The Standout

What happens when your greatest opportunity becomes your deepest unraveling? In The Standout, Laurel Osterkamp crafts a suspense-filled, character-rich novel about ambition, fear, and the psychological cost of reinvention.

Robin Bricker is determined to win on The Standout, a high-profile fashion reality show. But just as filming begins, she receives a chilling ultimatum: dump your fiancé or lose everything. Then a website appears—RottenRobin.com—hell-bent on wrecking her reputation. As Robin’s past collides with her present, she’s haunted by memories she can’t fully trust and surrounded by people who may not be who they claim to be. With her brother Ted and the elusive Zelda offering uncertain support, Robin must untangle a growing web of manipulation and fear before the show ends—and her life along with it.

Laurel Osterkamp writes emotionally charged fiction that blends suspense with sharp insight into relationships, identity, and memory. Her novels—The Next Breath, Favorite Daughters, The Side Project—have earned critical praise and a loyal readership. A longtime teacher and MFA graduate, Laurel draws from her theatrical background and everyday life in Minneapolis to create immersive stories with depth and grit. You can follow her writing journey on Instagram or visit her website to learn more.

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3K59vh2

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27281023-the-standout

What were the biggest rewards and challenges with writing The Standout?

Writing The Standout was both very rewarding and challenging for me. I was in grad school when I began, and two of the first courses I took were in flash fiction and in YA fiction. Flash fiction is all about using a brevity of words for a maximum impact, and leading your readers to a point where they can infer where a character is going on their journey. Several of The Standout’s chapters, especially ones from Ted’s POV, began as flash fiction assignments for that course. I would count how many words I’d written, trying to eliminate as many as possible to stay under the assignment’s limit. This really taught me a golden rule of writing, that often less is more. And, the YA fiction writing class was invaluable for me while writing from Zelda’s POV. At the same time, I felt challenged because I’d never written from a male point-of-view before, and it had been a long time since I’d attempted a teenager’s voice.

How did you research your book?

Just about all my research was done online. However, while I was researching The Standout, there was a show at The Walker (a modern art museum in Minneapolis, where I’m from) that was all about fashion. I went and bought a couple of books in the gift shop afterwards, which were a great reference when writing about Robin’s fashion design challenges. I also dug into my old childhood books to find this compilation of stories from classic ballets, like Swan and Giselle. I referenced it for the design challenges that Robin and Zelda were a part of, and for the condensed ballet stories that Zelda tells. But for everything about climbing roofs, parcour, and Ted’s private investigator course—that was all found via YouTube and Google.

Where do you write—home, coffee shop, train?

Occasionally, if I’ve dropped my daughter off somewhere far from home, and she’ll need a ride back in under two hours, I go to a coffee shop or a library to write. But it isn’t ideal for me. I like to write at home, where I can get up to get a snack or go to the bathroom, and not worry about leaving my laptop out. I also get distracted when people nearby are chatting or whatever. It’s nice to be in my own space, where I can play music and possibly pet my cat, who is my most loyal writing buddy.