emotionally meaningful—would feel more lived-in.
- Over-explained code:
- The emoji-to-blood-type code is on-the-nose clever. It could feel like an LLM puzzle insertion. Humans might use messier, less perfect signals: typos, weird punctuation, local references that aren’t decodable in a clean table.
- The dog as chaos engine:
- Biscuit’s antics are charming but risk becoming a device that always complicates scenes. If he only appears to derail or save, it reads mechanical. Let Biscuit be present in mundane ways too, or cause an unhelpful problem that doesn’t later become useful.
- Sanitized depiction of threat:
- The villain is a suspended paramedic with debts—credible but safe. If the narrative over-justifies him or keeps physical risk at arm’s length, the danger might feel weightless. Let the threat be uncomfortable—someone’s breath close by, a real shove, a scrape that hurts and bleeds.
- Relationship arcs too tidy:
- The Saff argument and reconciliation follow a clean three-step structure. It might serve the plot but miss the texture of unresolved irritation. Consider lasting consequences (inside jokes soured, new boundaries, a small trust deficit that lingers).
- Expository signposts:
- The plan calls out “Tilly analyses the texts: notices pattern.” That reads like a writer note turned into narration. In draft, such insight could emerge in action: she misreads first, applies biology nerdiness sloppily, and stumbles toward the right idea.
- Epilogue stinger neatness:
- The final “it was Dad with a heart emoji mistake” is cute but tidy. It risks the very “bow” this piece should avoid. Either lean into melancholic ambiguity or complicate the Dad beat: it hurts, it’s not funny-yet, it doesn’t close the loop.
Brainstorming ways to make it more human
- Voice and micro-specificity:
- Let Tilly’s language shift with stress. Under pressure, she might shorten sentences, drop articles, misremember a term. In safer scenes, she might riff longer, getting nerdy or petty.
- Add hyper-specific details: the particular creak on the third stair; Mum’s car smells faintly of antiseptic and Fruit Pastilles; the PE changing room’s “sweat and Lynx Africa” microclimate; which Greggs item Saff always picks and why.
- Messier clue logic:
- Make the emoji pattern imperfect—sometimes one drop means urgent, other times it’s a typo, leading Tilly to make a wrong inference with consequences.
- Include a false pattern Tilly believes because it flatters her (biology) and let her later feel foolish. That humanizes her and builds stakes.
- Complicate the villain’s orbit:
- Let Callum have a friend or enabler who is not caught, or a group chat Tilly glimpses but can’t fully decode. Resist making Callum the sole bad apple; show how a culture of “cut corners, make do” made him more plausible to himself.
- Give Zara sharper edges:
- Instead of a soft half-confession, show Zara trying to manipulate Tilly in a subtle, human way: performative concern, gatekeeping info, a favour traded for silence. Later, she can admit her own cowardice without asking for immediate absolution.
- Let adults be messy:
- Mum can make a mistake—snap at Tilly unfairly, miss a sign, or lie to protect her from something that doesn’t need protecting. The Deputy Head might have a private kindness offstage that complicates Tilly’s sweeping mockery.
- Imperfect plans:
- Allow their stage-blood plan to half-fail in an unglamorous way, forcing improvisation that reveals character (Saff’s steadiness; Tilly’s panic and then grit). Avoid the “we’re so clever” snap.
- Consequences that stick:
- After the climax, let social ripples persist. A rumour about Tilly spreads; Gran gets a cold shoulder from a friend she roped in; Biscuit has to wear a cone because he did, in fact, ingest some stage blood and it made him sick. Not everything is played for cute laughs.
- Emotional misfires:
- Include a scene where Tilly tries to be funny and hurts Saff without realizing; or Saff tries to be earnest and Tilly deflects with a joke, causing a missed connection. Allow them not to resolve it immediately.
- Text message realism:
- Use time gaps, blue ticks, typing bubbles that vanish; banalities alongside threats. The sender sometimes sends at odd hours with typos. Sometimes a voice note appears and is quickly deleted. Not every message should be cinematic.
- Sensory risk:
- Bring in body-level discomfort: wet socks, raw knuckles, iron tang in the mouth from fear, a headache from too-bright assembly hall lights. Stakes aren’t just “Mum’s job,” they’re “my lungs are burning from running; I smell like canal.”
- Place as character:
- Let the town have memory: an old tragedy at the lido everyone misremembers; a mural defaced and repainted; an annual event that gets referenced. Use weather not as mood wallpaper but as nuisance (wind flips an umbrella into a stranger; Tilly’s hair in lip gloss).
- Resist perfect endings:
- Consider an ending where Dad’s emoji isn’t a tidy heart/blood joke. Maybe he sends a voice note Tilly doesn’t open for weeks. Maybe the unknown blood emoji text remains unknown, hinting at the persistent murmur of risk in digital life.
- Sharpen the comedic edge:
- Punchlines should sometimes be at Tilly’s expense. Let her be wrong, vain, dramatic. Allow observational comedy about bureaucracy to have bite: forms that ask the wrong questions, adults who weaponize “tone.”
- Allow silence:
- Include beats where no one texts back, no smart rejoinder arrives, and we sit in the awkward. Give space for dread to pool. That will heighten both the comedy and the danger.
- Re-examine the big set pieces:
- The assembly retrieval could be less caper-y and more cringe: Tilly must ask to leave mid-award; muffed whispering; a humiliating run-in with a teacher who remembers her as “reliable,” which stings. The pier scene could involve someone ordinary—dog walker—accidentally complicating things.
- Keep the risk of real harm:
- Let Tilly get lightly injured at the lock—nothing gratuitous, but a cut that bleeds and throbs, echoing the motif, reminding that blood is not just symbol.
- Subtext and inference:
- Show Mum’s exhaustion in habits (falls asleep on sofa in uniform trousers), not speeches. Show Saff’s boundaries in action (she refuses to hold Tilly’s phone during a risky moment). Show Zara’s private fear in a small tell (chewed thumbnail, checking exits).
- Dial back exposition:
- Trust readers to piece together the scheme from contextual crumbs; let some details remain murky. Avoid characters naming the theme aloud (“blood as family”). Let the motif emerge via echoes and images.
Where the current plan is strong and how to keep it human
- Strengths:
- Clear arc, embedded British texture, functional stakes tied to family, usable set pieces, a non-cartoonish antagonist, room for comedy and danger.
- Humanize by:
- Varying pace; letting a few beats meander or hit off-key.
- Slipping in unflattering honesty about Tilly.
- Allowing mess in relationships and aftermath.
- Making clues less puzzle-box neat and more lived-in.
- Inflecting dialogue with micro-pauses, overtalk, and failure to listen.
- Anchoring comedy in the mundane rather than in plot contrivance.
In sum, the plan is solidly scaffolded but risks feeling too engineered, too safe, and too morally tidy if executed mechanically. To make it feel human, embrace specificity, asymmetry, and small, unresolved discomforts. Let character choice—not outline necessity—occasionally derail the plan, and trust subtext and silence as much as quip and clue.
Ok now with these considerations in mind, formulate the final plan for the a humanlike, compelling short piece in {n_chapters} chapters. Bear in mind the constraints of the piece (each chapter is just 1000 words). Above all things, the plan must serve the original prompt. We will use the same format as before:
# Intention
<State your formulated intentions for the piece, synthesised from the the parts of the brainstorming session that worked, and avoiding the parts that didn't. Be explicit about the choices you have made about plot, voice, stylistic choices, things you intend to aim for & avoid.>
# Chapter Planning
<Write a brief chapter plan for all {n_chapters} chapters.>
Model Output:
# Intention
- Voice and tone:
- First-person past tense from Tilly, a Year 11 Brit with a sardonic but vulnerable voice. The humour is observational and sometimes misfires, especially under stress. Allow filler thoughts, awkward silences, and the occasional bad joke that lands wrong. Let language compress under pressure and loosen in safer moments.
- Darkly comic balance: danger feels real—scrapes, wet socks, dumb risk—while the comedy comes from character, specificity, and the absurd bureaucracy of school and small-town life. Avoid tidy sermonising; trust subtext.
- Plot and scope:
- Inciting text at 00:07 with three blood-drop emojis. The story follows a small, human-scale criminal scheme: stolen medical blood couriered through kids. The crime impacts Tilly’s family (Mum’s night-shift NHS job). Anchor the plot beats to Tilly’s decisions, including some wrong ones.
- Antagonist: Callum, Head Girl Zara’s suspended paramedic brother. Not a master villain; a scared, rationalising adult who exploits teens. Zara’s complicity is messy and not fully forgiven.
- Red herrings aren’t cartoonish: Linus (earnest goth vegan) is odd but sincere; Deputy Head is fussy but has private kindness. Keep suspect pool tight and human.
- Stylistic choices:
- Specific British details: bus passes, Greggs, Lynx Africa in the PE changing room, damp assembly halls, ring-road retail parks. Text messages appear in-line as snippets (timestamps, typos, blue tick anxiety), but minimal formatting.
- Emojis recur as code and motif, but not a neat puzzle-box. Sometimes misused, sometimes typo’d, sometimes inconsistent. Let Tilly overfit a pattern once and be wrong.
- Character focus:
- Tilly: anxious, mouthy when scared, biology nerd who wants patterns. Growth arc: from avoiding adults and chasing control to asking for help and accepting messy consequences.
- Saff: grounded, funny, draws boundaries. Not a sidekick; she says no when it’s unsafe and changes the plan at the lock.
- Mum: tired, loving, not omniscient; she makes mistakes and has her own pride. Her “I’m disappointed” shows up, then complicates.
- Gran: warm gossip hub with bite; her network matters and also costs her a friendship later. Biscuit the dog exists beyond plot; sometimes just sleeps and smells like pond.
- Thematic throughline:
- Blood as symbol (family), substance (biology), and commodity (stolen bags). Institutions’ blind spots versus informal networks. Adolescence as a tangle of bravado and fear.
- Avoid:
- Over-neat codes, over-explained stakes, lecture-y motives. Caper gloss that erases risk. Bow-tied endings that absolve everyone. A villain who’s either sainted by motive or flattened into evil.
# Chapter Planning
1) Chapter One: Three Drops at 00:07
- Open on the phone glow and the text from an unknown number: 🩸🩸🩸. Tilly half-drafts sending it to the group chat and deletes. She narrates the quiet of the flat: Mum on night shift, Biscuit’s snoring, the radiator that clicks like it’s counting down.
- Small human beats: she stalks through old texts with Dad she hasn’t answered; she imagines the emojis as hearts and corrects herself. She talks herself into sleep with bad jokes about vampires, then lies awake listening to the stair that creaks.
- Morning texture: damp air, toast theft by Biscuit, Mum’s Fruit Pastilles smell, news burbling about a “supply irregularity” at the hospital that Tilly pretends not to hear. She doesn’t show Mum the text.
- Bus with Saff: share the text; Saff laughs, then doesn’t. They joke about someone’s idea of flirting; Tilly insists she’s “not bothered,” obvious lie. Agreement to block the number, then she doesn’t.
- At school: assembly in the humid hall; Deputy Head’s safeguarding chat with the projector that blinks. Tilly texts Saff under the chair about the mould patch on the ceiling that looks like a clown. A second message arrives: a dropped pin near the old lido, “tonight” and one blood emoji. Tilly stares, heartbeat in throat. Saff replies “Nope.” Tilly thumbs “We’ll just look. From a distance.” Cliffhanger: Tilly pockets the idea like a dare.
2) Chapter Two: Lido, Drizzle, and a Bag That Sweats
- After school, Tilly and Saff “just look” and immediately cross the fence because the gate is “basically open.” Drizzle seeps. Tilly’s DofE rucksack is overloaded “for options,” which becomes a running note of impractical preparedness.
- Specifics: the lido tiles patterned with algae spirals; a fox skitters; the cold metal taste in Tilly’s mouth. They nearly collide with a bored security guard finishing a Meal Deal. Tilly lies: “Art coursework.” He shrugs.
- They find a damp sports bag wedged under lockers. Inside: cool packs, sealed pouches with barcodes and a gel feel. A note: “Reliable couriers get paid.” One blood emoji, low battery icon scrawled.
- Panic-behaviour: Saff says put it back. Tilly photographs and then, in a fit of “control,” pocket-thieves a single small pouch without admitting it to herself as theft. Immediately regrets it. They hurry away, leaving the bag and a wet trail. Biscuit appears—he’d followed—and noses at Tilly’s rucksack. She pretends everything is fine.
- On the way home, a new text calls her by a nickname only Mum and Dad use. Tilly feels sick. She deletes it, then fishes it out of “recently deleted.”
3) Chapter Three: Type, Rumour, and a Window Photo
- School day. Biology lesson on blood types with a teacher who overuses “fascinating.” Tilly’s inner monologue overfits: she decides the number of emojis might match O-neg urgency. Saff side-eyes. A practical goes wrong; fake blood bursts, splashes Tilly’s white shirt. Everyone laughs and someone says “it suits you,” which stings and is funny.
- Rumour mill in corridors: whispers about missing lab kits, a hospital van scratched up; someone’s aunt saw police at the canal. Zara, immaculate, asks casual-but-not if anyone’s had “weird messages.” Tilly lies and feels it land in her stomach.
- Kiran’s nosebleed in the corridor: a comic, mortifying mini-crisis that leaves a rusty smell and a wad of tissue hidden in a plant pot. Tilly helps and then pretends it was nothing.
- After school, Tilly and Saff confront Linus (goth vegan) because it’s the kind of thing they’d do when scared. He is sincere, awkward, brandishes a leaflet on animal ethics set in a villainous font. He’s not it. They apologise with a Tunnock’s teacake.
- Night: Tilly receives a photo apparently from her bedroom window: curtains slightly open, TV reflection showing the date. The angle is wrong—later she’ll realise it’s shot through the patio doors, not her window. Text: “Ignore me and there’ll be more 🩸.” She hears the stair creak and freezes. It’s just pipes. She doesn’t sleep much.
4) Chapter Four: Inside Voices, Inside Knowledge
- Tilly floats telling Mum, can’t. Saff says police, Tilly stalls; she fears putting Mum’s job in the crosshairs, and also fears being told to stop—control is a drug.
- Café meeting with Linus: he’s a red herring but useful; his aunt works at the hospital, mentions a paramedic suspended for “cutting corners,” whispers of missing plasma. Tilly clocks the name “Callum” and parks it.
- The sender live-texts with typos and odd spacing: “Station lockers. 17:40. No cops. 🩸” Then, chillingly, references the ward number where Mum works and a rota detail not public. Tilly’s stomach drops.
- Small, human moment: Tilly, flustered, knocks her tea into her lap; scalds a bit; laughs and then is nearly crying. Saff gets napkins and doesn’t say “I told you so.”
- Family: at dinner, Mum is exhausted, snaps at Tilly for nothing, then apologises and watches pointless telly. Tilly goes through Dad’s old messages—drafts a text, deletes. The night smells of rain and toast crumbs.
- They agree conditions: they’ll go to the station, they won’t deliver, they’ll film everything. Tilly tells Saff about Dad’s hospital mess years ago; the words feel like she’s spitting pennies. Saff squeezes her hand and says, “We do it smart or we don’t.”
5) Chapter Five: Lockers, Leaks, and the Assembly Dash
- Station: fluorescent bleak. They fumble with a locker code while a platform announcement half-sings, half-scolds. A rail staffer asks if they’re lost; Saff does a disarmingly honest spiel that gets them left alone.
- Inside the locker: a small hard-sided cooler with labelled blood bags. The chill fogs Tilly’s fingers. They plan to take it straight to the police station two streets over. A text arrives: a short video, doctored—Tilly in hospital scrubs she’s never worn, hands opening a fridge. Threat: “We say it’s you. Mum gets audited. Your choice.” Tilly feels her breath go shallow.
- Tilly hides one bag in her PE kit “for leverage,” barely admitting it. They decide to stall. The decision is a character flaw moment, not cleverness.
- At school next morning, a bag mix-up. Kiran takes Tilly’s rucksack by accident. Assembly is in full drone. Tilly has to ask to leave mid-award; Deputy Head looks disappointed in that particular British way. The dash down the corridor is not glamorous: Tilly’s sock slips in her trainer, she bangs a shoulder, her heart jackhammers. She retrieves the bag from a bewildered Kiran who jokes because that’s his armour. A tiny leak has started; the smell is metallic and wrong. She wants to throw up.
- Later, at Zara’s house for a prefect thing Tilly doesn’t care about anymore, she notices a photo of Zara with her older brother in a paramedic uniform, lanyard name visible: Callum. Her stomach drops and then she composes her face like an actor who forgot her line. She says nothing. The chapter ends with a text: “Midnight. Canal. 🩸🩸” and Tilly’s thumbs hovering over Mum’s contact and not tapping.
6) Chapter Six: Boundaries, Gossip, and a Bad Solo
- Tilly and Saff argue on a bench that smells like chips and rain. Saff says police now; Tilly says Mum’s job; they both say things they don’t mean. Saff walks away—not performatively, but because she’s protecting herself. That absence echoes.
- Tilly tries to do the midnight canal meet alone. The towpath is slick, the night noisy with unseen water. A shape steps out; breath close. Tilly panics, throws the decoy bag, runs. She grazes her knee; it hurts, properly, and the blood motif stops being clever. She gets home shaking and angry at herself.
- She goes to Gran. Tea, digestives, the clock that ticks too loud. Tilly tells a partial version; Gran doesn’t pry, calls Maureen who “knows someone at A&E.” The name Callum surfaces again with an address district. Gran will later pay for this gossip with a cold shoulder from Maureen over “overstepping.”
- Alone, Tilly scrolls the texts and forces a pattern: she decides one drop = urgent, two = when vans come, three = punishment. She’s partly right, partly flattering herself. She writes it in her homework margin. Biscuit licks her knee and smells of pond.
- Saff texts late: “I was harsh. I’m scared. I’ll help. But we call an adult when the meet happens. Non-negotiable.” Boundaries drawn. Tilly agrees and feels both relief and trapped by the promise.
- Zara pulls Tilly aside the next day, says a confusing, controlling mix of confession and warning: she’s been “nudging” the couriering toward “competent people” to avoid worse. She’s terrified of Callum and also thinks she can manage him. Tilly feels a hot flash of dislike she can’t hide.
7) Chapter Seven: Decoys and a Dog Who Doesn’t Read Plans
- The plan: drama club’s stage blood, passable decoy bags, cheap action cams hidden in a milk crate, Gran ready to call in “noise complaint at the canal” anonymously. They won’t confront; they’ll document and tip authorities after. No heroics.
- Practicals go sideways: Biscuit gets a decoy, shakes it, leaves red slap marks on the corridor wall; the caretaker swears softly and walks away. Tilly and Saff clean while snorting unhelpful laughs. It’s gross, sticky, and somehow makes them feel fourteen again, not detectives.
- The drop: foggy, low-lit, wrong-feeling. A hooded figure appears. There’s a tattoo glimpse on the wrist that Tilly recognises from Zara’s photo background. The figure takes the decoy and texts “Real. Now.” The text contains a typo and an extra space, the human sloppiness that makes Tilly colder than a perfect message would.
