Dear agent,

As someone who champions getting books with diverse experiences into the hands of children and teens, I thought you may be interested in sampling my debut young adult horror novel, The Outlet.

Callum Sowards, a 16-year-old boy on the autism spectrum, has established a routine: wake up, play his favorite online shooter game Lost Sector, go to school with his sister, hang out with his friends at lunch, practice and play baseball games, and go home. This would be a satisfying loop, but his perceived inadequacy in the face of his long-term crush for an exchange student leads him down a depressive spiral instead.

In the midst of his new routine, an entity strikes in the middle of the night: a humanoid shadow figure with bloodshot eyes and wielding a computer cord as an asphyxiation tool. The demon is seemingly intent on killing Callum and no one else. It can even walk through walls to achieve its malicious agenda. After surviving the encounter in the face of certain death, Callum must find a way to get rid of it for good.

Throughout the novel, the demon’s presence interferes with Callum’s social life in ways he cannot predict. The more Callum learns about the monster throughout the following day, the further his mental health degrades. To win the encounter, he must also find a way out of his spiral and back to stability.

The events take place in a familiar horror setting: a suburban town in the US. However, the viewpoint we follow is from someone whose perspective is not often front-and-center in the horror genre. As an author on the autism spectrum, battles for stability in the face of change both big and small happen on a frequent basis and I wanted to reflect that yearning in The Outlet. I hope autistic teens will find appeal in my horror scenario and neurotypical teens will also find it scary and gain a greater understanding of those on the spectrum.

As per the current submission guidelines, I have pasted the brief prologue and the first 3 chapters of my novel on QueryTracker. If you want to view the entire manuscript, I will send it upon request. Thank you and enjoy the rest of your day.

Sincerely,
My name

Alright, campers! Some of you are new here and some of you got graded for your performance last season. Regardless, here is my final set of grades in this series of posts.

Fittingly, this final set of grades was harder to determine than in any other seasons. I'm looking at you, Priya. I have a lot to say about your performance and I'm still unsure whether I got yours right or not.

Here are my notes:

S = Guaranteed to make finale
A = A rock-solid strategy
B = Sound strategy, but not bulletproof
C = An iffy strategy that is likely not to get you the win, but it could get you far
D = A highly flawed strategy that just barely doesn’t gate you from the finale
F = The doomed ones

