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[40] CHAPTER REVIEW: The Marriage Breakers (Teen Fiction)

The Marriage Breakers by EbnaRashid EbnaRashid

Part one (Chapter Title)
Teen Fiction (Genre)
Life & Ambitions (Themes)
First Person Past (very inconsistent)
Suspense level (🌝🌗🌚🌚🌚)

---------------- 1.29.2021 -----------

I pride myself in giving feedback that doesn't sting (not too much). I play a 'tough editor' but deep down I see each author as myself. Each stage of their writing, whether unpolished or shining is a potential for what my own writing once was and perhaps one day could be.

Why is this important? Because that's how I gauge how to approach my reviews.

From your writing, I'm guessing you're young. You're not an English native but know the language well. You're brave, too, because you're tackling a lot of things few people can, and you're doing it while asking for raw feedback.

I don't know if you know my method of critiquing, though I suspect you do, and yet you still came for it. I have to respect that.

So with all those factors in mind, I want to be gentle with you. Equally, a part of me wants to throw the gloves down, take you by the shoulders, and shake you till your eyes bounce together.

I think that's what you NEED but it'll hurt too much so I'm going to go through this with you slowly and as carefully as I can.

You have ONE good thing about your story. One, single, good, thing.

And it's the one thing that'll save this.

I want to list the bad aspects now, and it's a list, but I don't think that'll benefit you in the long run. So let me make some extra long sentences to convey my concerns while focusing on the major worries.

Before you continue, knowing two things:

1. This is your story. It's YOUR story and no one, not I, not ANYONE has the right to tell you how to write your story. This is your art and your craft and you are the only one who can decide how to deliver that to others. YOU.
2. I am NOT out to get you. I don't giggle with glee in my evil villain cave, marking off troll reviews on the wall with chalk. This is to help you, not to bring you down, but it's going to hurt, no matter HOW I say it, so steel yourself.

The bad (remember that you have one good aspect, and it's the most important aspect by far, so take in the bad knowing you've got a ace in the hole at the end of this)

- The punctuation is all over the place. That doesn't matter too much because a reader enjoying yourself can still soldier on through the roughest of drafts. You WILL require a proper edit. You can do that on your own by reading tutorials on how to format dialogue.

- The POV shift was a bold idea and has potential. I'd argue, however, that you haven't pulled it off here. That's mostly because it's a chapter largely focused on the female MC and then to have the male MC tacked on at the end was jarring.

- Your female MC is not very likeable. This is not a deal-breaker for me. I for one like it when MC's are rough and need to learn to be good people. So this aspect might turn for some, but not everyone. If you were trying to make her likeable, however, this is a fail so please keep that in mind.

- You have a talking-heads problem. No real scenery, no movement. No forward momentum. Just back and forth, back and forth. Change locations, then back and forth and rinse and repeat. It looked a lot like a game of 'pong.'