- Tilly texts back, trying to be clever with emojis; the sender doesn’t rise to it, just sends “Now.” The action cams get a partial face when the hood slips. Saff is steady; Tilly’s hands shake.
- Later, they compare footage with an Instagram of Callum in happier days, tattoo visible. Zara, when shown, doesn’t deny. She doesn’t beg forgiveness either; she stares at her shoes and says, “I thought I could keep it small.” It’s awful.
- The sender, clocking the decoy too late, escalates: “Lock. 23:30. Bring it. Or I tell her boss you’ve been borrowing. 🩸🩸🩸” This time, Tilly doesn’t pretend this is a puzzle. She texts Mum “Can you share your location please?” then deletes it unsent.
8) Chapter Eight: The Lock, the Drop, and What Doesn’t Tie Up
- Weather is a nuisance, not gothic: sideways drizzle, wind that makes words blow apart. Tilly, Saff, and Zara arrive with one genuine bag sealed in a clear box. Gran waits by the path with a borrowed high-vis and a phone, having told Maureen to “listen out.”
- Confrontation: Callum emerges, not monstrous, just a man who hasn’t slept and thinks he’s justified. He talks in tired slogans: “waste,” “systems,” “you don’t understand nights.” Tilly wants to argue policy; instead, what comes out is small, human: “It’s people. It’s someone’s transfusion. It’s not just a bag.” She sounds fourteen and it’s better than quippy.
- Things go wrong: Biscuit appears because of course he does—Gran couldn’t leave him, he slipped the lead. He careens into Zara, who stumbles; someone’s foot skids on algae; Callum grabs for the box and for a second he is just a person trying not to drop something vital. Saff uses drama club instinct to anchor a rope to a bollard and hauls, not heroic so much as practical. Tilly gets a raw scrape on her palm pulling Zara back; it stings in the rain.
- Mum arrives, breathless and furious, because Gran shared Tilly’s live location with her “by accident.” The look on Mum’s face is worse than shouting. Callum sees adults, bolts; he doesn’t get far—police lights, not dramatic, just there. He goes quietly, still trying to explain. Zara gives a quiet statement, not looking at Tilly.
- Fallout is not neat: Tilly is grounded and also hugged too long. School issues a tepid “reminder about safety” and a louder detention. Gran doesn’t get a call from Maureen for a fortnight. Linus leaves a Tupperware of flapjacks on the doorstep with a note: “we’re not a cult.”
- Final notes: Tilly narrates the low-key aftershock—how she flinches at late pings, how she and Saff share fewer jokes for a week and then an inside joke returns wrong and then right. Mum’s “I’m disappointed” arrives, then melts into “I was scared,” which is worse and better.
- The stinger is quiet: weeks later, Tilly gets a single blood-drop emoji from an unknown number at 00:07. She stares, doesn’t screenshot, doesn’t forward. She replies, “Who is this?” No answer. She puts the phone face-down and listens to the stair creak. The story doesn’t tell you if it’s Dad with a clumsy emoji or a wrong number or a ghost of a scheme. It sits there, human and unresolved, like most messages at midnight.
Perfect. Now with the outline more crystallised, and bearing in mind the discussion on human writing vs LLM pitfalls, we will flesh out our characters. Lets go through each of our main characters:
- Write about their background, personality, idiosyncracies, flaws. Be specific and come up with examples to anchor & ground the character's profile (both core and trivial)
- Briefly describe their physicality: appearance, how they carry themselves, express, interact with the world.
- Concisely detail their motives, allegiences and existing relationships. Think from the perspective of the character as a real breathing thinking feeling individual in this world.
- Write a couple quotes of flavour dialogue / internal monologue from the character to experiment with their voice.
Output like this:
# Character 1 name
<character exploration>
# Character 2 name
<character exploration>
etc
Model Output:
# Tilly Carter
Background, personality, idiosyncrasies, flaws
- Year 11 in a damp seaside town. Lives with Mum (NHS night shifts). Dad left a few years back after “hospital drama” no one fully explained; he still texts birthdays and odd hours.
- Sardonic, anxious, observant. Uses humour as a shield; when scared, she gets chatty and weirdly factual. Biology is her comfort subject—she’ll overfit any situation into a system. Keeps a DofE rucksack “for options” and then fills it with nonsense (two torches, three pens, a stale cereal bar, a tiny sewing kit because a YouTube video said so).
- Idiosyncrasies: labels phone chargers with masking tape; collects the free wooden stirrers from cafés “in case of crafts”; keeps a Notes app doc of “things to say in emergencies” which is useless in actual emergencies. Talks to Biscuit like he’s HR.
- Flaws: control freak tendencies masked as “being sensible.” Avoids telling adults because she hates being told no. Can be superior about “logic,” which makes her insensitive. Lies small, often: “I’m fine,” “It’s not a big deal,” “I’m not bothered.” Holds onto petty slights (remembers verbatim a teacher calling her “reliable” in a tone that meant “boring”).
- Anchoring example: in Year 8, organized a “storm drill” for her form that was essentially a spreadsheet of snack assignments. Nobody asked. She was proud and mortified.
Physicality
- 5'4", wiry, perpetually slightly hunched from carrying bags too heavy for sense. Dark brown hair she keeps in a messy bun that collapses mid-day; one rebellious fringe curl. Olive skin that goes sallow under fluorescent lights; bitten nails; a faint scar on chin from falling off a wobble board aged nine.
- Expression tends to default to sceptical eyebrow. When she’s comfortable, she sprawls; when anxious, she tucks elbows in and perches on the edge of chairs.
- Interacts with the world with a combination of caution and poking—she’ll prod a sign that says “Do Not Touch” with one knuckle and then apologise to the sign.
Motives, allegiances, relationships
- Motive: keep Mum safe and proud, prove to herself she’s not passive. Wants to feel competent in a life where adults have withheld info.
- Allegiances: Saff first. Family loyalty complicated but fierce. Soft spot for people who try (Linus). Distrusts smooth talkers (Zara) and bureaucratic vagueness (Deputy Head).
- Relationships: Mum—love, exasperation, unspoken fear. Dad—nostalgia and anger in a box she opens at midnight. Saff—anchor, occasional sparring partner. Gran—safe harbour with too many biscuits.
Voice samples
- “I’m not ignoring it, I’m… strategically pausing. Like when Netflix asks if you’re still watching and you choose to feel judged for five minutes.”
- “Everyone keeps saying O-neg like it’s a personality type. Fine, I’m O-neg and anxious. Happy?”
- “I’ll tell Mum when I have a version of events that doesn’t make me sound like an idiot. So, never. Great.”
# Saffron “Saff” Malik
Background, personality, idiosyncrasies, flaws
- Same year as Tilly, lives with her mum (runs a hair salon) and older cousin who’s studying nursing. Household is lively, full of plastic tubs of leftovers and gossip.
- Level-headed, dryly funny, good at people. Notices feelings before facts. She likes plans but isn’t precious; if a door is locked, she’ll check the window instead of making a spreadsheet.
- Idiosyncrasies: collects nail polish and carries a tiny bottle of acetone “for emergencies” (removing gum, glue, regret). Has a superstition about not walking on three drains. Writes to-do lists in gel pen and crosses items out with aggressive satisfaction.
- Flaws: can be judgmental when scared; goes quiet in conflict then lobs a single accurate, devastating sentence. Holds Tilly to a standard she doesn’t always apply to herself. Avoids asking for help from teachers because she hates being seen as needy.
- Anchoring example: she once cut Tilly’s fringe in a moment of crisis at 1 a.m. The result was… serviceable. Took the blame at school when a teacher noticed.
Physicality
- 5'7", strong posture, moves like she knows where she’s going. Warm brown skin, black hair usually in a sleek ponytail. Rings on three fingers, always. Expressive eyebrows; half-smiles that say “Really?”
- Interacts with the world tactilely—straightens posters, smooths tablecloths, tucks tags back in people’s shirts without comment.
Motives, allegiances, relationships
- Motive: keep Tilly alive and honest; keep her own record clean enough to get out of town for uni. Values integrity and control over her future.
- Allegiances: Tilly, her mum, her cousin. Has quiet respect for competent adults; distrusts performative authority.
- Relationships: with Tilly—best friend, reality check, soft landing. Likes Linus because he tries. Finds Zara exhausting but not irredeemable. Thinks Biscuit is “a man of simple appetites.”
Voice samples
- “If this is a joke, it’s not funny; if it’s not a joke, it’s still not funny. So either way, I vote no.”
- “Your rucksack has more pockets than sense. Give me the actual important thing or I’m calling your mother. Don’t test me.”
- “Boundaries aren’t a betrayal. They’re how we keep being us.”
# Mum (Claire Carter)
Background, personality, idiosyncrasies, flaws
- NHS healthcare assistant; nights on a medical ward. Left school at 17, never went back; proud of earning everything by graft. Marriage to Tilly’s dad collapsed under stress and secrets. She doesn’t speak ill of him, which is its own statement.
- Dry wit when she’s awake enough; very British stoicism. Loves Tilly fiercely but withholds information “for her own good,” which breeds secrecy. Hates paperwork more than night shifts.
- Idiosyncrasies: keeps Fruit Pastilles in every coat; sings 80s choruses off-key while scrubbing pans; has labelled Tupperware in a chaotic handwriting only she can decode. Falls asleep in uniform trousers on the sofa with the TV’s blue light on; insists she was “resting her eyes.”
- Flaws: prideful; won’t ask for help. Quick to disappointment face before she remembers to ask questions. Too ready to believe she’s the adult, ergo right.
Physicality
- Late 30s, early 40s. Compact, strong, nurse’s back and hands. Blonde dyed at home, with grow-out she never has time to fix. Permanent under-eye shadows; a laugh that surprises you when it arrives.
- Carries herself with get-on-with-it economy. Hugs hard. Rooms smell different when she’s in them—antiseptic and laundry powder.
Motives, allegiances, relationships
- Motive: keep the roof on, keep Tilly safe, keep her job. Wants Tilly to have choices she didn’t.
- Allegiances: colleagues on the ward; unsentimental loyalty to the NHS as an idea, not always the bureaucracy. Family first.
- Relationships: with Tilly—love threaded with frustration and pride. With Dad—complicated, kept to the edges. With Gran—team of two when needed.
Voice samples
- “I’m not angry. I’m… tired. And disappointed. Deeply. Which is worse, by the way.”
- “If a man says ‘systems’ at you, check your pockets and then walk away.”
- “You don’t have to fix everything. That’s not your job, sweetheart. That’s mine, and I’m doing it badly enough.”
# Gran (June Carter)
Background, personality, idiosyncrasies, flaws
- Retired dinner lady; widowed; queen of the cul-de-sac. Knows everyone, or at least knows someone who knows them. Her network runs on tea, biscuits, and mysteriously rapid information flow.
- Warm, nosy, sharp. Believes in kindness and also in telling the truth with a theatrical sigh. Eavesdrops unashamedly.
- Idiosyncrasies: a tin of “good biscuits” and a tin of “ordinary visitors biscuits.” Calls all policemen “your uncle” regardless of relation. Wears bright cardigans with brooches shaped like birds. Keeps a list of “people to thank” that includes two shop assistants and a bus driver from 2009.
- Flaws: interferes; can’t resist a small manipulation “for your own good.” Gossips and sometimes crosses lines that bite back.
Physicality
- Short, sturdy, floral dresses, sensible shoes. Soft hands; smells of talc and mint humbugs. Moves slower than she thinks she does.
- Interacts with the world like it’s her living room—straight into the staff-only door if you don’t stop her.
Motives, allegiances, relationships
- Motive: protect her own; know what’s happening; be useful. Fears becoming irrelevant.
- Allegiances: family first; Maureen at the station second; her knitting circle third.
- Relationships: adores Tilly; respects Saff; tolerates Biscuit as an accomplice. With Mum—conspiratorial when needed, exasperating always.
Voice samples
- “I’m not meddling; I’m expediting.”
- “If Maureen asks, I didn’t call. My phone simply fell and accidentally dialled her. Three times.”
- “Tea first. Then crime.”
# Zara Rahman
Background, personality, idiosyncrasies, flaws
- Head Girl, top set, shines on paper. Parents run a pharmacy; older brother Callum is a paramedic currently suspended. Zara grew up being “the good one,” carrying the family’s reputation like a porcelain plate.
- Composed, efficient, performs care. Believes in managing situations, including people. Good at saying the right thing in a room; less good in her own head at night.
- Idiosyncrasies: colour-codes her notes; keeps blister plasters in her pencil case for everyone; chews her thumbnail when stressed and hides her hands. Curates her Instagram like a mood board of competence.
- Flaws: controlling; believes she’s the exception. Rationalises quietly. Will trade honesty for image stability. When scared for Callum, her ethics blur.
Physicality
- 5'6", neat as a pin. Hijab some days, sleek hair others; always immaculate. Clear skin, steady eye contact that can feel like a test. Light perfume, composed posture.
- Interacts with the world carefully; places cups gently, picks lint off blazers, tidies other people’s mess without being asked and resents it silently.
Motives, allegiances, relationships
- Motive: protect family name; protect Callum from what she thinks is a one-time mistake turned spiral; keep her trajectory intact. Desperately wants to be seen as good, and also to be good.
- Allegiances: family first; school image; then friends. Will choose damage control over messy truth until it explodes.
- Relationships: with Tilly—respect mixed with condescension; uses Tilly because she believes Tilly can handle it. With Saff—rivalry masked as politeness. With Callum—love curdled into fear.
Voice samples
- “I’m not asking you to do anything reckless. I’m asking you to be careful while doing the thing you were going to do anyway.”
- “You don’t understand what happens when people like us make a scene. It’s not the same for everyone.”
- “I thought I could keep it small. That’s on me.”
# Callum Rahman
Background, personality, idiosyncrasies, flaws
- Late 20s. Paramedic on suspension. Initially cut corners “to help,” then for money, then because shame makes people double down. Debt from a failed car, some bad choices, a tendency to think he can thread needles others can’t.
- Tired, defensive, not monstrous. Carries the story he’s the only one seeing “the bigger picture,” which is how he lives with himself. Resents bureaucrats; misses the feeling of actually helping people on calls.
- Idiosyncrasies: keeps his lanyard in a drawer like a relic. Taps his thigh when thinking. Uses too many ellipses in texts… like this… without noticing. Eats mints constantly to cover stress-breath.
- Flaws: rationalisation engine. Uses “system failings” to excuse personal failings. Cowardly in the pinch; won’t own choices until cornered. Underestimates teenagers.
Physicality
- Tall, ropey build. Stubble that’s two days old; tired eyes; a faded tattoo on wrist peeking under sleeves. Clothes clean but not thoughtful.
- Carries himself in a way that says “I used to run toward sirens.” Now he looks away from them.
Motives, allegiances, relationships
- Motive: money, yes, but more to feel in control again. Wants to believe he’s redistributing waste, not stealing from patients. Loves Zara; ashamed of her seeing him like this.
- Allegiances: to his story; to family when it doesn’t cost him his story. Uses kids to distance himself from risk.
- Relationships: with Zara—protective and manipulative; he treats her as his conscience and resents it. With Tilly—sees a tool, then a problem. With Mum/NHS staff—bitterness wrapped in nostalgia.
Voice samples
- “Do you know how many times I watched a bag go out of date because someone forgot to tick a box? Don’t talk to me about waste.”
- “I didn’t pick you because you’re stupid. I picked you because you’re careful. That’s a compliment, by the way.”
- “I was going to stop. It just… didn’t stop.”
# Linus Avery
Background, personality, idiosyncrasies, flaws
- Sixth form, runs the “Society for Civilised Nourishment” which is three goth-adjacent vegans and a lad who just likes biscuits. Lives with two mums who are patient with his phases. Earnest, awkward, huge heart.
- Idiosyncrasies: designs pamphlets with unforgivable fonts; carries a tote bag with badges that clack. Says “problematic” and then apologises for saying “problematic.” Has a pet stick insect named Jeff Goldblum.
- Flaws: sanctimonious when tired; humourless about some things, gullible about others. Loves a cause more than the admin required to sustain it.
Physicality
- Tall, foldy, pale; shaved head he regrets. Wears layers, charity-shop jumpers, boots that squeak. Smells faintly of patchouli and cumin.
- Interacts with the world like a friendly ghost—appears, startles, apologises, offers a leaflet.
Motives, allegiances, relationships
- Motive: be useful; make the world kinder; impress a girl from drama who hasn’t noticed him yet. Wants people to take him seriously without him becoming serious.
- Allegiances: to his club, to anyone underdog-adjacent. Respectful of Saff; intimidated by Zara.
- Relationships: Tilly—he thinks she’s cool in a prickly way. Saff—low-key crush and fear. Offers Mum vegan flapjacks once; she said “lovely” and then ate them in small bites like medicine.
Voice samples
- “We’re not a cult. We just have pamphlets.”
- “If you need a lookout who panics quietly, I’m your guy.”
- “Fonts are a political choice. That was a joke. Mostly.”
# Kiran Patel
Background, personality, idiosyncrasies, flaws
- Year 11, drama club, good hair, nosebleeds at the worst moments. Lives with a dad who’s a driving instructor and a gran who hides sweets in sofa cushions. Flirty as a defence mechanism.
- Idiosyncrasies: keeps tissues up his sleeve like someone’s nan; does card tricks badly; says “no worries” even when worried. Hums Hamilton under his breath.
- Flaws: deflects seriousness with charm; unreliable with time; will help but needs asking twice. Scared of blood; pretends not to be.
Physicality
- Medium height, runner’s legs, open face. Expressive hands; picks at his bracelet when nervous. Always a hoodie, even when it’s warm.
- Interacts with world with a bounce; sits on the back two legs of chairs, falls, laughs.
Motives, allegiances, relationships
- Motive: be liked, be seen, not be the joke. Wants to get a lead in the school play and not faint. Secretly wants to be brave once.
- Allegiances: to friends, to drama club. He’d pick Saff’s plan over Tilly’s chaos nine times out of ten.
- Relationships: Tilly—friendly banter, mild crush vibes both directions, nothing acted on. Saff—respects her competence, slightly scared of her eyebrow. Biscuit—sworn enemies since Biscuit stole his sandwich.
Voice samples
- “I wasn’t snooping, I was… adjacent to your bag. Different.”
- “Blood’s fine, unless it’s like, real. Then it’s—okay, I’m sitting down now.”
- “If we get caught, I’m telling them I thought this was rehearsals.”
Chapter 1
Great. Now let's write this. Follow your plan. Output chapter 1, without any additional commentary. 1000 words.
Model Output:
The text came at 00:07 and lit my room up like a cheap horror film. My phone breathed on the bedside table and I rolled over, hair in my mouth, thumb dragging across the screen before my brain caught up.
Unknown number: 🩸🩸🩸
That was it. Three drops. No words. No “u up?”. No spam about car accidents I hadn’t had. Just the emoji you don’t use unless you’re a vampire or running a very niche cookery club.
I stared at it until my eyes went stingy. The typing bubble lit for a second, then disappeared. I screenshot it to send to the group chat—drafted “lol I’ve been recruited by Dracula”—but didn’t press send. I don’t know why. I think because Mum was on nights and the flat was too quiet and everything at midnight feels like it might turn into a story if you look at it wrong.