• >!Bowie: Stick with Raj and Wayne as he has no other allies. Try to get Julia and MK eliminated as his biggest opps.!<
  • >!F. In isolation, Bowie’s strategy is alright, but in an 11-person merge with everyone disliking him, it’s not great. Priya hates him for what he did last season, Caleb would vote with Priya, he fought Ripper in the final pre-merge challenge, and Axel would vote with Ripper. The only question marks are Damien and Zee. Zee could be lured by the hockey bros, but Damien often allies with Priya. Let’s say Bowie’s alliance convinces everyone to eliminate either Julia or MK due to their cheating. With one gone, that brings Bowie back as public enemy #1 with his alliance of 3 or 4 because now the other would be alone. Overall, Bowie loses in the numbers game.!<
• >!Axel & Ripper: I rank these 2 in the same spot because Axel is more likely to be voted out, but Ripper will always leave with her unless they make the final 5. Their goal is to stay together as a couple during the challenge if they can help it. Surely, they wouldn’t be voted out when big threats like Priya, Bowie, or Julia are out there.!<
  • >!F. Axel and Ripper are sloppy lovers, meaning their acts together are not just super open to make their alliance obvious (like with Trent in TDI [2007]), but also read as uncomfortable to others. Combined with Axel’s physical prowess, Axel is a massive target in any challenge where she and Ripper aren’t separated. Ripper falls with her, of course.!<
• >!Zee: Fly under the radar again, but don’t try to merge 2 different alliances into a mega-alliance like last time. Try to keep everyone’s secrets as secrets at all costs despite the pain of doing so.!<
  • >!F. Even without Julia and MK’s coaxing, Zee seemed like he was always going to slip up and spill everyone’s beans at some point. The trigger in canon was Caleb and Priya’s kiss, but the other secrets also likely had their own triggers. Regardless of when he reveals them, most would distrust Zee and vote him out on the spot.!<
• >!MK: Try to stay allied to Julia for as long as possible by making others look bad. If their alliance is cornered, try to slander Julia as much as possible to get others to vote for her.!<
  • >!D. Finally we’re done with the F streak. I already mentioned in Bowie’s section that MK and Julia were also in a bad position, but MK had it worse than Julia since she was named and shamed for cheating more. The farthest MK and Julia could make it together is the final 6 (or the final 5 if Julia uses her idol), but it would be really hard. As a side note, I feel like they would have gotten something useful out of Zee in the final 8 that would either help them take down Zee or someone else, so it was a good strategic play. However, by the final 6 (or 5), it’s over. Either Julia goes or MK goes, leaving the other at the mercy of everyone left. If MK makes it to the final 5 through really really hard work and somehow wins in the final 4, she could make it to the final 3 where she would surely be at a physical disadvantage. However, it is a path to victory. 1 required immunity win does not sink a strategy to F tier.!<
• >!Damien: Because Damien is seen as a weak link for his performance in TDI 2023, playing his absolute best is the correct path. He flies under the radar, but still shows he’s a strong enough ally. With the immunity idol, keep changing its hiding place since someone knows he has it.!<
  • >!A. Damien’s plan of both flying under the radar and being strong works somewhat. If every major threat were to be voted out, that would leave Damien, Raj, and Wayne in the final 3. The issue is that Raj and Wayne are charmed by love stories and thus would find it difficult to vote for Caleb and Priya when they are together. Thankfully, Damien has a mulligan in the form of an immunity idol that he could use to eliminate one half of the couple. I personally don’t fault him for taking the threatening letter seriously and losing the idol to Julia as a result. Even with the idol, there are some niche points where he could be voted out, so an S grade is out of his grasp.!<
• >!Raj: Stick with his boys Bowie and Wayne ‘til the very end by flying under the radar. Don’t target a nice couple like Caleb and Priya if it can be helped.!<
  • >!A. Raj is pretty solid at flying under the radar to the point where he’s almost guaranteed a slot in the final 3. Almost. What might betray him is his insistence on keeping Caleb and Priya in the game. If the stars aligned, it could mean one of the hockey bros goes home in a final 4 challenge where both Priya and Caleb everyone has won at least 1 immunity challenge, meaning there would need to be a tiebreaker. Since Raj is seen as the more competent of the duo, he would be pit against someone far better than he is in a 1v1. However, that’s just 1 scenario that could be mitigated by Caleb getting eliminated mid-merge or Caleb and Priya never getting back together.!<
• >!Priya: Stick with Caleb. He’s a strong ally… unless he betrays your trust. However, that can be mitigated if he makes a genuine apology. Hide behind bigger threats like Julia and MK.!<
  • >!D. Priya’s a tough one to grade and that’s because of Raj and Wayne’s “no voting for nice romances” rule and all the circumstances surrounding the mid-merge. In canon, the vote would have been split evenly between her and Damien without it. I doubt she would know about it until they say so, but it might not matter since she would have expected Julia to vote for her or have to go into a tiebreaker challenge against Damien since they both won an immunity each. However, that’s just what happened in canon. Caleb or Julia both could have left the game earlier or Julia could have not won immunity and the entire situation would change. Without Caleb in the final 6, Priya stands no chance of winning since she would be the second-biggest threat on the island. Without Julia, MK could be going home if she’s still here or it would be Damien since he’s not in a romance (not really, since he would have the idol, but Priya wouldn’t know that), but Priya would think she or Caleb is going home. Of course, Julia not winning immunity means that she goes home. What a mess. Even after the final 6 debacle, there’s still the final 5 and 4 to worry about. There is one constant, though: Caleb is considered less desirable to keep around, as evidenced by the canon final 5 vote where he had the second-most votes. If we apply that to every episode after the final 8, then we get a clearer picture of where Priya stands: D. She could make it far and use Caleb as a shield or both hockey bros make it to the final 4 with her and Caleb, which is a chance, then Priya would make it. The other result would be from a chain of immunities, but that’s very unreliable. It’s a tough call between C and D because Priya has many paths to elimination and a couple paths to victory. I could see debate in the comments about this result.With all of THAT out of the way…!<
• >!Caleb: Keep Priya as an ally at all costs. Hide behind his status as the first elimination of the previous season to make sure people get out before he can.!<
  • >!D. Take Priya’s explanation and now make it even harder for that contestant to win. That’s Caleb’s odds of making the finals of TDI 2024. It’s debatable whether Caleb would have been voted out in the final 7 had he not won immunity. What isn’t debatable is that the rest of the merge would be an uphill battle against Damien, the remaining member of Julia and MK’s alliance, and the hockey bros (he would assume). Keep in mind that he is a bigger target than Priya from the final 7 onwards based on how the final 5 voted in canon.!<
• >!Julia: Try to stay allied to MK for as long as possible by making others look bad. If their alliance is cornered, try to slander MK as much as possible to get others to vote for her. Get an eye on whomever has the immunity idol and steal it.!<
  • >!D. Just take what I said about MK and give her slightly better odds. Julia’s strategy for snatching the immunity idol is good, but she would be hated in far more than 1 episode for a single mulligan to change her grade. Like I stated in MK’s section, she and MK could only make it as far as the final 5 if Julia gets targeted and is forced to burn her idol. She is at least better at challenges than MK.!<
• >!Wayne: Stick with his boys Bowie and Wayne ‘til the very end by flying under the radar. Don’t target a nice couple like Caleb and Priya if it can be helped.!<
  • >!S. It’s the exact same strategy as Raj’s, but Wayne’s utter foolishness bumps him up a letter grade. No one would have any reason to target him and he would soar into the finale (quite literally).!<

