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.'

These characters need to move. And I'm not just talking about physically move around the area, but in narration as well. There was one scene where Lil and Ava are talking. The talk seems to be going well. Ava devises a plan (after much back and forth that seemed to go nowhere) only for Lil to ERASE all that progression by saying "Ava can't be trusted." So basically, everything built up by Ava gets toppled and we're back to square one again. But take it back even further to the interview. She tells the interviewer why she wants to be a lawyer. Her reason is SO good, SO great, SO inspired, and then for nothing to come about from it was sorta...huh. If the interviewer seemed ready to DENY her, and then she says, "Please, Listen. I want to be a lawyer because..." and that little speech MOVED the interviewer to relent and say, "Okay. Listen, this is what you do," then that's movement, too. Something's progressing. But no. She spills her guts and nothing changes in the interviewer's behavior. The interviewer didn't seem like she gave the MC the 'solution' because she was impressed, but rather...just cuz.

No movement.

How you doing? Still hanging in there with me? Don't worry, your silver bullet GOOD aspect is coming but it's gotta come after I tear off this final band aid.

Forgive me.

Here goes.

- This isn't a chapter. Not really. It's a very detailed outline.

As a consequence of you relying 'heavily' on TELLING, this reads very unnatural. I mean, one of the MC's even tells us EVERYTHING that he's supposed to SHOW us about himself. Direct line from the girl:
This high school also had successfully achieved all the cliques the high school in 'Mean girls' had—the popular girls are mean, well sometimes nice... When they needed something from you.

A few popular girls are currently waving at me right now.

The unpopular girls are vengeful and manipulative and will cling to the popular girls like leeches until they become popular.

For real? Just like that? You're going to tell us this just like that? Okay. That one can probably get a pass but how about this one? This is the one I mean from the boy that's a direct tell:
Elijah is one of my few friends. I didn't really have many since no one wanted to deal with me, a freaky nerd who always keeps to himself, and sometimes gets panic attacks.

These are 'outlines' about a character's traits. This is like having a person wearing a mascot costume but we're able to see the zipper. The MC is supposed to SHOW us all this, not just tell us all of this in bare exposition. It's ineffective. And it also leads to their dialogue suffering the same "exposition" fate.

So WHAT'S GOOD ABOUT IT?

Well, here it comes, and it's something that I see a lot of authors struggle with.

The plot.

You have a plot. A solid plot, a solid GOOD plot. This is the hardest part for a LOT of authors and trust me, I've done nearly 200 reviews thus far and this is the biggest problem by far.

All of the things I've listed are fixable, but a poor or unknown plot is the nail in the coffin.

Your plot is not only sound, but interesting. I don't know about the 'make a business' aspect, but the reason she wants to be a lawyer, and the problem she's facing is great. Then you give a 'possible solution' (make a business) which is great. To top it off, she's got a male MC with the same problem and even though his personality was an outline, it's still personality traits that mesh well with her nonsense approach. On paper, this is a fantastic idea, a fantastic motivational point, and something I personally would enjoy reading.

However, the execution just didn't stick the landing.

Prologue?
None.

Does this need an edit?
Yes. Very much so. Almost all dialogue tag formatting is incorrect. Some sentences simply 'end' with a comma and not a period. There are comma splices and fragments. There is no scenery, thus resulting in 'talking heads' syndrome.

Would I read on?
Yes/No. Without...
A. more SHOWING and less telling
B. clearer dialogue tag formatting
C. better details in the scenery
...then I wouldn't be too eager to jump to the next chapter.

You have all the ingredients you need for a great story. You just have to upgrade your stove. It's possible and I know you can do it. You've got this.

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