The Writer's Voice Contest

I'm so excited to participate in the Writer's Voice Contest! Thanks to Cupid, Brenda, Monica and Krista for hosting this amazing opportunity. And please...pick me! Pick me!

Query:

With just three days left before she’s Remade on her seventeenth birthday, Nine must choose a name, a Trade, what she wants to look like, and most importantly—whether to be male or female.

Nine’s certain her Maker made a mistake when he gave her red hair and an overabundance of freckles, so unlike the flawless light skin and dark brown hair of the others in her Batch. As if that weren’t enough, Nine despises her cowardice and wishes to be brave like her best friend, Theron. Since there’s no courage option when being Remade, Nine chooses the next best thing, to become male.

After leaving the Freedom province, and on their way to the Remake facility, the Batch’s shuttle crashes into the ocean. Nine is the only survivor and struggles to understand the bronze-skinned people who find her stranded on their island. Kai, the boy assigned to keep watch over her, treats her like a prisoner and Nine wants nothing more than to return home and be Remade.

As Nine learns the meaning of words like marriage and family, she realizes the threat Freedom poses to Kai and his people. Nine must learn to become brave, as a girl, if she hopes to protect their way of life and return to Freedom in time to be Remade, if that is what she still wants.

Set in a world of gender selection and the absence of family, REMAKE is a YA dystopian complete at 67,000 words. Fans of Scott Westerfeld’s UGLIES would sympathize with Nine’s struggle to be herself in an equalizing society. 

First 250:

Male or female?

My finger hesitates over the touch screen, unsure.

How can I decide which to be for the rest of my life? It’s so…permanent.

Theron puts his hand on the small of my back in encouragement. I glance at his blue eyes beneath long lashes. His dark eyebrows are longer than the hair on his head. I smile, knowing what little there is of it will be shaved off in a few minutes.

He returns my smile and rubs my own shaved head. Our lack of hair keeps those in our Batch equal—both the boys like Theron and the girls like me. Except the stubble that grows from my head is red while everyone else’s is dark brown. The Maker that designed me must’ve had a sick sense of humor.

Theron tilts his head toward the computer, reminding me why I’m there. I push my shoulders back and focus on the screen again.

Male or female?

My finger connects with the third option.

Undecided.

 “You know, Nine,” Theron says. “In three days, you won’t have that option anymore.”

“I know,” I say. “I’ll be ready.” In three days we will turn seventeen and be sent to the Remake facility. There we’ll be made into whomever we choose to be. Blonde or brunette. Tall or short. Full lips, broad shoulders, slender thighs, dark skin, tiny waist—whatever we wish. But the computer will not prompt me to decide anything else until I make that first choice: male or female?