Thank you for engaging with my grading process posts and have a great rest of your day. If you wish to appeal any of these grades, leave a comment.

Alright, campers! It's time to analyze just how likely you were to make it all the way. In this season and the following, the final episode was a final 3 challenge, but, like previous grading processes, this is still about how likely you were to make the final 2. Here are my notes:

S = Guaranteed to make finale
A = A rock-solid strategy
B = Sound strategy, but not bulletproof
C = An iffy strategy that is likely not to get you the win, but it could get you far
D = A highly flawed strategy that just barely doesn’t gate you from the finale
F = The doomed ones

Major spoilers for TDI 2023 ahead, obviously.

• >!Raj & Wayne: I’m packaging these 2 together since they have about the same strategy. They maintain their alliance with Bowie– and Emma by extension– with Raj and Bowie insisting it be a more covert alliance at the start to avoid attention (and maybe also because Raj is in the closet). Let Bowie do most of the strategy since he seems to know what he’s doing.!<
  • >!S for both. This assessment assumes Raj and Wayne do not fall off of that cliff during the cassowary egg hunt. Ripper would be voted out by default, giving their alliance a near-majority hold of the competition. Unfortunately, it’s hard to hide a 4-person alliance and both Priya and Julia would suss it out almost immediately after the elimination. They would form their own alliance alongside Millie and Zee. Chase would side with Bowie & Co., giving them domination over the competition despite Emma’s disliking of him. Eventually, the smaller alliance would be vanquished and Bowie would control the game thanks to Raj and Wayne’s help and likely bring all 3 of them to the final 3. Even if Emma or Chase gets immunity in the final 4, Bowie would be the one going home over the hockey bros. I would assume the bros would help each other during whatever the final 3 challenge would end up being, giving them a slight edge over whomever they compete against. This gives them the gilded S rank by successfully flying under the radar.!<
• >!Ripper: Take any ally at arm’s length and use them to help him get far before dumping them. That’s how an alfalfa male operates.!<
  • >!F. Ripper essentially pulled a diet Sugar strategy. Sugar only dumped her allies when the season was almost over. Ripper does so without tact. Because he never changed since pre-merge, he would struggle to find allies outside of maybe Chase. It could even be argued that he doesn’t even care about the game that much because he already got the longest fart record, as evidenced by his reaction to his near-elimination in that same episode’s campfire ceremony as well as his closing elimination speech.!<
• >!Zee: Just go with the flow. Be nice and promote peace. Take any alliance on offer. That’s how flying under the radar works, man. But what if 2 alliances he’s in are at war? Uhh, make a mega alliance. Duh.!<
  • >!F. Zee’s passive strategy sounds really good at first glance, but the moment he joins 2 alliances, he’s done for. It doesn’t even have to happen in the final 7 like in canon. It could be any time between the start of the merge and final 4. Zee should also know how much strategic effort many people in the game have. He had Priya on his team after all. Strategists do not take traitors or unknown variables well.!<
• >!Chase: Ally with Emma and become her boyfriend again. Scoring Emma would also give him her allies.!<
  • >!B. I would say everyone (except Zee) had good strategies when they joined 4-person alliances in the final 7 and eliminated a traitor in their midst. Without Bowie’s pivot, the final 6 vote would be a deadlock. The other alliance voted for him because he’s a douche, which he should have seen coming. This would eliminate him because of the TDI reboot’s tiebreaker rule since Millie had won an immunity before, but none of the campers could plan around that until after the vote concludes, so you can’t demerit Chase’s strategy for that. He would reasonably assume there would be a tiebreaker challenge. That’s likely why Chase’s alliance voted for Millie. In said tiebreaker, Chase has the edge most likely and would win. This hypothetical victory would carry their alliance to the final 3. Priya and Julia would be stonewalled from making any allies and voted out as the threats they are. By the final 3, Emma hates Chase again and would sabotage him if he’s still in the game, thus also sabotaging herself by ignoring the prize. Because of the reciprocal nature of Emma’s sabotage, Chase still has a chance to make the final 2. It only feels fair that Chase gets a B for not being guaranteed to win the hypothetical final 6 tiebreaker and being at a slight disadvantage in the final 3.!<