I lay back and watched the faint blue strip of light from the telly in the living room creep under my door. The radiator clicked like it was counting down. Biscuit snored at my feet, little huffing breaths in dog dreams, paws twitching. The text glowed. I toggled to old messages with Dad like I’d meant to do that all along. His last one was a photo of a seagull from two months ago with “this guy looks like Colin from your maths,” which didn’t even make sense. The one before that was, “Proud of you kiddo,” at 02:19. He sends things at ridiculous times like he lives in a different time zone of feelings.
I clicked back to the blood. Three drops. I tried to see them as hearts. If you squinted and lied to yourself, they nearly were. I typed, “Who is this?” then deleted it. I opened the camera, took a photo of my ceiling, deleted that. I told myself I’d block the number in the morning. I told myself I wasn’t bothered.
The stair that always creaks creaked. Pipes settling, probably. Or a burglar with sciatica.
I slept in a way that wasn’t sleep. Every time my eyes closed, a slot machine of images spun: the school lab fridge, the sea at night, Mum’s face when she says “I’m not angry, I’m disappointed” and means it. I woke to Biscuit standing on my spine, breath like a bin, and my alarm droning in that synthetic way that makes you hate all music.
The flat smelled of toast and Mum’s Fruit Pastilles perfume—actual perfume, like she’s trying to trick the scent of the hospital off her. She was at the kitchen counter in uniform trousers and a hoodie, hair yanked back with a clip. The telly burbled the local news silently—subtitles going too fast for the presenter, who was stuck mid-blink.
“Morning, zombie,” she said, not looking up. “You revising or merely manifesting the idea of revision?”
“Manifesting is step one,” I said, pouring cereal that turned the milk beige. Biscuit made a wedge shape between my calves and the cupboard and looked up at me with eyes like someone had told him about mortality.
“Don’t give him your toast,” Mum said, which was funny because I hadn’t even made toast yet.
“I wasn’t—” I started, and then Biscuit made a lunge and the slice she’d put on the counter disappeared, as if by magic but with more wet chewing noises. He trotted away with his prize. Mum put her head on the cupboard door and let it thunk once. “He’s your son,” she said into the MDF.
The news subtitles had caught up now. Something about “supply irregularity at North Shore Hospital.” A van shown at an unflattering angle, tape across a car park like bunting for very boring people. I ladled sugar over beige.
Mum saw me looking and flicked the telly off with the remote. “It’s nothing. They’ll be making a fuss about nothing,” she said, because the way you survive a hospital is by deciding to worry about what you can control: blood pressure numbers and whether Mr Dobson in bed four is sneaking biscuits again.
“Good shift?” I asked, which is a thing we say on autopilot.
“Fine,” she said, which is her autopilot. She finished her tea and kissed my hair. “Don’t forget your PE kit. And your life. And don’t text in assembly; Mr Patel watches like a hawk that’s considering a mid-career change.”
I shoved my phone in my blazer pocket. The screen caught. The three red drops thing sat there. I didn’t show her. The space between us filled with all the not-telling, which we pretended was just air.
On the bus, Saff slid into the seat beside me and took my bag off my lap like it was a victim of my poor planning. “This weighs the same as a bad decision,” she said, digging until she found a bottle of water, two torches, and something that had once been a cereal bar.
“Preparedness is a lifestyle,” I said, and then, because it had been burning my tongue since twenty past midnight, I opened my texts and handed her the phone.
She peered. “You’ve got a secret admirer with anaemia,” she said, then didn’t laugh. She flicked up. “Unknown number. That’s… creepy.”
“It’s probably a prank,” I said. “Like, from someone who’s discovered emojis.” A boy across the aisle was blasting a TikTok audio out loud and singing along wrong. Rain star-patterned the bus windows, and we swayed as we rounded the ring road.
Saff looked at me. She has this way of making silence into a sentence. “You’re going to block it,” she said.
“Yes,” I said. I opened the options. My thumb hovered over “Block this caller,” then did absolutely nothing, because thumbs are cowards. The bus went over a pothole we all know like a friend and my phone jumped in my hand and I nearly blocked my gran by mistake.
“I will,” I said, and put the phone in my pocket where it radiated the energy of one of those microwavable heat packs.
School smelled like warm paper and damp blazers. We were herded into the hall for assembly, which means sitting on plastic chairs that are both sticky and cold, a feat of engineering. The ceiling sprouted a patch of mould shaped like the map of Italy. The Deputy Head—Mr Malik, who isn’t Saff’s anything—stood at the front with the microphone and a stack of posters that had clip art children with massive heads.
“Good morning, everyone,” he said, and the mic made a hnnn noise like a bee in a jar. “It’s Safer Internet Week.”
A groan rippled. Someone behind me whispered, “Get in, content.”
Mr Malik did the thing where he smiled like he understood we were bored and then talked at us anyway. “We’ll be thinking about your digital footprints,” he said. “About what you share. About staying safe.”
Saff nudged me and texted under her blazer: mould patch looks like a sad clown.
I texted back: appropriate for this performance.
My phone buzzed again in my hand. Another message from the unknown number. A Google Maps pin dropped near the old lido, gray blue water and a name I hadn’t said out loud for ages. Underneath: “tonight.” And one blood emoji.
A part of me fizzed like lemonade, which is not the appropriate response to being maybe stalked. The other parts of me did a chorus of absolutely not. My heart tried to hammer its way out through my ribs. I showed Saff, angling the screen where Mr Malik couldn’t see.
She sucked air through her teeth. “Nope,” she whispered, which is Saff for “I will sew you to your bed if I have to.”
“It’s probably nothing,” I whispered. “We could just… walk past. From a distance. Like a respectful ghost.”
She gave me the eyebrow. “Or we could not. Or we could tell literally any adult.”
“Mr ‘digital footprints’?” I glanced at the front. He was holding up a poster of a cartoon footprint with a smiley face on it next to a speech bubble that said, “Think before you click!” The projector blinked and blinked like it was too tired for this.
“Not him,” I said. “Maybe… Linus? He does a club about ethics. He’ll have a pamphlet.”
“God, no,” Saff said, and then the head boy coughed into the mic and we all jumped, and the Year 9s started laughing like they’d invented coughing.
My chest felt like when you run for the bus and don’t make it and then pretend you meant to stop anyway. I put my phone face down on my thigh and watched the mould clown, who seemed to develop a tear if you stared long enough.
The rest of the day did that thing days do where they ricochet between boring and too bright. In maths, Mr Khan asked me if everything was okay because I was staring at my textbook like it was a portal. In English, we were meant to annotate a poem about a boat and I wrote “boat = boat?” and then drew a tiny dog in the margin. At lunch, Saff stole my crisps and replaced them with carrot sticks that tasted like good intentions.
We didn’t talk about the lido until last bell. The corridor was a river of bodies, the posters peeling, the smell of Lynx Africa from the PE block drifting like chemical warfare.
“Okay,” Saff said, when we were outside and the rain had upgraded to the kind that finds your ankle socks on purpose. “We can walk past. From a distance. If you promise we walk away at the first sign of anything that isn’t a seagull.”
I nodded. “From a distance.”
“Like a respectful ghost,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“And we don’t tell Linus,” I said.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “I don’t have the bandwidth for a pamphlet.”
I texted Mum: “How was shift? x” and immediately got the three dots and then nothing. Which is basically her. The bus hissed and I chose to stand because I didn’t like the idea of sitting down and being still with my thoughts. We pressed our foreheads to the cold window and watched the town blur: the retail park, the charity shops, the sea in the gap between buildings, the gray of it like the inside of a tin.
By the time we got off, the pin on the map had become an itch. An hour until it would be “tonight.” The old lido lives behind wire and mould and childhood memories of cheap ice creams. I should have stayed home. I should have made flashcards about mitochondria and eaten Mum’s leftover pasta and blocked the number.
Instead, I put on my coat and told Biscuit, “We’re not doing anything stupid,” and he wagged like I’d promised him the stupidest thing in the world. I checked my DofE rucksack. Two torches. Three pens. Stale cereal bar. Sewing kit. Useless, all of it. I added a plaster and a banana like they might change my moral alignment.
When the light started to go, I met Saff at the end of my road. She held up a transparent umbrella with little cherries on it.
“From a distance,” she said.
“From a distance,” I said, and wished my heart would stop trying to audition as a percussion instrument.
The phone buzzed once in my pocket, as if to say, Yes. Tonight. Come on then. Try not to think about blood. Try not to think about Mum. Try not to think about the stair that creaks.
We walked toward the lido and pretended we always walk that way at dusk with our shoulders up by our ears. The town smelled like wet chips and seaweed. I didn’t look at my phone. I didn’t have to. It was there, humming, red drops hiding under everything we said.
Judge Response:
[Analysis]
This chapter establishes a strong foundation for the darkly comic British YA story, successfully capturing Tilly's distinctive voice and the understated menace of the mysterious texts. The writing demonstrates considerable skill in balancing humor with genuine unease.
The opening immediately establishes atmosphere and character voice. Tilly's sardonic commentary ("No spam about car accidents I hadn't had") and her tendency to overthink ("everything at midnight feels like it might turn into a story if you look at it wrong") feel authentic and engaging. The voice captures the specific cadence of anxious teenage thought patterns convincingly.
The family dynamics are handled with particular nuance. The relationship between Tilly and her mother is shown through small, telling details—the Fruit Pastilles perfume covering hospital smells, the automatic exchanges about shifts, the careful not-telling about the text. The characterization of Mum as tired but caring, protective but not omniscient, aligns perfectly with the character profile.
The British setting details feel natural rather than performative. References like ring roads, retail parks, Lynx Africa, and the specific textures of school life (sticky-but-cold plastic chairs, mould patches shaped like Italy) create authentic atmosphere without feeling forced or touristy.
The dialogue consistently works well, particularly the exchanges between Tilly and Saff on the bus. Their friendship feels genuine, with Saff's skeptical pragmatism ("You've got a secret admirer with anaemia") providing effective counterpoint to Tilly's curiosity.
Some metaphorical choices are quite effective—the phone "breathing" on the bedside table, the text "humming" with hidden meaning. However, a few reach too far: "The space between us filled with all the not-telling, which we pretended was just air" feels slightly overwrought for the voice established elsewhere.
The pacing builds tension appropriately, escalating from the initial mysterious text to the specific location and time. The chapter successfully establishes the central mystery while maintaining the domestic, grounded tone that keeps it from feeling artificially dramatic.
The writing shows strong technical control, with varied sentence structures and effective use of specific detail. The humor consistently lands without undermining the underlying tension. The chapter adheres closely to both the planned structure and the intended tone.
Minor weaknesses include occasional moments where the metaphorical language feels slightly forced, and some descriptions that edge toward the overly elaborate. The ending, while atmospheric, could perhaps have been more decisive in its final beat.
[Scores]
Nuanced Characters: 18
Emotionally Engaging: 17
Compelling Plot: 16
Coherent: 19
Weak Dialogue: 3
Tell-Don't-Show: 4
Unsurprising or Uncreative: 5
Amateurish: 4
Purple Prose: 6
Forced Poetry or Metaphor: 7
Well-earned Lightness or Darkness: 17
Characters Consistent with Profile: 19
Followed Chapter Plan: 19
Faithful to Writing Prompt: 18
Chapter 2
Ok now chapter 2. Follow your plan. 1000 words.
Model Output:
The gate was “basically open,” which is what I said, and Saff said, “It has a lock, Tilly,” and I said, “Yes, but the concept of a lock is more important than its execution,” and then she sighed and helped me lift the chain off the post. It made a noise like a small, guilty snake.
The old lido crouched in the drizzle, all cracked tiles and algae spirals. The water was drained to a green film in the deep end that looked like something out of a biology slideshow titled “Things That Go Wrong If You Lick Handrails.” A fox trotted along the far edge in that fox way, like it had somewhere better to be. The air tasted metallic and damp. My trainers already felt wet; I could feel the squish in my left sock as if my body had a weather app inside it.
“From a distance,” Saff murmured, even as we stepped onto the cracked concrete. The wind pushed her umbrella inside out and she swore softly, then slammed it right-side again like she was winning a small war.
I had my DofE rucksack because I am a parody of myself. It thumped a little with each step—a pack of batteries and the sewing kit and three pens, all pretending to be useful. Biscuit had been left at home “because sense” and still somehow I expected to see his ridiculous head appear around a corner, tongue out, ready to ruin a moment.
We followed the Google Maps pin across the lido’s perimeter to the lockers under the old changing balcony, their doors rusted and numbers rubbed off by a thousand summers that smelled of chlorine and hot sugar. I tried to walk in a way that suggested casual urban exploration as opposed to being an idiot teenager at the start of a sad documentary.
“Anyone else here?” I whispered.
“Only us and tetanus,” Saff said, and shone her phone torch anyway. It picked out a shape under a bank of lockers: a sports bag half-hidden, black nylon gone slick with damp. It had the specific shine of things you don’t want to touch. My stomach did a flip that felt like it was learning gymnastics in real time.
I crouched, knees popping because apparently I’m eighty, and tugged at the zip. It gave with a wet sound. The smell rolled out—cold, plasticky, something like the inside of a fridge and something like a dentist. Inside was a rigid cooler pack, two gel ice things sweating, and several sealed plastic pouches with barcodes and typewritten labels. My breath fogged my screen when I leaned in because my body is dramatic.
Saff inhaled through her teeth. “Nope,” she said. “That’s not prank energy.”
On top of the pouches, damp and curling at the edges, was a folded note. It looked like it had been in a pocket, then dunked in a puddle, then ironed with someone’s hand. The writing slanted, quick, trying to look casual and failing.
Reliable couriers get paid.
Underneath: a drawn blood drop. Just the one. And, for some reason, a doodled low battery icon.
“We put it back,” Saff said immediately, like the note had spoken out loud and she was answering it.
“We take a photo?” I said, already taking a photo because my fingers had decided. The flash made the pouches gleam, my heart go thud, Saff’s face pinch.
“We put. It. Back.” She touched my sleeve. “We go. We tell someone who has a desk and a badge.”
My hand trembled, and because I am an idiot, I steadied myself by lifting one of the pouches. It had weight, the gel kind, and the label was pure hospital: ABO, RhD, expiry. My name sat in my mouth with the taste of pennies. I imagined the bag in a hand, tube attached, drip clamp, the quiet beep-beep of monitors, a person I didn’t know with someone who loved them close by, a nurse checking a wristband and saying, “Yes, this is yours.” The pouch felt like a thing that shouldn’t be outside.
“Put it down,” Saff said, a picture of calm that is not calm.
“I am,” I said, but I had already done the terrible thing: I’d slid one smaller pouch—the kind used in some training kits, right? I told myself—towards me, the way you do when you pretend you’re not stealing, pocketing it by muscle memory the way I pocket hair ties. It slipped into the front of my rucksack, a sleight of hand performed for an audience of mould.
“Did you just—?”
“No,” I said, too fast.
Her eyebrows went up to her hairline and just stayed there like they were renting a cottage. I unzipped the bag a bit more, as if the act of revealing the inside again cancelled the theft. “We’ll tell them. I just—if they are watching us,” I said, thinking of the photo from my window, “I don’t want to leave empty-handed and make whoever this is mad. If we have something, we can—”
“Negotiate? You want to negotiate with a person who draws their battery life on notes?” Saff’s voice was delicate because she knows that when I am cornered, I’m more likely to dig down than climb out.
“When did you get so tall?” a voice said from behind us and I nearly deposited my soul into the pool.
We spun. A security guard in orange high-vis stood just outside the changing rooms, half-eaten Meal Deal in hand; the triangular sandwich box was damp around the edges. He blinked at us. He didn’t look like an avenging angel; he looked like a man who had had to tell too many teenagers to not die. “You can’t be in ‘ere,” he said, but his heart wasn’t in it. He was clutching a packet of crisps like it contained answers.
“Art coursework,” I said, because my brain picks lies like random socks.
Saff said, “We’re doing lines,” in a tone that made it sound like a confession and not, you know, perspective drawing.
He squinted at the bag near my feet. “Is that yours?”
“Yeah,” I said. “No. That one? No.” I pointed to my rucksack. “This is mine.” I lifted it and felt the new weight of wrongdoing. It sank onto my spine like a little anchor.
He wiped rain off his forehead with the back of his hand, leaving a stripe of mayo. “You’ve got ten minutes and I wasn’t here. Mind the edges; they’re slippery.” He walked away at a pace that said he would not be returning to check either way.
“British security at its finest,” Saff said. “Shall we embroider him a thank-you banner later?”
I shut the sports bag carefully and nudged it back under the locker bank, as if hiding a wrong would make it less wrong. We didn’t high-five. We didn’t look at each other properly. Our breath made white ghosts in the air. The drizzle finicked into my hairline and trickled down my neck in chilly lines.
As we crossed back to the gap in the fence, my phone buzzed. I didn’t look at it. Looking would make things real. Not looking keeps things real too, but it allows you to pretend reality is a hallway you can stand outside of for a bit.
“Let’s go,” Saff said. “Let’s never come here again, even in daylight. Let’s become indoor people.”
We scrambled through the fence without elegance. My coat snagged and I did a small, hopeless dance to unhook it. We started the walk back along the road, hands in pockets like we were locals and not idiots with a bag of bad decisions.
Halfway home, at the corner where the bakery always smells like hot sugar even when it’s shut, I felt a presence at my knee and nearly screamed. Biscuit trotted alongside like he’d materialised from the air, tail helicoptering, tongue lolling like a fresh fool.
“I locked the door,” I said to him, accusatory.
“He can open doors,” Saff said. “He is sentient. Give me your house key; I’ll put the chain on next time.”
Biscuit headbutted my rucksack affectionately because he likes me and also because it now contained something that smelled like a fridge touched a hospital. I deflected him with my hip, heartbeat climbing my throat. We picked up the pace, which for Biscuit meant prancing like his legs were individually delighted to be attached to his body.
Outside my block, rain turned to that fine mist that gets everywhere, inside collar, behind ears, under the idea of your skin. I could feel the pouch in my bag like a second heart. I could also feel the decision growing roots: this was a very bad idea that I was going to carry upstairs like a plant I couldn’t put down because I’d already accepted it.
In the flat, Biscuit skidded on the laminate and crashed into the shoe pile like he was auditioning for a slapstick. I hung my coat on the peg and immediately took the rucksack into my room like it might otherwise tell on me. Saff stood in the doorway, arms folded, sending waves of judgment and concern, both warm in their own way.
“Show me,” she said.
I took the pouch out. It looked smaller in my hand than it had in the bag, which I realise is not how sizes usually operate, but guilt is a magnifier. The label was precise and bureaucratic: Group O pos, Unit no., Use by. The plastic had that slipperiness that belongs to things that have a place and that place is not your bedroom.
“Okay,” Saff said, and let out a breath she’d been keeping. “We’re going to take that to someone who has a badge. Today. Not instead-of-school today. Like after. We are not going to take it to Linus.”
“I wasn’t going to take it to Linus,” I said, and then my phone buzzed and I looked and this time I wished I had grown up in the eighteenth century and used letters and only got ominous correspondence once a month.
