FREE Book Reviews

[20] CHAPTER REVIEW: The Right Side of Wrong (Teen Fiction)

The Right Side of Wrong By trenchantly trenchantly

FOLLOW-UP REVIEW

Chapter One (Chapter Title)
Teen Fiction (Genre)
Fixtures (Themes)
Third Person Limited (consistent)
Suspense level (🌝🌝🌝🌚🌚)

---------------- 12.22.2020 -----------

It's amazing what you've accomplished in just one day. I guess you'd already had the new version at the ready and posted it. It did a wonder of good. The plot is a bit clearer (still needs some tweaking) and the pacing is great. The characters are still vivid.

Right now, my only concern is the foreshadowing. This ties into Chekhov's gun. Things mentioned, even in passing, (especially at length) are for foreshadowing purposes. They are presented casually but are there for a callback at a later time. (For example, maybe a white Christmas DOES come, causing trouble for them, since Andie mentioned it in the first chapter: foreshadowing)

The core of your story is going to be based on their reactions and reasons for doing things.

Some unintended consequences may have arisen due to the changes though. Now the parents seem neglectful if not downright careless. The MC seems a bit careless, too.

The fix would be to make the motivations or actions a bit clearer.

Here my suggested actions:
1. don't tell the parents someone is in the church
2. use the narration to let us know the church info (much like you have now)
3. after she sees the man, she let's the church thing slip then hurries to get her parents off the phone and assure them
4. try to go to sleep
5. sleep won't come
6. decides to go check it out

Motivations that need clarifying:
1. why isn't she with her parents?
2. why doesn't she tell them about the man?
3. why does she decide to investigate?

You are free to choose any motivations you want. I will list a few suggestions here. These are very loose and of course, I know you will select your own. For now, use these as examples.

Possible motives why not with parents(suggestions):
1. not with parents because things are 'tense' in the marriage and maybe rocky so the MC wants to give them time to rekindle with one another
2. in the mean time, the MC will be gone next year and wants to slowly get used to being alone
3. the father is too worrisome and MC wants slow independence (of course, original plan was to be with BFF who bailed so this is doable)

Possible motives for not telling parents about the man (suggestions):
1. father wouldn't enjoy himself and may turn this vacation around
2. she thinks it's nothing to worry about; this is a safe town (always has been)
3. wants get used to being alone. At college, can't panic at everything.

Possible motivates investigating the church (suggestion):
1. can't sleep with the thought that she didn't alert the cops about something going on
2. can't sleep with the idea of a burglar coming into her home as she slept, despite the many alarms and security (she was turning into her father)
3. despite convincing herself that it's fine, nothing adds up and it's the 'cop daughter' in her that bugs her enough to go check it out, armed with her phone (maybe a flashlight or a bat)
4. doesn't want to call the cops for nothing (the parents would see she's a kid and come back, ruining their vacation), BUT also can't risk not saying something if it's truly a burglar. Burglars were thieves, usually, not killers (maybe have Mom mutter this as Dad goes off), so worst case, she wouldn't need a weapon, right? (she asks herself this, thus building the tension).