• >!Emma: Stay allied with Bowie. Be mixed about Chase, but ultimately a 3-person alliance is desirable.!<
  • >!C. With Bowie’s final 6 pivot being unpredictable, we need to split all of the final 5 into 2 scenarios (except Bowie for obvious reasons). I already discussed the first scenario without Bowie’s betrayal, and Emma would get a B there like her ex-boyfriend, albeit a slightly higher B since Bowie favors her. Now for Bowie’s betrayal, Emma gets a D. Instead of seeking allies in Millie, Priya, or even Julia, Emma sabotaged Bowie’s game and didn’t try to ally with anyone after the fact. In this way, she both came off as a bigger threat than Bowie without any ties. Julia would still be a bigger target, but Emma would be voted out in the Final 4 if she doesn’t squeak out an immunity win. Both of these scenarios balance out to a C.!<
• >!Julia: Find former Ferocious Trout to ally with and use immunity wins as contingency plans.!<
  • >!F. Julia is basically guaranteed to make it to at least the Final 5, but in either fork in the road determined by Bowie’s betrayal or lack thereof, Julia would have to rely on an immunity win to make it to the final 4. There are 3 scenarios for her: 1. Julia gets picked off by Bowie’s alliance of 3 and gets stonewalled from allying with any of them. 2. Priya cuts Julia out of their alliance because she knows she’s a backstabber based on her trying to split up her and Millie. Julia doesn’t get immunity and gets voted out as a threat. 3. Julia makes it to the final 4 and everyone is against her but Bowie whom she believes has good reasons to ally with her, meaning she would get into a tiebreaker match with Millie or Priya, which could go in any way if she has to face Priya. I give the first 2 scenarios an F and scenario 3 a D. That balances to an F. Relying on immunities, even close to the end, doesn't pay.!<
• >!Millie: Follow Priya’s instructions as she knows the game better than she does. Try to float through challenges at first, but later realize that an open and intentional floater is at risk of being targeted and try a little harder in challenges.!<
  • >!A. In the scenario of Bowie not betraying his alliance in the final 6, Millie gets a C. Either Millie gets eliminated on the spot or she and Priya make it to the final 2 together. Because Chase is slightly more likely to win the tiebreaker, a high C seems fair. In the event of Bowie’s final 6 betrayal, Millie gets an S rank since she’s guaranteed to make it to the final 3 where she and Priya would help each other make it to the final 2. That would be the case if it weren’t for Bowie’s letter, but she couldn’t have planned around that. Since the C scenario was a high C, it’ll balance out to an A for Millie.!<
• >!Bowie: Form a powerful alliance with Emma and anyone else who could help him take down Julia, Priya, and Millie… until Bowie discovers some dirt and pivots his strategy to making it so Priya and Millie are in the final 3 with him and he shows Priya Millie’s journal to break them up. To do that, he would have to dismantle his alliance and look less threatening than his remaining former ally (whether that’s Chase or Emma).!<
  • >!S. In every permutation of the final 5 and onward, Bowie makes it to the final 3. First, Julia would go if her alliance disowned her, or Emma would go if either Julia won immunity or Julia wasn’t disowned. Next, Bowie would team up with Priya and Millie to eliminate whatever threat remained (Priya and Millie wouldn’t need Julia at that point if Bowie had lost his alliance). The only reason why the final 2 result was so close in canon was because Bowie got assigned Julia by complete RNG and she didn’t help him build a raft after cutting down the tree. Needless to say, Bowie would have had a guaranteed shot at making the final 2 with Priya slinging mud at Millie and Millie trying to appease her had he gotten anyone else on his side but Julia.!<
• >!Priya: Try to get an edge over Bowie’s alliance using Millie, Julia, and seemingly Zee. Try to get Millie to pull her weight in challenges over time.!<
  • >!A. The universe where Bowie betrays his alliance has Priya earning a C because she and Julia are the biggest targets if Millie loses the tiebreaker, meaning Priya would need to win the final 4 challenge to make it all the way (assuming Julia got eliminated in the final 5). However, if Millie wins the tiebreaker, then Priya is almost guaranteed to make it into the final 2. In the universe where either Bowie pulls off his final 6 betrayal or Millie wins the tiebreaker, Priya would be very likely to make the final 3 alongside Millie. Again, like Millie, Priya wouldn’t be able to plan around Bowie giving her the notebook, so I won’t mark that against her. This scenario earns Priya an S rank. These balance out to an A-rank like with her good friend.!<