Unknown number: nice work, tilly. 🩸
The lowercase on my name made my vision go tight. The nickname sat in my stomach like a stone. Only Mum and Dad call me Tilly most of the time; everyone else tries for Matilda once and gives up. A photo followed. The exterior of our block, from across the street, our living room window lit and the blue of the telly leaking through the curtains like an x-ray. The caption: “home time.”
“Okay,” Saff said again, differently. “Okay. That’s not… okay.”
I swallowed. Biscuit, idiot angel, put his head on my knee. The warmth of his skull, the wet of his nose, the weight of him on my shin—too alive for the text to be a joke any more.
“Maybe it’s one of those prank accounts,” I said, because denial is my favourite hobby.
“Maybe,” Saff said, but her voice had gone taut. “Tilly. We tell your mum.”
“Mum will… Mum will kill me.” It came out like I was nine.
“She will not kill you,” Saff said. “She might weaponise disappointment. But also, she’s an adult who works in a hospital. She has badge energy.”
I nodded, the kind of nod you do to try and make reality accept you. “After school,” I said, because what if telling now made the texter do the thing they threatened? Because what if going down the corridor to Mum meant saying out loud what I’d done and seeing her face change? Because what if I wanted five more hours where the version of me in her head wasn’t yet the one who brought a hospital into our kitchen?
We walked back to school in a bubble that didn’t pop and sat through lessons where the teachers’ mouths moved and my brain filed everything under “noise.” In biology, Ms Byrne said, “Fascinating, isn’t it?” about the ABO system, and I wrote “I am an idiot” in the margin and then scribbled over it until the paper pilled.
At lunch, Linus appeared like a leaflet in human form and offered us a pamphlet about ethical snacking. I took it to have something to do with my hands. He peered at us. “You both look like you’ve seen a ghost that needs a hug,” he said, not really a joke.
“Do you know anything about… hospitals?” I said, then realised how that sounded and amended: “Like, supply stuff.”
Linus blinked. “My aunt works at North Shore. She says management is a spreadsheet masquerading as a person. Why?”
“No reason,” I said, and attempted a smile that probably looked like wind. The rain beat on the windows like typing.
After school, we didn’t go to the police station. We went home, because that’s where my legs took me. Because Mum would be back by then. Because if someone had watched our block, they could watch us walking into a building with “POLICE” written on it and I would be the idiot in a cautionary tale at assembly, which, yes, is vain as well as scared.
Up in the flat, Mum’s shoes were in the hallway, her hoodie on a chair, her body asleep on the sofa, telly on, subtitles racing. She’d fallen asleep with one hand on the remote, as if she might change the channel of her dreams any second. I stood and looked at her for a long time, the same way I had looked at the blood emoji at 00:07.
“Tell her,” Saff whispered.
I took a breath, like I was going underwater.
My phone buzzed again, and I flinched like it had teeth.
Unknown number: Station lockers. 17:40. No cops. 🩸
The emoji looked stupid and red and like the kind of thing you can’t tell yourself is a heart anymore. I put the phone face down. I put the pouch back in my bag. I put the lid on my mouth.
“After school,” I said again, as if we were still before.
Judge Response:
[Analysis]
This chapter demonstrates strong execution of the British YA voice and successfully advances the plot while maintaining character authenticity. The writing follows the chapter plan meticulously, hitting all planned beats from the "basically open" gate rationalization to Biscuit's inevitable appearance to the escalating text messages.
The first-person narration captures Tilly's voice exceptionally well - her sardonic observations ("I am a parody of myself"), anxious overthinking, and tendency toward deflective humor feel genuine for a British teenager. The character's voice remains consistent throughout, showing her control-freak tendencies and poor decision-making under pressure that align perfectly with her profile.
The British setting details are particularly well-executed: the security guard with his Meal Deal, the casual "I wasn't here" attitude, the specific language patterns, and cultural references all feel authentic rather than performative. The dark comedy balance works well - real stakes (blood theft, stalking) contrasted with absurd moments (Biscuit's dramatic timing, the security guard's mayo stripe).
The dialogue feels natural and character-specific. Saff's boundary-setting ("We put. It. Back.") and Tilly's deflection patterns come through clearly. The escalating text messages effectively build tension while maintaining the story's grounded tone.
However, the writing occasionally strains for effect. Some metaphors feel forced ("like a small, guilty snake" for the chain sound, "my body is dramatic"). There's a density of observational metaphors that sometimes borders on trying too hard for cleverness. The phrase "guilt is a magnifier" regarding object sizes feels particularly strained.
The plot progression is logical and the character decisions, while poor, are believable given Tilly's established psychology. The theft of the blood pouch is well-executed as an impulsive act she immediately rationalizes, showing her flawed thinking patterns. The chapter maintains tension effectively while developing character relationships and advancing the central mystery.
[Scores]
Nuanced Characters: 18
Emotionally Engaging: 17
Compelling Plot: 17
Coherent: 18
Weak Dialogue: 3
Tell-Don't-Show: 4
Unsurprising or Uncreative: 5
Amateurish: 4
Purple Prose: 6
Forced Poetry or Metaphor: 7
Well-earned Lightness or Darkness: 17
Characters Consistent with Profile: 19
Followed Chapter Plan: 20
Faithful to Writing Prompt: 18
Chapter 3
Ok now chapter 3. Follow your plan. 1000 words.
Model Output:
By morning I had built a small dam in my head made of promises: after school we tell Mum, after school we go to someone with a badge, after school we stop being the sort of people who carry other people’s blood in a PE kit. The dam leaked the entire way to school.
Ms Byrne wrote ABO on the whiteboard in letters that looked like they’d been ironed. “Fascinating,” she said, because she always says fascinating as if interest is a switch we can flick if we are good. “Your blood group is inherited—Mendel would be very excited. Well. He would be excited about peas.”
I shrank an inch in my chair. Saff leaned over. “You okay?”
“Fascinated,” I said. I underlined ABO so hard the paper buckled.
We were doing blood typing with fake blood and plastic cards, a practical that every other year looks like fun until someone faints or someone pours the wrong thing on the wrong thing and everything turns brown. Ms Byrne handed out kits with a flourish. The liquid in the little vials was the precise shade of cheap horror film paint.
“Remember, it isn’t real,” she said, which you’d think would help but the smell was plasticky-iron enough to trick your brain.
My card turned pink then clotted in bits when I added reagent, which is science for “I did something right on accident.” Ms Byrne appeared at my elbow like owls do in stories. “See the agglutination? Fascinating,” she said, and I nodded and thought about the pouch zipped in my bag back home and the label with its neat little expiry date and wondered who had written it and whether they’d had enough sleep.
Saff’s card looked like a Valentine’s Day craft. She wrinkled her nose. “I look like a crime scene.”
“You look like art,” I said, but my hands shook a bit and when I picked up the vial it slipped and bounced and a fountaining dot of fake blood leapt out and landed on my white shirt, right above the pocket. A perfect red coin.
“Nice,” said Kiran from the next table, because of course he’d be there, high on glucose and drama. “It suits you.”
I flipped my hair over the stain as if hair is a washing powder. Ms Byrne handed me a paper towel that dissolved into lint the minute it touched liquid. “It’s not real,” she said again, because her job is to say it twice. “But do rinse that, Matilda.”
“It’s Tilly,” I said, automatic, and the name sounded wrong in my mouth after last night’s text. Ms Byrne gave me the kind of smile that means “I will never remember that” and sailed away.
The rumour mill had been wound to maximum since the subtitle about “supply irregularities.” It clanked all day. In maths, someone whispered about a hospital van with a ripped seal and the driver crying. In tutor, a Year 9 produced a grand theory that the butcher on Station Road had staged his own burglary for clout. In the corridor between English and Geography, two Year 12s said the same name at the same time and then shut up when they saw Ms Patel. Everything felt more echo than sound.
Zara was a fixed point in the sea. Head Girl badge polished, prefect tie straight, hair immaculate. She was near the water fountain, doling out plasters and sympathy to someone’s grazed knee like a benevolent monarch. When she saw me and Saff, her expression did that thing hers does where it wants to be friendly but comes out evaluative.
“You two heard anything weird?” she asked, voice low but confident, as if we were all doing a group project and she’d already assigned the roles and I just hadn’t read the Google Doc.
Saff lifted an eyebrow. “Define weird.”
“Messages,” Zara said, too quickly to be casual. “On, you know, socials.” She kept her gaze on my chin as if eye contact might make the question too loud.
“No,” I said, at the exact same time Saff said, “Yes, but not that kind.” We did a small duet of coughs. My cheeks burned.
“People have been messing around,” Zara continued. “There’s fear. We don’t need fear.” She smiled, a tight little upturn. “Tell someone if you see anything. Mr Malik is being very… helpful.”
There was a poster behind her about Safer Internet Week with a cartoon footprint saying Don’t Be A Muppet Online and I almost laughed, and then I didn’t. The blood drop on my shirt had dried into a dark blush. I tugged my blazer closed.
In the corridor outside Science, Kiran had a tissue up his nose and was pretending to be fine. “Allergies,” he said with a thumbs-up. He tipped his head back in a move guaranteed to make it worse. Thin red ran and he made a noise like “uh-oh,” then laughed, because that’s what he does when his face betrays him.
“Pinch,” Saff commanded, taking his wrist and folding his fingers over his own nose with brisk competence. “Lean forward. Not back unless you want to swallow a pint of yourself.”
“I love that you make everything sound glamorous,” he said, voice nasal. His eyes met mine. “That’s a good look on you,” he added, nodding at my shirt stain again, and then looked mortified because he’s actually nice.
“Blood is my brand now,” I said, and immediately wanted to take the sentence and put it in a bin. The corridor smelled of disinfectant pretending to win.
By last period, my brain had the texture of a kitchen sponge. I could feel the unknown number under everything, like a splinter. The dam of promises was now a weir.
We met Linus by the bike sheds because that’s where sincere conversations go to be slightly windblown. He arrived like a gust, tote bag clacking with badges. “Hello,” he said, too loudly. “Sorry. Hello.”
“We wanted to ask—this is so random,” I said, which is what you say when you are asking something specific. “Your aunt—she works at North Shore, right?”
“Yes,” he said, immediately solemn. “She has dreams about bleepers. We made her a cake once that said ‘turn it off,’ but then she said she can’t, because if it turns off, people die, which killed the mood a bit.” He looked between our faces. “Why?”
“Just… there’s talk,” Saff said. “Weird texts. Vans. Supplies.”
Linus’s mouth made a small oh. “Oh. She said there was a Thing.” He capitalised it with his voice. “Paramedic suspended for ‘cutting corners.’ She said that’s management’s phrase for people they liked on Fridays. She also said a bunch of plasma went—her word—missing. And that the rota is written by a person who hates joy.”
“Did she say a name?” I asked, too quickly.
Linus scrunched his face. “Callum something. He sometimes bought the nice custard creams. She is very disappointed about the custard creams.”
The name hit me like stepping off a curb you thought was there and isn’t. I kept my face on. Saff’s knee bumped mine, just once, like she was saying, I heard it too.
“Thanks,” I said. “Also your leaflet had Comic Sans, which is a hate crime.”
His hand flew to his heart. “I’m trying to be accessible. If you have a font suggestion that isn’t elitist, I’m all ears.”
“Calibri,” Saff said. “It’s the potatoes of fonts.”
“Potatoes are political,” Linus said, then looked horrified at himself. “No, sorry. That was a joke. I mean, everything’s political—”
“Linus,” I said gently. “Do you think we’re in danger?”
He looked at our faces and seemed to turn down his own volume. “I think you’re not the only people who’ve had weird messages,” he said. “Just—if anything makes you feel like a character in someone else’s plan, maybe don’t.” He fished in his tote and produced a Tunnock’s teacake. “This is not vegan but it is, I think, medicinal. Take it.”
We ate it sitting on the low wall while the sky thought about being blue and decided against it.
I went home in the cracked light of evening feeling like the town had rearranged slightly while we were in maths. At home, Mum had left a note by the kettle—“Fish fingers in freezer—M x”—and a mug halo where she’d set down tea and left in a hurry. Biscuit bumped my knee with his head and then shoved his toy fox under my foot because he believes pain is how you know you’re alive.
At half six I went to my room with the deliberate walk of someone who isn’t doing anything wrong. My curtains were shut, but I pulled them closer anyway. I sat on my bed and looked at the text thread with the unknown number. Scrolling made me queasy, like being in a car and trying to read a tiny book about your own terrible decisions.
My phone pinged. A photo loaded, slow, like an insult taking its time. My room. The edge of my curtain. The TV in the living room reflected in the window, a soap where someone is always cross at someone else in a kitchen that is too clean. The time on the screen in the reflection: 18:31—today. The angle was slightly off, wrong for my bedroom window. It looked like it had been taken from the patio doors in the communal walkway that runs along the back of the flats.
Text: ignore me and there’ll be more 🩸
I smashed the volume down button even though the sound had already happened. My pulse went into my throat. My whole body did that hot-cold tremble like when you’re told off in public and everyone pretends they’re not listening.
I stood very still and listened. The stair that creaks didn’t creak. Biscuit snored. Somewhere, someone’s telly laughed.
Saff called. I answered and let her voice fill the space like air. “Talk to me,” she said.
“They took a picture,” I said. “From… the walkway, I think. The angle is wrong for the window.”
“Call your mum,” she said, at once. She didn’t say please.
“I will,” I said. “After I… after I check. I need to check.”
“Check what?” she said, but I was already moving, the part of me that thinks if you look at a thing you control it taking over from the part that knows better.
The walkway door sticks and then gives with a sigh. The concrete out there always has a slick on it, like a thin skin of something the cleaners can’t name. I stepped out and the air bit my cheeks. I held my phone like a talisman. There were two cigarette ends in the corner by the meter cupboard, not ours. A smear of mud on the sill of the patio doors, not ours. A feeling like being watched from inside my own skin, definitely mine.
The text bubble appeared. Typed, erased. Typed. “don’t be brave” it said finally. “be useful.”
I swallowed. I went back inside and locked the door because locks are concepts but they are also, sometimes, a comfort.
At school the next day there was an assembly about “community cohesion” which nobody understood. Mr Malik did his noble best. I sat on the plastic chair and let the talk wash over me until the feedback shrieked and everyone clapped because that’s a reflex you can’t untrain.
After, Zara materialised beside me. She looked at my shirt like it might still have a stain. “Be careful,” she said, as if we were already speaking and I’d missed the first half.
“Always,” I said. I wanted to ask her what Callum had done, how much she knew, whether she would, could, stop him. I wanted to ask her if she’d ever said no and had it ignored. Instead I said, “Do you know the lido is haunted by a fox with vibes?”
She blinked. “Is that a yes to weird messages?”
“Is that a yes to you knowing something you’re not telling me?” I said.
She didn’t answer. She adjusted her headscarf with neat fingers. “Some people think they can keep things small,” she said. “They can’t. Even good people are big when they make mistakes.”
I thought about the pouch in my bag. My mistake felt exactly the right size for my hand. I thought about Mum’s tired eyes and the way she sometimes stares at the telly like if she concentrates hard enough the characters will find their way out of their plot.
That evening, I stood in the kitchen with Biscuit hovering, my phone a warm coin in my pocket. Mum came in at eight, keys loud, face older than in the morning.
“Hey,” she said. “Peas or no peas with fish fingers?”
“Peas are political,” I said, because sometimes language is the only thing between you and a noise. She rolled her eyes. I opened my mouth. The words felt like heavy marbles.
The phone buzzed. Station lockers. 17:40. No cops. 🩸
I had missed it; the time had already tripped by while I was in biology learning that ABO is simple only when it’s on a board and not when it’s in your bag. The text was a ghost of a missed appointment and also a countdown to another.
“Fish fingers,” Mum said, opening the freezer. “And chips if we’re feeling wild.”
I watched her back in its hoodie, feet in socks, an ordinary evening forming. I loved her so much it hurt like running. I didn’t want to open my mouth and let the blood emoji into our kitchen.
“I’m—” I said. “Mum, I need to tell you something.”
She turned, face softening. “What?”
The words queued like cars at a roundabout. They did not go. I held out my phone instead, as if I was thirteen and showing her a meme. The text thread glared redly.
She read. Her face went very still.
“Tilly,” she said. My name in her mouth made me want to be a better version of myself at once. “We’re going to the police.”
“I thought—your job,” I said. “I thought—if we—”
“We’re going to the police,” she said again, and that was that. The dam cracked with a sound you feel before you hear it. I started to talk. I kept talking. I emptied all the marbles out, clack clack clack on the lino, while the oven preheated and Biscuit tried to eat a tea towel, and it turned out the world didn’t end inside our kitchen. It didn’t even stop. It just rearranged a bit, like furniture at the front of the assembly hall when the safeguarding lady comes with her PowerPoint and her earnest.
Later, after peas, after mortifying phone calls, after promises and more promises, after the GP surgery receptionist voice at the police station reception made everything sound like Wednesday afternoons, the unknown number lit up again at 23:01.
“Lido was tidy. Good,” it said. “Locker. Tomorrow. 17:40. Don’t be late. 🩸🩸”
Two drops. My stomach turned over. Two now meant—what? Urgent? Wednesday? Revenge? Pattern-making is a way to trick yourself into thinking you’re not being moved around like a piece in a game.
Saff texted: You okay?
I replied: Fascinated. Then: No.
She sent back a heart, a real one. I sat on my bed with Biscuit’s head on my foot and looked at my phone until the screen timed out. In the dark, the afterimage of the blood drops floated like a cheap constellation. I shut my eyes. I could still see red.
Judge Response:
[Analysis]
This chapter demonstrates strong execution of darkly comic British YA fiction, maintaining the established voice and advancing the plot effectively. The writing successfully balances tension with humor through Tilly's sardonic narration and authentic teenage dialogue.
The opening biology lesson provides a clever thematic link to the blood emoji mystery while establishing school atmosphere through specific details like Ms Byrne's repetitive "fascinating" and the fake blood practical gone wrong. The stain on Tilly's shirt creates an effective visual motif that threads through the chapter.
Character work is particularly strong. Tilly's voice remains consistent - anxious, defensive, scientifically-minded but prone to overthinking patterns. Her internal metaphors (the dam of promises, words like heavy marbles) feel natural rather than forced. Saff provides effective grounding, while secondary characters like Linus and Kiran feel authentic rather than functional. The encounter with Zara reveals information while maintaining her controlled but slightly desperate persona.
The escalation feels organic - rumors building at school, the revelation of Callum's name, the threatening photo that makes the danger personal and immediate. The detail about the wrong angle from the patio doors shows careful plotting rather than vague menace.
The chapter's emotional core - Tilly's conflict about protecting her mother versus needing help - resolves satisfyingly when she finally confesses. The kitchen scene with Mum feels real in its mixture of ordinary domestic life (fish fingers, peas) with extraordinary crisis.
The prose maintains appropriate register throughout, avoiding purple language while still being evocative. British specificity (bike sheds, Tunnock's teacakes, telly) feels natural rather than forced. The dialogue captures authentic teenage speech patterns without caricature.
Minor criticisms include some metaphors that feel slightly overworked (the dam imagery gets extended perhaps too far) and occasional moments where Tilly's internal voice becomes slightly too knowing for a teenager in crisis.
[Scores]
Nuanced Characters: 17
Emotionally Engaging: 16
Compelling Plot: 16
Coherent: 18
Weak Dialogue: 3
Tell-Don't-Show: 4
Unsurprising or Uncreative: 3
Amateurish: 2
Purple Prose: 3
Forced Poetry or Metaphor: 5
Well-earned Lightness or Darkness: 17
Characters Consistent with Profile: 18
Followed Chapter Plan: 18
Faithful to Writing Prompt: 17
Chapter 4
Ok now chapter 4. Follow your plan. 1000 words.
Model Output:
I am good at telling myself a story where I am sensible. It’s a skill. The story went like this: I would tell Mum, which I had, and then we would go to someone with a desk and a badge, which we had sort of done if you count talking to the person behind the Perspex at the station and being told someone would “log it.” Then we would not step foot near any lockers, lidos, canals, or other nouns ending in “o.” We would let adults adult. I would return to my regularly scheduled life of underlining poems and avoiding eye contact with Kiran’s nose.
The alternative story, which I didn’t tell myself, was that control is a drug and I was already hooked.
Mum looked like she’d lost a layer of sleep and found a layer of stubborn. She’d taken down details and dates and even the typo in the text (“don’t be brave be useful”) in a notebook she kept for shopping lists. She made tea with a ferocity that meant the mugs were going to be fine, or else. She said we’d call Sergeant Someone in the morning because the person last night had said to “call back in business hours,” as if crime has a rota.
At school I told myself to find the quiet parts of the day. There aren’t many. Mr Malik stopped me outside the hall with a look that was trying for kind and landing on over-eager. “Tilly,” he said, “just to remind you, my door is always open.”
“Is it?” I said. “Doesn’t that make it cold?”
He blinked. “I mean—if you need to talk to someone about—” He flapped a hand at the world, which I suppose is what his job is now, flapping at the world and hoping teenagers interpret.
I smiled with teeth. “Thanks.” I didn’t go through his open door. I didn’t go through any doors that led to “interventions” or “strategies” or “supporting you in this time.” I went to the café with Saff and Linus because caffeine and carbohydrates are also strategies.
Linus had chosen a table by the window where the condensation drew its own rivers. He had already ordered a tray’s worth of items and was watching the drizzle like it might form a shape, maybe a bad font. “I got you both teacakes,” he said. “I know your stance on butter is complicated.”
“What’s my stance on butter?” I asked.
“You weaponise it against toast,” Saff said, sliding in. “You make it into a paste and then behave like you were a victim of the bread.”
I wrapped my hands round the mug. It radiated a hope of warmth that didn’t quite happen. “Linus, your aunt said anything else?” I asked, because the part of me that thinks facts are armour was busy strapping itself on.
“She said management sent an email using ‘robust’ as if it means anything,” he said. “She said someone ‘borrowed’ a key card for thirty minutes one night last month and handed it back as if keys grow on trees. She said a name, which I have now forgotten because I am stress compost.” He clicked his fingers a few times. “Callum. Yes. She said that. And then she said she shouldn’t have said, so if you tell anyone I exist I will die.”
“Got it,” I said, and then my phone did the little burr of a vibration on wood that feels like a throat clearing. I flipped it. Unknown number.
Station lockers. 17:40. No cops. 🩸
Then, a stutter of typing bubbles. don’t be brave be useful
“Useful to whom,” Saff said, reading upside down, the fury working through her like a storm getting organised.
I typed: Who are you? Why me?
No reply. Just the silent bubble of something looking and then not. The café filled with the clatter of cutlery and the smell of butter that isn’t really butter. My palms were damp. I wiped them on my skirt and probably left a handprint like a crime scene on knitwear.
“Okay,” Saff said eventually. “We’re not going. Which you know, because you are a person who likes not dying.”
“Yes,” I said, and my stomach said something else. Mum’s voice in my head said we’re going to the police, again, like pushing the same button will get a different lift. It should have been enough.
“You look like you’re going,” Linus said softly, with zero judgment. “Which is… I mean. I have a leaflet about decision-making, but the font is aggressive.”
“We just—if they’re watching,” I said, and my mouth sped up without my permission, “if they see us not going, maybe they escalate. If we go and we don’t deliver, we can buy time. We can see if we’re followed. We can—”
“Negotiate.” Saff said the word as if it tasted bad. “With a person who leaves batteries on notes.”
My phone pinged again. A new text. 3F. That was it. Two characters. Like a door number. Like a breath. I stared until the letters blurred.
Saff squinted. “Locker number?”
“Or block 3, floor F?” I said, and immediately hated myself.
“We are idiots,” Saff said, and squeezed my wrist in a way that meant she was here and also that I was not thinking straight.
Mum called at lunch, which she doesn’t do, because lunch is her morning. “I’ve spoken to someone,” she said, tired and clipped. “They’re sending a PCS—community officer—round at six. We’ll give them what we have. You’re to come straight home after school and not do anything daft.”
“Define daft,” I said, and she didn’t laugh, which is fair.
I said “okay,” and meant “maybe.”
At 17:32, the station smelled like cold chips and announcements. The fluorescent lights made everything look like it had a hangover. My heart had found a tempo it liked and was now playing it on a loop: runrunrun. Saff stood next to me with her hair in a battle ponytail and the sort of calm you are only allowed to fake for three minutes.
“This is such a bad idea,” she said, conversationally, like discussing crisp flavours.
“I know,” I said. My voice came out thin. I looked like I was waiting for a train. If you squinted, we were normal.
We walked past the locker banks like people who knew what a locker was and weren’t scared of it. The code pad was greasy, the kind of grime that doesn’t wash. The text had said 3F. There were rows labelled 1, 2, 3. The F was a column. I punched in 3562 because that’s a code that exists in my hand from years of bogus keypads; it was wrong. The text came again: 8347. I typed it. A small door clunked open with a tragic little sigh.
Inside, a white cooler, neat as a lunchbox for a very precise person. A post-it: “No police.” The hand was the same, slanted, too fast. The cooler was cold to the touch, the sort of cold that makes your skin sting.
I looked and didn’t touch. I could hear my own breath, and the announcement about platform four, and a child crying in that purely outraged way children cry about small injustices, and my own heart, and Saff saying, “We walk. We walk now.” We did.
We didn’t make it two steps before the next text landed. keep going. left. don’t look around.
Left took us past the newsagent and the photo booth with the curtain that has seen things. The doors slid open on an inhale of night. A man in a yellow gilet stood outside smoking like he didn’t want to, the rain making the end of his cigarette hiss. Saff and I kept walking. Our reflections in the glass were two girls in a crime drama about to do the wrong thing because they believe it will get them the right thing later.
keep going. under the bridge. then right. 🩸
I wanted to turn. I wanted to stop the dance and face whoever was calling tunes. I did not. Saff’s hand touched my elbow, not pulling, just there.
Under the bridge the sound changes. Cars thud overhead. The rain comes down in strings. It smells like yesterday’s beer and something green. My mouth tasted metallic. I could see the police station from here if I leaned my head the right way. I did not lean.
There was a locker bank by the underpass too, because this town loves storage like it’s a hobby. Another code. Another clunk. This time the cooler was bigger. The label on the top said “Plasma.” The idea of plasma in a white lunchbox in a locker under a bridge was so absurd I wanted to laugh until I cried and then lie down.
My phone buzzed again. a photo. me in hospital scrubs, hands opening a fridge. It looked right until you looked. The hair was wrong, the hands too big, the badge fuzzy. It was the kind of video your aunt shares to warn you about door-to-door scammers: just real enough to frighten people who want to be frightened. The caption: you’ll be blamed. mum will be audited. be useful.
I stared at my own uncanny valley. I felt the cold of the cooler in my knees even though I wasn’t touching it. Saff’s jaw tightened. “Blackmail,” she said, as if naming it would make it less powerful.
“We give it to the police,” I said. “Now.” It came out the way a person trying to be brave says things: thin, with air around it.
“And tell them what? That we willingly took possession of a box of plasma like we’re in Carry On Haematology?” she said, and then shook her head at herself. “We tell them that. Obviously.”
I skimmed the cooler with my fingers and then snatched my hand back like it had bitten. The texture of the plastic was so ordinary. My life had been full of those textures: lunchboxes, storage tubs, Tupperware with Mum’s name scrawled on the lid for bring-and-share nights. It felt obscene and also inevitable that this, too, would come in a box with a snap.
I closed the locker and we walked away with nothing. My phone vibrated hard enough to jolt. it said: clever. not very. next time you won’t be clever. there will be more 🩸
The “more” sat like a stone. The blood drop was a cartoon but it might as well have been an axe.
At home, Mum was sitting on the sofa with that stiff posture that means she’s awake because something is keeping her awake. The community officer had come, said all the reasonable words, promised, left an incident number on a card printed in blue ink that smudged if you touched it. Mum had a notepad open and three pens fallen around like soldiers.
“Where?” she asked, not hello.
“Station lockers,” I said. “And then under the bridge.” Biscuit wormed between us with the kind of oblivious cheer that saves people or ruins them.
“We should tell them now,” she said, reaching for her phone.
“We did tell them,” I said. “We are telling them.” We were saying the same sentence but meaning different things with the space between the words.
She scrubbed a hand over her face. “There was a thing, years ago,” she said suddenly. “At the hospital.” My head lifted, automatic. “Your dad—he didn’t steal, Tilly. He… didn’t sign something properly. He took the blame. Or said he would. He thought it was the brave thing. He thought it would make everything go away.” She made a small, incredulous sound. “Things don’t go away. They just move into different rooms.”
I thought of Dad’s seagull text. I thought of the way he writes at two in the morning and how that might be guilt or just bad sleep hygiene. “Did he—did he do this?” I asked, small.
“No,” she said, and the certainty in her voice was the only warm thing in the room. “But people like him make people like this think they can get away with it.”
The phone vibrated again on the coffee table and we both jumped. Unknown number: tomorrow. 17:40. same. 🩸🩸
Two drops. My brain, drunk on patterns, offered up: two equals drop day, equals vans, equals someone’s shift. Or it meant nothing. Or it meant “twice as cross.” I wanted to throw my phone into the bin and then follow it.
“Do not go,” Mum said, as if she could pin me to the sofa with words. “We will call them in the morning. We will insist. We will shout. I will be that woman in reception who doesn’t move until she’s seen a sergeant. I have time tomorrow between ten and two. I will cancel my dentist. Can you text Saff’s mum? No—don’t. Don’t spread it. I don’t know.”
I nodded. She pressed her lips together like glue. We sat for a minute, two. The telly made a noise like canned laughter and both of us turned it off in the same motion, which if I were a director I’d cut because it’s too on the nose.
At ten Saff texted: Linus says his aunt says paramedic is called Callum. Also: she says try not to die. Practical advice. x
At eleven, when the flat was quiet in the particular way it is when a city outside is messy and loud, my phone lit again.
don’t be clever. bring the box. I don’t want to hurt anyone. but i will. 🩸
The full stop after “anyone” did more to me than the emoji. I lay there and thought about being brave versus being useful and which of those are just costumes for being afraid.
Morning came like an apology without a plan. Mum marched with her notebook to the police station, eyes narrowed, and I went to school because if you don’t go, the absence will make talk, and if you do go, the presence will make talk, and either way people will talk. In form, Mr Malik obliged us with a quiz about online safety where one of the correct answers was “Tell a trusted adult,” which made me want to put my head on my desk and laugh until I choked.
At break, Zara found me by the window where condensation still tried to be rivers. “There are better ways,” she said, as if there were a menu and I had chosen poorly. “You don’t have to be… involved.”
“I am not involved,” I said. “I am adjacent.”
“You look involved.” Her gaze flicked to my hands, to my face, to something over my shoulder I could not see. “Please be careful,” she said, and the please made it worse. Her thumbnail had a ragged edge where she’d chewed it.
“You too,” I said, and thought, what do you know, and also, what do you owe him.
By lunch, my head was full of sawdust and the sound of a cooler lid clunking. By last bell, I had a hollow under my ribs the exact size of a white box. By five, I stood with Saff under the clock at the station again, rain in a different mood, colder now.
“Callum,” Saff said, like practising a name makes it less sharp. “Zara’s brother.”
“Do we tell her?” I asked, as if we hadn’t already told her with our faces when she asked for weird and we had said no with our mouths.
“After,” Saff said. “If there is an after where we get to make choices.” She laced her fingers through mine. It grounded me. It terrified me. It did both.
The text came at 17:38: 8347. same. no cops. 🩸🩸
We went. We didn’t run. We didn’t faint. We didn’t do anything cinematic. We opened a locker in a station that smells like mince pasties and human skin and rain and we picked up a box that should have been in a hospital and we walked out into the dusk like idiots who think they can direct the end of their own story.
Someone had scrawled a phone number on the underside of the locker door in biro. A name next to it: CALLUM. I looked at it and knew the next chapter just got messier.
Judge Response:
[Analysis]
This chapter demonstrates solid competency in YA voice and characterization, with Tilly's anxious, sardonic narration feeling authentic and age-appropriate. The author successfully captures the specific texture of British teenage life through details like "mince pasties," community officers, and the bureaucratic frustration of dealing with police "business hours."
The chapter follows its planned structure reasonably well, hitting key beats including the café meeting with Linus, escalating texts, family tension, and the revelation of Callum's identity. The pacing builds tension effectively from reluctant information-gathering to active participation in the scheme despite better judgment.
Character voice is a strength - Tilly's internal rationalization ("I am good at telling myself a story where I am sensible. It's a skill") and her recognition that "control is a drug and I was already hooked" feel psychologically authentic. The supporting characters maintain consistency: Saff's practical concern, Linus's earnest awkwardness, and Mum's exhausted protectiveness all ring true.
However, the writing occasionally stumbles into forced metaphorical territory. Phrases like "My brain, drunk on patterns" and "My heart had found a tempo it liked and was now playing it on a loop: runrunrun" feel overwrought for the otherwise grounded voice. Some descriptions veer toward purple prose - "the rain comes down in strings" and extended metaphors about reflections in glass being "two girls in a crime drama" feel self-conscious.
The dialogue generally works well, though some exchanges feel slightly stilted ("Define daft," "Weaponise it against toast"). The humor mostly lands but occasionally feels forced, particularly in Tilly's more elaborate internal quips.
The emotional stakes feel genuine - Tilly's fear for her mother's job, the family's financial precarity, and the weight of her father's past mistakes create believable motivation for poor decisions. The blackmail escalation with the doctored photo adds appropriate menace without becoming cartoonish.
While competent and engaging, the writing doesn't quite achieve the effortless authenticity of truly exceptional YA fiction. The voice occasionally strains for cleverness rather than trusting its natural rhythm.
[Scores]
Nuanced Characters: 16
Emotionally Engaging: 15
Compelling Plot: 15
Coherent: 17
Weak Dialogue: 6
Tell-Don't-Show: 5
Unsurprising or Uncreative: 7
Amateurish: 6
Purple Prose: 8
Forced Poetry or Metaphor: 9
Well-earned Lightness or Darkness: 16
Characters Consistent with Profile: 17
Followed Chapter Plan: 16
Faithful to Writing Prompt: 17
Chapter 5
Ok now chapter 5. Follow your plan. 1000 words.
Model Output:
The station at half five is where hope goes to get soggy. The tannoy crooned a delay like a lullaby. The lights were the exact colour of hospital corridors. Saff’s hand found mine and then let go, because we needed both to be ready to grab and walk and not fall over our own nerves.
Locker 3F again. The code: 8347. The clunk like a small apology. Inside, a hard-sided white cooler with a latch and a sticker that said HANDLE WITH CARE in a font that made me think of birthday cakes. I lifted it and it bit cold into my palm. It wasn’t heavy, not like guilt. Just weighty enough to feel like a choice.
“Okay,” Saff said, which is what she says when she’s about to do something that scares her. “We take this straight to the police station. Straight. No scenic routes. No detours. No—you know—Tillying.”
“Tillying is a verb now?” My voice sounded cheerful and wrong. I kept both hands on the box because if I didn’t I was worried I’d start gesturing and throw it at the photo booth out of spite.
We took three steps and a text landed like a pebble in my shoe.
left. don’t stop. 🩸
We had done left last time and ended up under a bridge giving our souls a migraine. I looked at Saff. She looked at me. The police station was visible through the station doors—blue sign, someone smoking out front like they were in a film about despair. We could have sprinted. We didn’t. The text bubble appeared again, and I felt watched, not by a camera—even though I know there are cameras everywhere—but by an intent. Like a hand hovering an inch from your shoulder that knows exactly where you are.
We walked left. “We’re going to the police,” Saff said under her breath, like a spell. “We are, we are.”
I held the box so tight my fingers ached. Under the bridge again: the change in sound, the change in air, the sense that the town had a low ceiling. The second locker bank yawned. I didn’t open it. We turned away and walked sharper, heels clipping like we were people with somewhere to be.
The text came: clever. mum would look good in a meeting. audits are boring. hello, claire.
I stopped. Saff stopped because I did. The name landed like an elbow in a bruise. My stomach sloshed with bile that tasted faintly of panic and that dry cereal bar I’d eaten at break.
“How do they—” I began.
“Everyone knows everyone,” Saff said, mouth tight. “This is a small town and your mum’s on a ward and you’re on Instagram whether you mean to be or not.”
We cut into the side street that leads to the police station. The neon of the takeaway made the rain look oily. My phone vibrated so hard it buzzed against the box. a video. I pressed play because I am a person who looks at the thing. Me, in scrubs, hair tied back wrong, opening a fridge, lifting out a bag. The angle was CCTV-ish. The timestamp said last night. The voiceover that wasn’t a voice: On-screen text: Staff member removes blood product. Not proper ID. Auditable. Disciplinary action likely.
I wanted to throw up and then delete my hands. “It’s a deepfake,” Saff said, which is a smart person way to say “lie with glue.” “You can see the edges wibble.”
“My mum will see the wibble too?” I said, idiotily.
“She’ll see you tell her the truth first,” Saff said. “Which we’re doing. Now.”
We walked faster. A man pushing a pram gave us a wide berth, like guilt is contagious. The police station doors slid open with that unluxurious supermarket sound. The reception was beige and had leaflets about not keeping knives in your kitchen drawers like that’s where they breed.
A woman behind glass in a cardigan looked up. “Hello,” she said. “How can we help?”
“We have… a thing,” I said, eloquent. I lifted the cooler.
“A what,” she said, not unkindly.
“A—” Saff leaned in. “We think it’s medical product that shouldn’t be here. We’ve been told to move it under threat. We have messages. We have names.” She looked like a parent at a parents’ evening where she’s about to ask about homework and make the teacher scared.
The woman’s eyes widened. She did a phone call with that receptionist voice that makes disaster sound like a lost parcel. A door buzzed. A PCS—community officer—appeared: a man who looked like he should be in a fire brigade calendar but wasn’t because he’d missed the sign-up by a day and didn’t like taking his shirt off in cold rooms. He led us into a back office that smelled of carpet cleaner.