Edit: Forgot to mention that the audience (Reddit) can appeal the grades.

Alright All-Stars! All of you have merged before, so you know the drill. How likely were all of you to make the Final 2? Let's find out. Here are my notes:

S = Guaranteed to make finale
A = A rock-solid strategy
B = Sound strategy, but not bulletproof
C = An iffy strategy that is likely not to get you the win, but it could get you far
D = A highly flawed strategy that just barely doesn’t gate you from the finale
F = The doomed ones

• Duncan: Prove he hasn’t lost his edge. Try to warn people about Mal because he’s genuinely malicious.
  • F. Bud committed arson against Chris McLean’s cottage to prove he’s still a bad boy. Easiest F in the series so far and for the foreseeable future. I don’t know where his head was, but it certainly wasn’t in the game.
• Cameron: Reform the alliance between him, Mike, Zoey, and throw Gwen into it too. In a merge with 8 people, a 4-person alliance would dominate.
  • A. Ignoring how Mal rigged the game against him, this strategy could take Cameron far. If Alejandro had given the hint for the evidence against Mal while Cameron was still in the game, he would figure it out almost instantly. With Cameron being more credible, Mal would be exposed and eliminated shortly. With Mal out of the way, the only way Cameron could lose would be if Scott won the Final 4 challenge and Courtney was still in the game or Courtney did so and either Scott or Gwen was still in the game. However, Courtney and Scott would be at a rocky point after it looked like Courtney kissed Cam, making both of them vulnerable. However, that slim chance of not getting into the final 2 is enough to bar him from S.
• Alejandro: Take any alliance he can get to make it farther into the game. Trickery is off the table because everyone knows his World Tour strategy and how he employed elements of it during pre-merge in All-Stars. If he runs into a certain Mal, he would try to gain good will by exposing him.
  • F. Al was set up for failure based on his history in Total Drama. If Alejandro and Mike were telling any camper contradictory statements, one would default to believing Mike. Alejandro is simply not a credible source of information. Even without Mal to further destroy his credibility, he would flounder.
• Courtney: Rebuild her friendship with Gwen and continue her relationship with Scott in order to have allies who could carry her to the final 2. Eliminate challenge threats like Alejandro and Zoey.
  • S. With a 3-person alliance, Courtney has a good shot of making the final 4 with Scott and Gwen on good terms. With Cameron gone due to factors outside of her control, Mike and Zoey would be vulnerable to elimination. I would assume Gwen had more loyalty to Courtney and Scott than Mike and Zoey if Mal hadn’t intervened. I was tempted to give Courtney an A grade because of how the final 3 elimination worked, in that the winner of the scavenger hunt would choose who to eliminate. There would be a small chance Mal or Zoey would win that and eliminate her since she’s more of a challenge threat than Gwen or Scott. However, there’s no way anyone could have known that was how that elimination would work, so Courtney’s strategy would have been a golden ticket had Mal not exposed her condescending chart. She had no way to plan around Mal.