“Right,” he said, when we’d poured out the story like we were tipping a jigsaw onto a table. He wrote down “Unknown number,” underlined it twice like that would make it known. He took the box, and gloves, and looked as if he’d like to be able to say something like “good job” and couldn’t, because we had, objectively, done several wrong things.
“We’ll get CID to look at the messages,” he said. “We’ll contact the hospital. Do not reply to any more texts. Do not go anywhere you’re told to go. If you get anything else, ring 101 and quote this number.” He slid a card at us with an incident number. It smudged blue on my fingers. He was kind, in a manual-reading way.
We nodded like bobbleheads. We left. The rain had turned into needles. My hoodie absorbed it like a martyr. The box wasn’t in my hands anymore. I felt both lighter and raw, like a tooth after a filling.
At home, Mum was on the sofa pretending to watch a quiz show and actually watching the scratch at the bottom of her mug. When I told her we’d handed over the box she made a sound I’ve never heard her make, like a squeezed laugh and a sob had tried to marry and failed.
“Good,” she said, and then, “Stupid,” and then, “Oh, Tilly.” She pressed her fingers to her eyes. “I should have—” She didn’t finish.
Biscuit took this as his cue to park his skull on her knee. He radiates heat and idiocy like a radiator with legs. She stroked his ear and he blissed out.
“I need to get my PE kit,” I said later, because I’d shoved everything to the back of my brain labelled AFTER and “PE kit” had climbed out with a small note that said “tomorrow.”
“Laundry pile,” Mum said, eyes on the telly. “And don’t leave socks in your bag again. That smell could be weaponised.”
My bedroom smelled like wet teenager and damp dog. I upended my rucksack. Pens, wrappers, the sewing kit tin, a banana that had evolved into a lesson in entropy… and the small pouch I had stolen from the lido.
I had managed to forget it with the ferocity of someone who only forgets when it’s convenient. It lay on my duvet, label face-up, impersonally tidy. O pos. Unit no. Use by. The plastic sheen of something mundane and enormous. My skin prickled. I picked it up as if it would scream.
“Everything okay?” Mum called from the living room.
“Fine,” I chirped, voice wobbling like jelly. I dropped the pouch into my PE kit, the logic being: moving it toward a bag I take places would be a step toward giving it up. Which is not logic. It’s a ruse played on myself by my worst self.
Biscuit nudged the kit bag with his nose, inhaled deeply, and his eyes went holy. “No,” I said, tucking it under my bed like we live in a farce and not a real life. He tried to follow, scrabbled at the dust and a long-lost sock.
In the morning, school was doing its ritual of pretending to be civilisation. Assembly again. Mr Malik doing safeguarding again, this time with a clip art of a padlock with a smile. My PE kit had been dumped under my chair because I am chaotic. Saff said, “If you swap it with my bag one more time I’m going to sew it to you in your sleep.”
“I didn’t—” I began, reaching, except my hand closed on nylon that was not mine. Kiran was sitting in front of us, foot tapping to no rhythm, hoodie up, doing a bad card trick to himself. His bag looked exactly like mine. Of course it did. Our town only sells three types of bag and two of them give you back pain.
Mr Malik said, “And remember—” and the mic squealed, and everyone flinched. I had an impulse I can only describe as act now and justify later. I slid my bag to me, which turned out to be Saff’s, which she yanked back with a small hiss. I slid the other. Kiran turned at the movement, caught me mid-commit-crime, and grinned, because that is his default reaction to everything including death.
“May I help you?” he whispered.
“Swap,” I whispered, holding mine out. “I think that’s—mine.”
He looked at the bags, then at me, eyes curious. “Yours has a keyring,” he said.
“They all have keyrings,” I said, increasingly deranged. My hands were sweating so much the nylon squeaked.
Mr Malik said, louder, “—that we all take responsibility for our online behaviour,” and the words sounded like they were from a satirical play that had run too long.
Kiran glanced down. “Mine’s got—” He paused. His face did a thing I will replay in my head forever. A minute tightening at the mouth. The way his hand stopped its rhythm and went very still. He kept his voice light because he is good at being liked. “Is that… food?” he whispered, joking-ish. “You’ve brought soup to assembly?”
“Please just—” I whispered, because I could smell it. That metallic, wrong, not-quite smell. The pouch had probably tasted air and decided to participate. The image of it leaking through polyester, of a drop sliding into the aisle, of a hundred heads turning—my guts tried to exit my body via my knees.
“I need the loo,” I said to no one and everyone, and stood up in that awful way where the chair legs squeal and you become the protagonist of everyone’s bored eye roll. Mr Malik paused, surprised. “Miss… Carter?” he ventured. “Are you—”
“Female emergency,” I said, loud, and the Year 9s tittered, and a corridor of space opened like magic because if there’s one thing that’ll make school boys vanish, it’s mention of bodily fluids. Saff stood too, because she is a coven unto herself. “I’ll take her,” she said to Mr Malik with the authority of a person who has filled in a form.
We scuttled. My hands were jelly. Kiran, bless him, lifted the bag with two fingers like it might explode and passed it to me without looking. He was white around the mouth. “You okay?” he whispered, still doing the joke voice because he doesn’t have another.
“Absolutely,” I said. In the girls’ loos, a Year 7 washed her hands with the dedication of a surgeon and then left without meeting our eyes. I yanked the zip. The pouch was there, intact but sweating. The leak was imaginary. The smell, not. I wrapped it in the sweatshirt I should have been wearing and shoved it under my blazer like I was shoplifting a proportion of my own sins.
“Bin,” Saff said. “Now.”
“We can’t bin blood,” I said, panicky. “That’s—what if someone needs—what if—”
“We can’t carry blood around like you carry snacks,” she said. “We are going to the hospital and we are going to find a window and we are going to confess. Not to Linus. To a person with a trolley.”
We made it back to assembly as Mr Malik showed a slide of a footprint not stepping in a puddle labelled “consequences.” I thought, unhelpfully, that I was the footprint and also the puddle.
Afterwards, I had a prefect thing, because life insists on returning to schedules even when plot happens. It was at Zara’s house because of course the Head Girl hosts a thing like she is the queen of a small, orderly country. I considered skipping, and then I didn’t, because you can’t make too many absences in a world that counts them.
Her house smelled of clean and spice, her mum’s cooking threaded through with a lemon cleaning product that made my teeth squeak. On the wall, family photos in a neat grid, all soft lighting and graduated heights. Zara steered us to the dining table where there were biscuits that were either homemade or a brand that wanted to look like homemade and cost more. She did her thing: agenda, tasks, smiles like click, click, click.
I excused myself to look for the loo and wandered because my body wanted to move. The hallway had more photos. Zara in a blazer, younger, smiling like she was reading the camera. Zara with a boy, older than her, paramedic green, arm around her shoulders, both of them leaning like the world tilted anyway and they were just making do. He was handsome in that “someone’s big brother” way where you believe he can fix a car and ruin a weekend. On his lanyard, out of focus but readable if you leaned in: Callum Rahman.
My mouth went dry. It wasn’t a reveal from a TV show; it felt like the moment you realise you’ve been pronouncing a word wrong for years and no one told you. It slotted into place, clicking through my ribcage in little shocks.
“Bathroom’s other way,” Zara said gently behind me, as if I’d been caught snooping, which I had. Her face was calm. Her thumb looked a little ragged at the nail.
“Your brother,” I said, which is not an artful sentence.
She looked at the photo. “Yes,” she said. “My brother.”
“Is he—” I began, and stopped, because what did I expect her to do? Fill in my outline with her secrets?
She tilted her head. “You should be careful,” she said. “I say that to most people most days. But with you, I mean it.”
“Maybe tell him that,” I said, and saw the flicker in her jaw that meant she had and it hadn’t stuck.
When I got home, the flat felt smaller. Mum had put her hoodie on backwards by accident and was laughing at herself, hair in a small antenna at the top of her head. It made my chest ache with love and fear. Biscuit, noble idiot, had found the sweatshirt-wrapped pouch under my blazer and was lying on it like a dragon on treasure, looking very pleased and faintly disgusting.
“Give,” I said, and he did not. He rolled on his back and presented his shame.
“Biscuit,” Mum said, in the voice she uses for patients who have given up on their physio exercises, and he reluctantly slid off. I recovered the bundle, checked it, swore softly at the universe.
My phone buzzed while I was in the kitchen. Midnight. Canal. No cops. 🩸🩸
Two drops. No please. Saff texted a minute later: Don’t. We are not heroes. We are not even antiheroes. We are girls with homework. Say it with me.
I typed: We are girls with homework.
Then I typed: After this, we are done.
She sent me a skull and a heart and then, because she is smarter than both,: After this, we call someone with an actual job title.
I put the pouch back in my bag because habits are a set of grooves you fall into while calling yourself an individual. I watched Mum fall asleep on the sofa with the telly laughing at its own jokes. I watched the clock tick towards midnight. In the mirror, I looked like someone who could pass for brave if you didn’t ask too many questions. Biscuit snored like a middle-aged man. The rain started up again, politely, as if asking permission to ruin plans.
I told myself I would go to the canal and not deliver. I told myself I would be clever. I told myself so many things that I forgot to listen for the one where I should have stayed home.
Judge Response:
[Analysis]
This chapter demonstrates strong character voice and authentic British YA sensibilities, but suffers from a significant structural deviation from the planned narrative arc that undermines story tension.
The writing successfully captures Tilly's anxious, sardonic voice through natural internal monologue ("I am a person who looks at the thing") and believable dialogue exchanges with Saff. The British setting feels lived-in with specific details like the tannoy announcements and Mr. Malik's safeguarding assembly with clip art padlocks. The relationship dynamics between Tilly and Saff ring true, particularly Saff's role as the voice of reason and boundary-setter.
However, the chapter makes a critical deviation from its own plan by having the protagonists immediately turn the cooler over to police, rather than Tilly keeping one bag "for leverage" as intended. This removes the central tension and character flaw moment that was meant to drive the plot forward. The plan specifically noted this decision should be "a character flaw moment, not cleverness," but instead we get responsible teenagers making sensible choices, which deflates the dramatic stakes.
The assembly sequence with the bag mix-up works well, creating genuine tension and embarrassment. Kiran's characterization is consistent with his profile as someone who uses humor as armor. The revelation about Callum through the photo feels organic rather than contrived.
The prose occasionally reaches for effects that don't quite land. "The station at half five is where hope goes to get soggy" feels like trying too hard for a memorable opening. Some metaphors strain credibility ("like guilt is contagious"), and there are moments where the writing calls attention to itself rather than serving the story.
The dialogue is generally strong and character-specific, though some exchanges feel slightly over-written. Tilly's voice remains consistent throughout, maintaining her tendency toward deflection and nervous chatter under pressure.
The chapter maintains good pacing and builds toward the final text about the canal meeting, but the earlier resolution of the main threat reduces the impact of this cliffhanger.
[Scores]
Nuanced Characters: 16
Emotionally Engaging: 14
Compelling Plot: 12
Coherent: 15
Weak Dialogue: 6
Tell-Don't-Show: 7
Unsurprising or Uncreative: 9
Amateurish: 8
Purple Prose: 9
Forced Poetry or Metaphor: 10
Well-earned Lightness or Darkness: 15
Characters Consistent with Profile: 17
Followed Chapter Plan: 8
Faithful to Writing Prompt: 16
Chapter 6
Ok now chapter 6. Follow your plan. 1000 words.
Model Output:
We met on the bench outside the barber’s where the smell of chips lives in the wood. The bench had a plaque that said “In memory of Geoff, who loved this view,” which was generous to the view. Rain had decided to be needles again. Saff wore her battle ponytail and the coat her mum says makes her look like a detective; I wore a hoodie that had once been black and now was a concept of black.
“You’re not going,” she said, no hello. “We’re not going.”
“I’m not going,” I said, which is a sentence that contains both intention and lie. The canal in my head had a map pin on it. My feet already knew the way.
“Do you hear yourself?” She folded her arms and then unfolded them because she knows that makes her look like a mum. “You have an actual box of blood in your house. You took it to assembly. You have become a cautionary tale in my head.”
“It was a pouch,” I said, and then winced at myself.
She stared at me. “I love you and I am drawing a line. Police, parents, or I’m not there. I won’t be the friend in the Netflix documentary saying ‘she always seemed fine’ while the audience shouts ‘no she didn’t.’”
“I told Mum,” I said. “We handed in the box. There’s a number on a card. She’s being that woman at reception today. We’re doing it right. Now I just—if we ignore the texts, they escalate. If we go, we can choose the ground.”
“You think you can choose the ground with someone who can photograph your house through a window and knows your mum’s rota?” Her voice went quiet the way it does right before it goes loud. “You can’t negotiate with a story that only makes sense to the person telling it.”
A bus went past, throwing up a sheet of water; we both flinched. The sky was the colour of keyboard keys. I said, “I’m scared,” because that seemed like a sentence that might buy me a minute.
“Good,” Saff said. “You should be. Fear is useful. Fear keeps you from doing midnight canal handovers.”
I looked at the canal in my head again. It looked back like a badly lit selfie. My phone buzzed.
don’t be brave. 23:30. lock. bring it. 🩸🩸🩸
Three. I’d only had two before. Three felt like: punishment. Or escalation. Or nothing, and my brain is a pattern machine carving meaning out of nonsense because meaning is a drug and I am hooked on it.
“I’m not coming,” Saff said. “If you go, I’m not coming.”
“I’m not going,” I said again, and the way her jaw moved told me she heard the lie and decided to stop arguing with it because there is nothing as immovable as a person mid-bad idea.
“Tell me when you get home,” she said, standing. “No, don’t. Tell your mum. Or Gran. Tell an adult with keys. I’m—" She wrinkled her nose, like she could smell the future. “I’m not watching you do this and pretend it’s normal. I can’t.”
We didn’t hug. She walked away with a pace that said she had decided her own ground. I watched her go until she turned the corner and then I hated myself a little bit for watching her go and not chasing.
At home, Mum had her notebook out and a face like a weapon. “They’re taking it seriously,” she said, which in British means “they are writing things down” and not necessarily “they will stop this.” “There’ll be a car to drive past later. They said not to engage. That community officer—Dave—says keep your curtains shut.” She looked at my hands like checking for crimes. “Have you eaten?”
“Yes,” I lied. Biscuit belched the smell of a questionable treat and wagged with shame.
“I’m having a bath,” she said. “And then bed. I have an early.” The words lay on the table like two chess pieces: her turn, my turn. She kissed my hair on autopilot. “Don’t go anywhere weird. Text me if you do. Actually, text me if you don’t. Text me either way.”
“Okay,” I said, and then lied with my feet.
The canal at night is entirely made of sound. Water shushing against stone. Distant tyres hissing. A fox’s claws on brick. The lock gate loomed like a bad thought. The sign that says DO NOT SWIM had stickers on it, one of them a smiley face that made it worse. My breath did that thing where it forgets the rhythm and then overcompensates. I had the pouch inside my coat, sweatshirt-wrapped, heart-warm from my own heat and that was a sentence I never want to type again.
“Hello?” I said softly, because I am a horror film idiot. The word fell in the water.
A shape detached from the shadow. Not a horror movie wraith. A person, hood up, posture tense, hands in pockets. The shape of someone who has stood under too many bridges in the rain, waiting.
“Put it down,” the shape said. The voice was low, tired. Older than me by years and years and also, in that moment, twelve. “On the ground.”
“That’ll make it dirty,” I said, because my brain is a raccoon picking up shiny things. My hands shook. I put it down. My phone vibrated. A message: good girl, which made my skin crawl like it had ants.
Up close, the hooded person had stubble and a jaw I could imagine looking kind if it wasn’t doing this. I took in a wrist tattoo at the edge of the sleeve, a curl of ink that triggered a bell in my head I couldn’t find the rope for.
“You’ll get caught,” I said, which is both wish and curse.
He shifted his weight. “Go home,” he said, as if that was kindness. “Tell your mum to stop working nights. Tell your school to mind its business. Go home.”
“And you?” I asked, because I wanted him to have to say the part where he chooses this.
He didn’t answer. His breath made smoke in the air. He stepped forward.
It turns out I have a flight response hidden under my fight response, and under both is the response where I throw the item and run. I kicked the bundle toward the edge—not into the water, even then I couldn’t make myself do that—and bolted. I slipped on algae. My knee scraped across concrete with a sound I felt more than heard, a high, stupid sting. I heard a curse behind me, and then footsteps, and then not footsteps, which is worse. My body made a decision without me and took me home via three detours and a hedge.
In my hallway, I shut the door and leaned on it like doors care. My knee throbbed, wet and warm. Biscuit nosed it and then looked offended when I didn’t let him lick. I washed it in the sink while swearing at low volume. The scrape looked unglamorous and raw, a mouth that had said too much. I stuck a plaster on it. It peeled immediately.
I did not sleep long and what I slept was bad. In the morning, the scrape had a ring of dirt because I am not as responsible as I pretend. I showered it off and didn’t cry. Mum looked at it and said “Bike?” and I said “Yes,” because it is easier to lie when the lie is plausible and hurts nobody immediately.
I went to Gran because tea is what happens next. She answered the door in a cardigan like a pink cloud and said, “You look like someone left out in weather,” and put the kettle on without further ceremony. Her living room smelled like talc and mint humbugs and decades of Saturday afternoons.
I told her a version. I said “someone,” not Callum, not Zara. I said “man,” not boy. I said “messages,” not “they photographed our window.” I put the scrape on the coffee table like an exhibit.
She hmmed. “Maureen knows a woman whose niece is in A&E,” she said, as if that was a direct line to the Home Secretary. “There’s a chap—Callum. That’s a name you don’t hear anymore. He’s been in the papers for getting himself suspended. Poor mother. Well, not poor mother, possibly poor mother. You can quote me to no one.”
I sipped tea so strong it could have held a spoon upright. “Gran, don’t… don’t wander with this,” I said. “It’s—if it’s him, it’s messy.”
She patted my hand. “I’m merely arranging puzzle pieces on my own table. Not going door to door with a megaphone. Yet.” She tilted her head. “Are you safe?”
“I am in a living room where nothing bad can happen while The Chase is on,” I said.
“That’s a yes in teenager,” she said, satisfied. “Do you want a biscuit from the good tin or the ordinary tin?”
“Good,” I said, and she raised her eyebrows in approval like I’d passed a test.
At home later, I sat with my homework book open and wrote in the margin: 🩸= urgent? 🩸🩸 = vans? 🩸🩸🩸 = punishment? It looked ridiculous in biro. It looked like someone explaining a joke badly to themselves. But the pattern calmed me, the way lining pens up calms me, the way watching a video of someone folding towels can trick your brain into thinking your life has edges.
Saff didn’t text until nine. The bubble appeared and disappeared twice like she was typing to me and then to herself. Finally: I was harsh. I’m scared. I’ll help. But if you go again, we tell an adult. Non-negotiable. I love you but not enough to attend your memorial.
I breathed out a laugh with water still in it. I typed: Agreed. No more canals. We will lure instead of follow. We will bait instead of be bait. We will use props.
She sent: I hate that I am excited by the word props.
We spent half an hour batting plans back and forth with the energy of people who refuse to believe they have limits: decoys, cameras, rope. “We do not confront,” Saff typed, like she was making a commandment with her gel pen. “We capture and call.”
I put my phone down and stared at the ceiling. The plaster crack looks like the line on a map between countries that don’t like each other. I flicked my light off and immediately the room felt full of pixels. My phone clicked again.
come alone next time. don’t bring your friend. tell your mum to stop asking questions. 🩸
I nearly chucked it across the room. Instead, I turned it facedown and watched it breathe. Biscuit lifted his head and put it on my ankle like a stone. The scrape on my knee pulsed in time with my heart, each throb an idiot metronome.
In English the next day, I found I couldn’t read. The words were soup. Ms Lowe said something about imagery and I thought, here’s an image: my life, a woman pushing a trolley down a corridor that doesn’t end, clicking her pen against a clipboard that doesn’t fill. I thought about Mum, who thinks bravery is doing the job you got and keeping your head down and arguing with the nurses’ WhatsApp about rota swaps.
At lunch, Zara was on duty by the hall doors with a clipboard because of course she was. Her thumbnail was raw at the edge. “You look terrible,” she said, which from her is concern.
“Thanks,” I said. “You’ve got something—” I mimed at my own nail. She hid her hand.
“I know,” she said. “I’m trying to stop.” She looked at me, then at the corridor behind me, then back. “I shouldn’t say this,” she murmured. “People think they can make it small. They can’t. He can’t.”
“Then say it,” I said. “Say ‘Callum’ like it’s a word and not a bomb. Say ‘Callum is making a choice.’”
She exhaled. “Callum is making a choice,” she said, very quietly. Her face didn’t change. “And I am making mine.”
“Which is?”
She swallowed. “I am telling him to stop. I am telling you to stop. I am telling myself that I should have told someone sooner.” She smiled like that hurt. “I am not asking for your forgiveness because I don’t deserve it and because it doesn’t help.”
“That’s not your brand,” I said, surprised at the acid in my voice. “Not asking.”
Her eyes shuttered for a second, then opened. “I don’t have a brand,” she said. “I have a brother.”
We stood in the kind of silence that makes you hear things you didn’t know were in you. A Year 8 ran past and nearly dislodged our souls. Zara tightened her grip on her clipboard, then loosened it. “Be careful,” she said again, which is a thing she says when she’s already decided she will not be.
That evening, Mum was late. I sat at the table and wrote a list that went: rope, stage blood, someone with a camera. I added: gran. I added: Linus? and then crossed him out because of font crimes. I added: no heroics, like it was a spell.
At nine, Saff texted: Tomorrow. Drama cupboard. I’ve got fake blood that stains permanently. Wear black. Not for the vibe. For the laundry.
At ten, Gran texted: Maureen says the nice custard cream boy has a tattoo on his wrist. A wave. Or a feather. Or a fish. She needs new glasses. Don’t tell your mother I said.
At eleven, the unknown number arrived in my screen like a migraine. lock. tomorrow. 23:00. bring it. 🩸🩸
I typed, hands steady for once: 👍
Then, because I have learned at least one thing: I sent a screenshot to Saff and to Gran. I opened my window a crack because the room felt too full of my breath. I pressed my palm to the scrape on my knee and felt it answer, small and sore and mine. I listened to the stair that creaks. It didn’t. Outside, someone laughed. The world refused to rearrange into a shape that made sense. Good. It meant it was still the world.
Judge Response:
[Analysis]
This chapter effectively captures the escalating tension and character dynamics established in the plan, maintaining strong adherence to both the writing prompt's darkly comic British YA tone and the specific chapter objectives. The writing demonstrates sophisticated character work, particularly in the nuanced portrayal of Tilly's internal conflict between wanting control and being genuinely terrified.
The dialogue stands as a particular strength - conversations feel authentic to teenage relationships under stress. Saff's boundary-setting ("I won't be the friend in the Netflix documentary saying 'she always seemed fine'") and Zara's confession scene demonstrate excellent character voice differentiation. The author avoids the trap of making teens sound like adults or overly precocious.
The physical details serve the narrative well - the scrape on Tilly's knee becomes both plot consequence and emotional metaphor without being heavy-handed. The canal scene effectively builds tension through sensory details and Tilly's hypervigilant observations. The encounter with the hooded figure (Callum) feels appropriately unsettling while maintaining the human scale established in the plan.
However, some metaphorical flourishes occasionally feel forced or overly clever. Phrases like "my brain is a raccoon picking up shiny things" and "doors care" push toward purple prose territory. The narrative voice sometimes strains for wit in moments that might benefit from simplicity, though this generally aligns with Tilly's character as someone who uses humor defensively.
The emoji pattern-making scene effectively shows Tilly's need for control and logical frameworks, staying true to her character profile as someone who "overfits any situation into a system." The family dynamics with Mum and Gran feel authentic, particularly Gran's gossip network and Mum's exhausted concern.
The chapter successfully advances multiple plot threads while maintaining character consistency. The escalation feels organic rather than manufactured, and the consequences of Tilly's choices carry appropriate weight. The balance between dark elements and humor remains well-calibrated throughout.
[Scores]
Nuanced Characters: 17
Emotionally Engaging: 16
Compelling Plot: 16
Coherent: 18
Weak Dialogue: 3
Tell-Don't-Show: 4
Unsurprising or Uncreative: 5
Amateurish: 4
Purple Prose: 6
Forced Poetry or Metaphor: 7
Well-earned Lightness or Darkness: 16
Characters Consistent with Profile: 18
Followed Chapter Plan: 17
Faithful to Writing Prompt: 17
Chapter 7
Ok now chapter 7. Follow your plan. 1000 words.
Model Output:
The drama cupboard lives at the back of the hall and smells like dust, talc, and ambition. Saff had sweet-talked Mr Patel into giving us the key “for inventory,” which is the sort of lie that sounds like a spreadsheet and therefore passes unexamined.
“Props,” she said, hauling the door open. “Rope. Fake blood. And a plan that does not rely on divine intervention or Biscuit not being Biscuit.”
Biscuit was at home because my mum had finally understood the word boundaries and applied it to canines. Gran, however, was in on logistics and had texted half an hour ago: I have a high-vis from your grandfather’s allotment days. Don’t ask.
We took stock. The fake blood was in three bottles with skull-and-crossbones stickers that were meant to be cheeky and weren’t. The rope was more a truth-indifferent sash from a production of Treasure Island, but Saff tested it with the kind of eye you learn from watching YouTube videos of knots at 1.25 speed.
“We’re not doing heroics,” she said for the fourth time. “We’re making a thing that looks like a thing to draw a person to a place where there are involuntary cameras and a nan in a high-vis who knows people.”
“And Biscuit is at home,” I said, conjuring him anyway. A mental image of him dragging a prop across the hall leaving red kisses on the floor made me swallow.
We decanted the stage blood into small IV-style bags fashioned from cling film and tape, which is a sentence that would get us expelled if we ever had to explain it. “You are objectively terrifying,” Linus said from the doorway, hovering like a well-meaning bat. We’d looped him in at the last minute because he has the cautious energy of a lookout.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Saff said, but without heat. “You make laws appear.”
“I brought flapjacks,” he said, holding up a Tupperware. “And my phone has three percent battery because I live in the moment.” He came in, shut the door behind him, and winced at the fake blood smell. “God. That’s… does it need to smell like copper and regret?”
“It’s vegan,” I said. He looked stricken.
We worked. We kept our voices low in the instinctive way you do when you’re doing something that you can explain but don’t want to. The plan: one decoy drop in sight of the council CCTV by the canal lock, phones set as cameras in a crate to get angles the CCTV misses, Gran at the towpath with her borrowed high-vis “checking on litter,” and a call to the non-emergency number timed for five minutes after the drop. We’d bring one genuine bag—the one I shouldn’t have had, the shame-singed O pos—to bait a close look and then not hand it over.
“We should tell the police now,” Linus said, because someone has to say it every ten minutes.
“We did,” Saff said, tying a knot. “We are. We’re also setting the table so when they arrive, the dinner is plated. Mixed metaphor but you get me.”
“It’s more like we’ve chopped the onions and now we’re crying,” I said, wiping red off my knuckles. It looked too right. I flexed my hand. “If you’d told me in Year 8 I’d be making fake blood drip bags in the drama cupboard, I would have asked what went wrong with my brand.”
“Your brand is crisis admin,” Saff said. “Own it.”
We ran a rehearsal in the hall. Saff played “me,” which smarted, because she was very good at my anxieties. I played “a person who does not run toward danger,” which was hilarious. Linus kept time, which meant he said “now?” a lot.
Halfway through, Biscuit appeared.
I know. The universe heard us invoke him and decided to test our faith. Gran had popped in via the back door—“I brought the high-vis to show you it fits”—and he’d slid out under her arm like a badly behaved scarf. He galloped into the hall, saw a red-filled bag like a toy, and grabbed it. Then he shook his head with gusto, because that’s how he kills foxes in his mind, and the stage blood sprayed in a fan that would have made any horror director applaud.
“Biscuit!” I shouted, lunging. He dodged, delighted by the game, and skittered across the polished floor, leaving red paws. The caretaker opened the door, took one look, closed it again, and made a sound like “nope” as he backed away.
“Okay,” Saff said, inhaling through her nose like a yoga teacher whose class has been invaded by raccoons. She crouched, offered Biscuit a real toy from her bag (a squeaky carrot because of course), and traded. He dropped the bag with a wet slap and took the carrot, parading with it like a triumphant idiot. I got a roll of blue paper and we mopped.
Gran, to her credit, didn’t say “I told you so.” She did say, “Good spread, that,” about the blood spatter, admiringly, which unsettled me.
We wiped, we reset, we laughed in that slightly-hysterical way people laugh when the stakes have gone high enough you can hear the hum. Saff held up a hand. “We do not let Biscuit come. This is a Biscuit-free zone.”
“Agreed,” I said, eyeing him. He flopped down, sighed, and, finding himself the subject of too much attention, fell asleep instantly.
By dusk, everything had the colour of damp slate. We walked to the canal in a little file: me, Saff, Linus with his tote and his flapjacks and his apology aura; Gran half a street back with her high-vis and a travel mug of tea. I could feel my phone against my leg like a hot stone. The scrape on my knee pulled when I stepped, a useful ache reminding me the world had teeth.
We set the scene. The crate went by the lock, camouflaged as litter in a town that doesn’t have enough bins. My phone, Saff’s old phone, Linus’s actual camera (which we realised was completely unnecessary and would only incriminate us as “kids with cameras” but felt good in the hand) were all aimed at the approach. The council CCTV sat on its pole like a suspicious bird.
“If this goes wrong,” Saff said, not looking at me, “we throw the decoy in the water and we run toward a door. Any door. We are not heroes. We are not even narratively interesting. We are fast.”
“Gran is our door,” I said. Gran waved from her position as if she could hear.
The text came at 22:53: here. real. now. 🩸
No punctuation except the wrong sort. No please. My mouth went dry. We’d decided I would answer because I’d been the one to be texted and cruelty likes continuity. I typed: Coming. Then, because I am a goblin of my own making, added: 🩸🩸 in return.
“That’s antagonistic,” Saff said.
“I know,” I said. “I contain multitudes.” In truth, it was a childish taunt to make the person on the other end feel the prickle of their own motif. It would either make them sloppy or make them furious. Neither is great.
A shadow detached from shadows. He moved like someone who had once moved quickly for good reasons and now moved quickly for bad ones. Hood up, shoulders high. The wrist tattoo flashed when he lifted a hand: a wavy line. Or a feather. Or a fish. Gran had been right about needing new glasses because so did I.
“Put it down,” he said, the same line, like a script he could deliver in his sleep. He was close enough now that if I leaned, I could have seen his face. I didn’t lean. Saff’s fingers were an anchor in the small of my back without touching me.
I placed the decoy bag on the crate. It looked obscene in the half-light, too bright, an art department’s idea of urgency. He picked it up, weighed it, and I watched the moment the texture problem occurred to him. Up close, fake blood smells wrong. It doesn’t have the iron tang of the real. It smells like syrup and dyes. His mouth tightened.
“Real,” he said. The word fell like a stone.
I lifted the clear box with the genuine bag inside, held it in a way that said “this is fragile” and also “this is mine to decide about.” “We’re giving this to the police,” I said, because sometimes it’s worth saying the thing out loud even if you don’t expect it to change a mind.
“Don’t,” he said, and his voice did something human. “Don’t do that.”
“If you don’t want me to, maybe don’t threaten my mum,” I said, and even as I spoke I could hear how young I sounded. It wasn’t a line from a thriller. It was a girl telling a man to stop making her life smaller.
He made a motion forward. Saff shifted. There was the soft click-whirr of Linus’s camera being actually no use, but comforting. The CCTV blinked implacably. Gran coughed, loudly, the kind of theatrical cough a person does from a high-vis to make themselves known without entering the scene. It pinged like sonar.
He glanced up, saw Gran, saw the lights, recalculated. He reached anyway. He had the look of someone who has run out of decent choices and is now choosing from the bin.
“Now,” Saff whispered. It wasn’t a direction, it was mutual consent. I moved, not back, but sideways, which is not noble but puts distance between hands. He grabbed the decoy, swore softly when the corner split and syrup ran over his knuckles. He looked at his hand like it had betrayed him.
“Your sister asked me to be careful,” I said, which is the sort of sentence that is a weapon if you want it to be. It hit. His face flickered like bad reception. He froze just a fraction too long.
“Police,” Saff mouthed, and her thumb was already over 999. “Not 101. We’re done being polite.”
He lunged. I stepped back. The edge of the lock is a liar—it looks further than it is. My heel slipped on algae and horror flick slapstick threatened to become real. In the time it takes to think “this is a stupid way to die,” Saff’s arm was around my waist, hauling me toward a bollard where she’d looped the pantomime rope. She braced and held, almost lost her footing, and held anyway. The fake blood bag burst properly, slicking the stone into a live thing.
“Don’t be heroes,” Gran called, which is a thing no one has ever shouted at a climax. “I can see you. I can see you not being heroes.”
“Give it,” he said, and the pleading made it worse. He was close enough now that I could see the stubble that would have been charming in daylight and is a threat at night. I could smell mint over rain, like he chewed mints the way people chew up their nerves.
“No,” I said. “This doesn’t belong to you.” I winced at myself because it sounded like a Year 2 corridor lesson. It was also true.
For a second, we were three idiots around a box. Then lights bloomed at the mouth of the towpath. Not blue-blue—yellow first. A cyclist swung round, saw us, and nearly obliterated Saff with an apology. And then, from the street, the warmer wash of headlights became the colder blink of police. Gran’s “noise complaint” had become a call in. She stood, small and fluorescent, with her phone to her ear, narrating to Maureen like a royal correspondent.
He looked at the lights and made the choice panic makes: he grabbed and ran. Not the real bag—the decoy I’d left to mislead. He clutched it to his chest and sprinted, slipping and catching himself, leaving a story behind him in sticky red stamps.
“Don’t chase,” Saff said with a voice even I obeyed. We didn’t. We stood and breathed and didn’t die. I put the real box back in my arms like a child. My knee ached approval and protest.
Linus made a sound that was half sob, half laugh. “I filmed nothing,” he announced. “I became a tree. I am sorry.”
“You were a very useful tree,” I said, shaking. In the wash of police lights, he looked pale and tall and superimposed.
Two officers came down the towpath at a brisk walk that might be called a jog if you were generous. They took in the scene: three teenagers, one nan, a crate, a spill, a box. Their faces did a thing like “oh good” and “oh God” at the same time.
“Evening,” the taller one said, which is what you say when you are British and the scene is mad. “Can we… talk?”
We talked. We showed the box. We pointed at the CCTV. We said the word Callum once and didn’t have to say it again because one of the officers’ eyes flicked and I could see the other name in his head: Rahman. He radioed something with the calm that people practise when adrenaline is making their teeth hum.
Gran said, “They were very sensible,” in a voice that dared the universe to contradict her.
“Where is your mum?” the shorter officer asked me, which is the right question and the one I hadn’t prepared to answer. My mouth opened, closed. Before I could find words, my phone chimed. Mum: Where are you? I can’t find my slippers. Also, where are you? x
“I need to call her,” I said, and the officer nodded like that was also policy.
In the flurry, Zara appeared. Of course she did. She stepped out of the dark like a person who had been hovering just offstage. She looked like she’d run, or like she’d started to and then wished she hadn’t but did anyway. “Callum?” she said to the officers, not to me, because she’s not as stupid as me. Her voice had that hollow space around it you get when you’ve slept and not slept in the same hour.
They didn’t answer, because they don’t, because it’s an investigation and there are words you don’t say until you’re wearing a tie in a bright room. But their faces said enough.
“I tried to keep it small,” she said, into the air, to no one. She looked at me. “I’m sorry.” It wasn’t a bid for forgiveness. It was a receipt.
“Okay,” I said, and found I meant the sound, at least. Then I heard it: a siren somewhere not near, the sound of a net closing on nothing and everything.
The officers took statements while my adrenaline wrote its own essay. Saff corrected my timeline like a benevolent editor. Gran offered everyone a mint, including the officers. Linus stood with his arms around himself like a tall, worried coat rack.
The taller officer looked at the red ribbons on the ground and said, sort of to himself, “Stage blood?” like he was ticking a box marked “ridiculous.” I nodded.
“It stains,” Saff said, practical. “Wear shoes you hate.”
It began to rain again in that mean, needle way. “Right,” the officer said, brisk. “We may ask you to come to the station tomorrow for more formal statements.” His eyes caught the box in my hands. “We’ll take that now.”
“Please,” I said, and meant “take responsibility, take the narrative, take the part where my mum stays employed.” He did.
As they walked away, blue bleeding into night, my phone buzzed. Unknown number: you think this is a game. you think you’re clever. you don’t know anything. 🩸
My thumb hovered. I typed and deleted, because I am not always the goblin I think I am. Saff took my phone and put it in her pocket. “No more,” she said, and this time I let the line be drawn around me instead of through me.
We walked home with Gran flanking us like a fluorescent bodyguard. Linus peeled off, promising moral support and flapjacks. Zara stood by the lock for a minute longer, alone, and then disappeared, and I did not follow because I am learning.
At my door, Mum met us in socks, hair up, eyes huge, face set. She took in the high-vis, the blood that wasn’t, the scrape on my knee, the shiver in my hands, and she didn’t start with “I’m disappointed.” She started with “I was scared,” which is worse and better. She hugged me until my ribs remembered they were made for holding.
“I’m sorry,” I said into her shoulder. The words were cold and then warm. “I—”
“We’ll talk in the morning when my mouth can be kind,” she said into my hair, and I laughed through a hiccup because that was the most Mum sentence in the world.
Biscuit, banned and knowing it, wagged from the doorway and then sneaked in and put his head against my shin in the universal dog apology. I scratched his ears. He smelled like carrot and shame. My phone pinged once in Saff’s pocket and she didn’t take it out.
“We’re not done,” she said quietly. “Tomorrow, we finish it.”
“Tomorrow,” I echoed, not because I believed stories finish, but because you have to put a pin in the map somewhere if you’re ever going to go home.