Side note: A finale between Courtney and Mal would've gone so hard. It’s a villain-turned-hero versus a hero-turned-villain. That’s poetry. Anyway, that’s enough about what could’ve been. Let’s get back to what’s already here.

With these following characters-- with the exception of Mal-- none of them could plan around Courtney getting exposed. That means I will split each of their strategies into 2 different grades and find the average.

• Gwen: Be allies with both Courtney and Scott as well as Cameron and his friends. Regardless of which side comes out on top, Gwen would have allies going deep into merge. She has a slight bias for Courtney and Scott.
  • B. After Cameron and Alejandro fall, Gwen has the power to determine which pair to ally with. In canon, Courtney got exposed, so Gwen could easily pivot to Mike and Zoey. In that way, Gwen’s strategy had some good foresight. Regardless of which pair made it to the final 3, Gwen would have an easy time making it there (there was no way to know the final 4 would be an auto-elimination until it happened, so I don’t fault her strategy for not considering a loss here a possibility). Courtney made it clear that Scott was her priority while Mike and Zoey would obviously choose each other (Mal wouldn’t choose Zoey, but Gwen doesn’t know that). Gwen has about a ⅓ chance to make finals either way, earning her a B in both scenarios.
• Scott: Be Courtney’s ally. Oppose anyone who would separate them. If Courtney goes home, just try to win in the final stretch.
  • B. Scott inadvertently flew under the radar this season for a long time thanks to Alejandro being a bigger open threat and Mal’s exposure of Courtney. If Courtney hadn’t gotten exposed, she could have been used as a shield for Scott to make it to the finals if push came to shove. In that scenario, he would get an A. However, in the canon final 4, I would give him a D. At this juncture, he basically has no allies and would be voted out from his perspective (he doesn’t know that Zoey is onto Mal), so before he knows the challenge is an auto-elim, he should realize he’s likely screwed unless he somehow gets Gwen on his side and splits the vote. Because he had to come up with a new strategy on the fly in the canon final 4, I’ll be generous and round up his balanced grade to a B instead of a C.
• Mal: Get rid of all the smartest competitors as early as possible. To achieve this, pretend to be Mike and use his good reputation to manipulate others or sabotage them in some way. Keep Zoey close so he has a better chance at getting past the final 3. Because Mal goes out of his way to sabotage, he is seen as less of a challenge threat than she is.
  • S. Mal had what every villain before him who got a terrible grade would have desired: a good reputation they could use to cover themselves. Hijacking the body of Mike and using it to sabotage people who could sniff him out with the right information. Doing so stacked every elimination ceremony in his favor from start-to-finish. I have no doubt he would have done the same procedure had the final 3 challenge been more traditional. The only slip-up Mal made was looting the mansion during the final 5 for Zoey to see, but even if she pressed, he could have claimed that Mal was still taking control of his body at certain points. “Mike” is 2 for 2 in terms of S-level strategies. That’s impressive.
• Zoey: Keep her alliance with Cameron and Mike. Ally with Gwen as well to get a numbers advantage later in the game. As she finds out about Mal, keep him close to retain her numbers advantage and keep an eye on him to find a way to get Mike back in control.
  • C. Despite having an idea about Mal, Zoey had no way to predict his decision to expose Courtney. I’ll take a similar approach to how I assessed Scott. If Courtney hadn’t gotten exposed, she would get an F since, unlike Scott, I don’t see her being able to convince Gwen to split the vote. For the canon final 4, I would give Zoey an A since Scott is a good target for everyone left. Scott has a chance to convince Gwen to split the vote, but that is less likely to happen than his simply getting voted out (again, if this was a standard elimination). To balance these possibilities out, Zoey gets a C.

That's it for my notes. Thanks for playing in TD! I'll never see any of you ever again. Make way for the newbies!

If you wish to change your result an audience member (Reddit) can appeal.