Judge Response:
[Analysis]
This chapter demonstrates strong execution of the darkly comic British YA genre, successfully balancing tension with genuine humor. The narrative maintains Tilly's distinctive voice throughout—sardonic but vulnerable, with observational wit that feels authentic rather than forced. The British setting comes through naturally in dialogue ("Evening," said by police officers when confronting chaos) and cultural references without feeling overdone.
The chapter follows its planned structure well, delivering the promised drama cupboard scene, Biscuit's disruptive antics, and the tense canal confrontation. The staging feels realistic rather than contrived—the fake blood preparation, the improvised surveillance setup, and the complications that arise all feel organically connected to the characters' capabilities and limitations.
Character work is particularly strong. Tilly's internal monologue maintains consistency with her established profile—anxious, analytical, prone to overthinking but ultimately brave. Saff's role as the grounded voice of reason comes through clearly in her boundary-setting ("We are not heroes"). The supporting characters, from Linus's earnest nervousness to Gran's matter-of-fact competence, feel distinct and purposeful.
The dialogue succeeds in sounding natural while advancing both plot and character development. Conversations flow believably, with characters interrupting, deflecting, and speaking in the slightly awkward way real teenagers do under stress. The text message threats feel genuinely menacing without becoming cartoonish.
The writing generally avoids purple prose, though there are occasional flourishes that work within Tilly's voice ("goblin of my own making"). The tension builds effectively through physical details—the scrape on Tilly's knee, the smell of stage blood, the slick algae on the lock edge—that ground the scene in sensory reality.
Some minor weaknesses include a few slightly awkward constructions ("He made a motion forward") and occasional moments where the metaphors stretch thin. The pacing occasionally rushes through emotional beats that could have been given more space to breathe. However, these are relatively minor issues in an otherwise well-executed chapter that successfully maintains the story's tone and advances both plot and character development.
[Scores]
Nuanced Characters: 17
Emotionally Engaging: 16
Compelling Plot: 16
Coherent: 18
Weak Dialogue: 3
Tell-Don't-Show: 4
Unsurprising or Uncreative: 5
Amateurish: 4
Purple Prose: 5
Forced Poetry or Metaphor: 6
Well-earned Lightness or Darkness: 17
Characters Consistent with Profile: 18
Followed Chapter Plan: 17
Faithful to Writing Prompt: 18
Chapter 8
Ok now finish the story with chapter 8. Follow your plan. 1000 words.
Model Output:
Storm rain is petulant rain. It slaps rather than falls, gets in your eyelashes and tastes like old pennies. The towpath shone like a tongue. The lock gates were black slices against the canal’s dull glow. If the town had a heartbeat, it was hiding.
Saff and I stood under the half-shelter of a lopsided willow, hoods up, hair damp, breaths white. She checked the rope looped around the bollard like a prop in a school play that had learned something. I checked the clear box with the single real bag inside—sealed, labelled, at once ordinary and obscene. My scraped knee ached a steady ache. It felt honest.
Gran sat ten metres up the path in a mobility scooter she’d “borrowed” from her neighbour “for fun,” high-vis over a wool cardi, thermos in the cup holder. She looked like a tiny, cheerful traffic cone.
“Remember the no-heroics clause,” she called, conversational in the rain. “My insurance doesn’t cover swashbuckling.”
“I didn’t know you had a scooter licence,” I said, because my brain insists on making conversation when it’s frightened.
“I don’t,” she said, and revved it gently like she was on a parade float. “I have gumption.”
I texted Mum our location and “I’m with Gran” and “I love you, don’t come,” knowing full well the last bit was a dare to fate. She replied with a single heart and then, maddeningly, a GIF of a cat in a raincoat because it turns out nobody texts like an adult when they’re scared.
Zara arrived like a grayscale ghost, soaked but composed. She had a coat with a proper hood and gloves that looked warm and I resented both while being glad. She stood next to me and didn’t say hello. “He’s coming,” she said, not guessing, knowing. “He thinks he can fix it.”
“Can he?” I asked. My voice sounded like it had been sanded down.
“No,” she said. She looked at the box and did not flinch. “Thank you for not throwing that in the canal.”
“I considered it,” I said. “And then I thought of Ms Byrne and fainted in my soul.”
“Fascinating,” she said, and the corner of her mouth twitched, which is the nearest she comes to laughing in this weather.
Saff tapped my wrist. “Phones on silent,” she said. “We’re not performing. We’re surviving.”
The text came at 22:59: here. 🩸
No boasts. No threats. Just the stupid red drop like a stamp. The shape separated from rain and moved toward us, hood up. When he lifted his face enough for a streetlamp to catch it, I saw he was just a man who hadn’t slept properly in weeks. Callum. The jaw from the photo. The tired mouth. The wrist tattoo—a wave, a heartbeat, a fish—ink blurred a little by time and rain.
“Zee,” he said, and the childhood in the nickname nearly broke something in me. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“You shouldn’t be doing this,” she said. Her voice wobbled once, then steadied. “You should have stopped.”
He glanced at the box. “You brought it,” he said to me, like a teacher marking a register.
“I brought it,” I said, and the box suddenly weighed the same as a decision. “I’m giving it to the police.”
He flinched, a tiny motion. “They waste,” he said, the line he’s been practising. “You don’t understand nights. You don’t know how many bags go out of date because some clipboard forgot to tick. People bleed. Then they bin it.”
“I know nights,” I said. My voice came out wrong and good. “I know my mum comes home and tries to smell like Fruit Pastilles instead. I know her hands. I know she’s held this exact bag while someone stayed.” I swallowed. “It’s not yours.”
Rain ran off the hood of his jacket in beads. He shifted his weight like a person deciding between lies. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” he said, which is the kind of sentence that only gets said when someone already has.
“You hurt me,” Zara said. Not a cry, a fact. “You made me small.”
He looked genuinely wounded by that, which would have been funny in a different story. “I was protecting you,” he said.
“By making me complicit?” she said, so cleanly it could have cut rope.
He looked past us, scanned the gloom. He didn’t see Gran on her scooter because she blends into British infrastructure like a misfiled form. He did see the council CCTV, its unblinking bird eye. His mouth tightened.
“Put it down,” he said, not quite to me, not quite to himself.
“No,” I said, and my knee chose that moment to give a twinge like a drum fill. He reached. Saff moved in the space between us and the lock, not to fight, to anchor. The rope was more symbolic than practical, but she wrapped it around her wrist like intention can be tensile. Gran coughed theatrically, which has no tactical value and yet made me feel less alone.
The towpath’s slime is a personality more than a surface. All at once, we were slapstick: Callum lunged and skidded, I stepped back and wobbled, Saff planted and held, Zara’s shoulder bumped mine. The box slid on the slick stone and I clutched and nearly lost and clutched again. It would have been funny if not for the bag inside and the water at my back and the way the rain stitched lines down my cheeks.
From the car park above, footsteps slapped. I didn’t dare look but I knew the cadence. Mum’s. The language of your own is that specific: how they climb stairs, how they walk angry, how they call your name. “Tilly!” she said, and her voice made the lock seem smaller.
“Don’t,” I said to nobody and everyone, and then Biscuit slid into the scene like an eel in fur.
Gran had brought him “for morale”—her words—and his lead had been looped around the arm of the scooter. A thunderclap had made him channel his inner Victorian fainting lady; he pulled, wriggled free, and here he was: ears up, eyes bright, paws already red from earlier misadventures, making everything a dog game. He barrelled into Zara’s shins; she pinwheeled; I dropped the box and then caught it again on a breath that I will be paying off emotionally for years.
“Biscuit!” three women shouted in harmony like a Greek chorus, which achieved nothing except startling a pigeon.
Callum made a choice then—the kind people tell themselves is the least bad. He went for me, hands out, aiming not at my face but at the box, which I both hated him for and understood. Saff stepped into his path, not big, not dramatic, just there. He stopped short to avoid knocking her into the lock because despite everything he is not a monster in a movie, he is a man with a line he doesn’t want to cross. In that stall, Gran, absolute legend, activated the scooter and nudged it between him and us like a tiny tank.
“Now!” Saff hissed, and I didn’t need translating. I took two steps back onto safer ground. Zara, with a noise that sounded like breaking and mending at once, reached for her brother’s sleeve and gripped. He looked at her hand and then at her face. It did more to him than sirens would have.
Mum arrived, soaked, hair escaping, eyes doing the furious-scan that mothers’ eyes do when counting injuries. She didn’t say I told you so. She put herself at my side and her hand on the box, like she could transfer steadiness through plastic.
Blue lights washed the brick. They weren’t dramatic—they were just work. The officers from last night, plus one more, came down at a practical clip. Callum registered it and sagged, the thing he’d been bracing finally arriving. He didn’t bolt this time. He looked at the bag in the box and then at Zara and then at me. “I was going to stop,” he said, a line that belongs in bins.
“Good,” Gran said from her scooter, breathless and ferocious. “Start now.”
It wasn’t a movie arrest. It was statements taken in the rain and a “mind the step” and “do you have anything sharp on you” said quietly. It was a glance at the CCTV, a nod at the box, a request for full names. It was Mum giving our address with her voice steady in that way she practises for bad nights on the ward.
Zara stood with her arms folded around herself like her own coat. No sobbing. Just a slow leak of something I didn’t have a word for. “I’m sorry,” she said again, to me and Saff and the canal and to herself ten times over. “I thought if I steered, it would hurt less.”
“It hurt different,” Saff said. She didn’t say I forgive you. She didn’t say I don’t. I was grateful for the blank space.
The taller officer came back to us with that careful face. “We’ll need to take statements,” he said. “Not right now, unless you’re keen.” He looked at me and at the bag and at Mum. “Good job handing this in. Bad job putting yourselves at risk.”
“Noted,” I said, because what is there else to say. My teeth chattered. I wasn’t cold. My body had decided shaking was the order of the night.
We went home. The flat welcomed us with damp-sock heat. Mum put the kettle on because there is nothing the British state can throw at a family that boiling water cannot at least address. Biscuit shook in the hallway, spattering droplets in arcs. Gran rang Maureen to tell her she’d been “adjacent to events,” and then made a face as she realised that might mean she’d be excluded from the best gossip for a while.
Mum looked at my knee and clucked and said, “We’re buying you real plasters,” like that would fix the NHS. She sat me down, and then, because she is who she is, put her hand to my face and said, “I’m not angry,” and then, “I was so scared,” and finally, “I am disappointed—deeply,” like reciting a liturgy; then she laughed at herself and cried and we were all a mess.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and the word didn’t feel big enough. “I thought—” I didn’t finish, because finishing would mean giving the thought more dignity than it deserved.
“You don’t have to be useful all the time,” she said, thumb at my cheekbone. “You’re fifteen. Your use is to be alive and occasionally put socks in the wash.”
Gran sniffed. “And bring your nan a flapjack. Linus’s were very good,” she said, chewing. “A bit cumin-forward, but it works.”
School pretended nothing had happened, which is the institution’s default. There was a form-time note about “community incidents” and a reminder not to go to canals at night, as if it were a hobby like macramé. Mr Malik handed out a leaflet with a lock on the front and the words “STAY SAFE ONLINE” and avoided my eye.
Zara wore her badge and her posture like armour. She didn’t look at me for three days. On the fourth, she did, and nodded, and that was all. People were kind in that weird British way where they don’t mention the thing and instead offer you crisps. Kiran said “nice dramatic exit in assembly, by the way” and then blushed and asked if I was okay and tried not to faint when I said yes and showed him my knee. Linus slipped a Tupperware into my locker with a note: We’re still not a cult. Proud of you-ish. x
The police came and wrote things down and thanked us in that careful way. There were consequences, because stories are not tidy: I got two detentions for “leaving assembly without permission” and “wasting a teacher’s time,” which made me laugh, then made me cry, then made me make a sandwich. Mum grounded me and then ungrounded me because groundings don’t work when your child is clearly capable of turning grounding into a plan. She and Gran fell out for three days over the scooter and then made up without saying so; I saw a packet of mint humbugs exchange hands and that was the treaty.
I flinched at my phone for a while. Late pings made my heart launch. I took to putting it face down and walking away like it was a pan I couldn’t touch without oven gloves. I answered Dad’s message about a seagull with “Looks like Mr Dobson from bed four” and a heart and then left the chat without more because that was all I had.
Saff and I didn’t joke for a week and then we did, and it came out wrong, and then right, and then we were okay, which is different to fine. We wrote “no heroics” on a post-it and stuck it in my rucksack. We added “call an adult with keys” because slogans help.
At school I did a little talk during Safer Internet Week because Mr Malik asked nicely and because if you survive something it turns out you’re a resource. I stood at the front of the hall with the mould clown on the ceiling and said, “If you get a message at midnight with three blood drops, it’s probably not a secret admirer. Tell someone with badge energy. Don’t do a Tilly. That is now a verb.” People laughed in that relieved way. It felt good and mortifying and strangely useful. I did not mention stage blood. I did not mention ropes.
Weeks later, when the rain had become merely persistent instead of aggressive, when the canal smelled less like night and more like damp bicycles, when Mum’s face had smoothed out a bit in sleep, when Zara’s thumbnail had healed and she’d started to eat lunch with people again but not all the time, when Biscuit had moved on to fixating on a squeaky pineapple, my phone pinged at 00:07.
Unknown number: 🩸
Just one. No text. No pin. No stupid little command. The blue glow washed my ceiling. I lay there and remembered the radiator ticking and the way fear tastes. I waited for the bubbles. They didn’t come. I typed, slowly: Who is this?
No reply. The house breathed. The stair did not creak. Somewhere, a late taxi door thumped. I put the phone face down and let the afterimage of the red drop float behind my eyelids. It felt less like a cliffhanger than like weather: always a chance of rain.
In the morning, Dad sent me a photo of a heart-shaped traffic cone and “thought of u,” which was exactly his brand—sweet, wrong, late. I sent back a blood-drop emoji and a heart. He replied, “is that like a pirate thing,” and for once I laughed without the laugh catching.
I went downstairs. Mum was in her dressing gown with wet hair and a teaspoon between her teeth. She said, around it, “Tea?” and I said, “Always,” and the kettle clicked. The world didn’t finish. It rearranged a bit, like furniture, and then it kept going. We kept going in it. We kept our phones on silent at night for a while. We bought plasters that stick. We didn’t go near the canal after dark. We told each other things sooner, not always, but sometimes. We were not heroes. We were alive. Which is better.
Judge Response:
[Analysis]
This chapter effectively delivers the climactic confrontation while maintaining the story's distinctively British voice and darkly comic tone. The writing successfully balances genuine stakes with moments of absurdist humor, particularly through Biscuit's chaotic entrance and Gran's mobility scooter intervention.
The characterization remains strong throughout. Callum emerges as a believably flawed antagonist rather than a cartoon villain—tired, rationalized, genuinely caring about Zara but ultimately selfish. His dialogue feels authentic: "I was going to stop" captures the pathetic quality of his self-deception without making him unsympathetic. Tilly's voice stays consistent with her established personality: anxious, prone to bad jokes under stress ("I considered it. And then I thought of Ms Byrne and fainted in my soul"), and observant in ways that reveal character.
The action sequence works well because it eschews Hollywood heroics for realistic fumbling. The slippery towpath, everyone nearly falling, Biscuit creating slapstick chaos—these details ground the confrontation in physical reality while maintaining the story's tonal balance. The arrest feels appropriately mundane rather than dramatic.
The aftermath demonstrates mature storytelling. Rather than tying everything up neatly, the chapter shows realistic consequences: detentions for "leaving assembly," ongoing trauma responses, complicated family dynamics. The final scene with the mysterious blood drop emoji is particularly well-handled—ambiguous enough to feel unsettling without requiring resolution.
However, some metaphors feel slightly forced ("the rain stitched lines down my cheeks"), and occasionally the prose tips toward overwriting ("making everything a dog game" feels unnecessarily cute). The "Greek chorus" comparison doesn't quite land. Some transitions feel abrupt, particularly moving from the confrontation to the domestic aftermath.
The dialogue generally succeeds in capturing distinct voices and British speech patterns, though Gran's "I have gumption" line feels slightly performative. The emotional beats work well, particularly Mum's layered response ("I'm not angry... I was so scared... I am disappointed") which captures parental complexity.
[Scores]
Nuanced Characters: 17
Emotionally Engaging: 16
Compelling Plot: 15
Coherent: 16
Weak Dialogue: 4
Tell-Don't-Show: 4
Unsurprising or Uncreative: 5
Amateurish: 3
Purple Prose: 6
Forced Poetry or Metaphor: 7
Well-earned Lightness or Darkness: 17
Characters Consistent with Profile: 18
Followed Chapter Plan: 17
Faithful to Writing Prompt: 18
Final Piece Evaluation
Judge Response (First Entry):
[Analysis]
This is an ambitious multi-chapter YA story that successfully captures a distinctly British voice and sensibility. The narrative follows Tilly, a 15-year-old who receives mysterious texts with blood drop emojis that eventually lead her into a complex situation involving stolen medical supplies, blackmail, and family loyalties.
The story's greatest strength lies in its authentic character voices and relationships. Tilly's narrative voice feels genuinely teenage—observant, sometimes self-deprecating, with that particular British wit that finds humor in uncomfortable situations. The family dynamics are particularly well-rendered: Mum's exhausted professionalism as a hospital worker, Gran's feisty pragmatism, and even Biscuit the dog's comic relief feel lived-in and real. The friendship between Tilly and Saff has genuine chemistry, with Saff serving as both enabler and voice of reason.
The plotting is generally solid, building tension across chapters while maintaining the darkly comic tone requested in the prompt. The blood bag theft storyline provides real stakes without becoming overly dramatic, and the resolution feels earned rather than convenient. The author does well balancing the serious elements (theft, blackmail, hospital protocols) with genuine humor.
However, there are some weaknesses. The writing occasionally becomes overly clever for its own sake, with metaphors that feel constructed rather than organic ("my brain is a raccoon picking up shiny things," "fear is a magnifier"). Some descriptions veer toward purple prose territory, particularly when describing emotions or atmosphere. The technical aspects of the hospital supply chain and blood bag storage sometimes feel under-researched, which slightly undermines the realism.
The pacing is mostly strong, though some middle chapters feel slightly padded with repetitive character interactions. The dialogue is consistently strong throughout, capturing authentic teenage speech patterns and family dynamics. The story maintains coherence across its length, which is impressive for such an extended piece.
The dark comedy tone is well-sustained, finding humor in mundane British life while treating the serious elements with appropriate gravity. This balance is perhaps the story's greatest achievement—it never trivializes real issues while maintaining its comic perspective.
[Scores]
Believable Character Actions: 16
Nuanced Characters: 15
Pacing: 15
World Building: 16
Compelling Plot: 14
Emotionally Engaging: 16
Coherent: 17
Weak Dialogue: 4
Tell-Don't-Show: 5
Unsurprising or Uncreative: 6
Amateurish: 5
Purple Prose: 8
Forced Poetry or Metaphor: 9
Unearned Transformations: 4
Well-earned Lightness or Darkness: 16
Faithful to Writing Prompt: 18
Avg Final Item Score: 74.4/100