Review Shop - Quotev And Wattpad (CLOSED)

Crooks: Betrayed By Blood - Detailed Feedback

I liked your choice to make this take place in the 60s and 70s, but primarily the 70s. You describe the traits of the 70s, like the fashion, in a vivid way. I can tell you were really passionate about it and did a lot of research, and I respect and admire that.

I always appreciate authors who do their research, and I think most things are accurate. The only things that aren't accurate aren't really about the time period, but rather the prison system, but you've already acknowledged that so I see no purpose in expanding on it.

Honestly, I don't know how it works either 💀

Lucy is interesting so far, too. I'm curious to see more of her character. She seems like the in between character, where she isn't quite on the same "evil" level as Michelle, but she's no saint either. Lucy has a lot of intrigue and I'm excited to see where she goes.

~~~

What Didn't Work:

Something to keep in mind is that I write these notes as I read, and there's a lot of editing and writing I have to do for these detailed reviews since they're always over 1.5k words each at minimum (this one is over 2k). All of that is to say that if something I say in this section was addressed in an author's note, or a comment, or it's something you were planning to change already, then just disregard it. I read all the a/ns, but I have a bad memory so I won't be able to remember everything you said you were going to change. 

I'll try my best not to mention things you said you're changing.

The grammar is pretty good in the story aside from a couple things. The biggest being that you have tense issues. By that I mean, you flip flop between past and present tense incorrectly. The story is written in present tense, but there are times you slip into past tense even though you aren't talking about events that happened in the past. For example, sometimes you use past tense dialogue tags such as "said" or "asked."

It's fine to use past tense in present tense for things like referring to past events, but for verbs and standard description, try to consistently stick to present tense.

It seems you switch more to past tense for the second half of the story, but there are still tense slips into present, which makes me think maybe you thought you were writing in past tense and didn't realize you were writing in present for the first few chapters. For future drafts, I would suggest keeping the tense consistent. If you're going for a tense change after Cynthia gets out of prison, I think that's fine, but I'd recommend going from past to present instead of present to past, or at least make sure when you're writing in present tense there are no past tense slips and vice versa.

The second grammar error I want to bring up is dialogue tags. When you are using a dialogue tag, the dialogue cannot end in a period, and the tag needs to be lowercase unless it is a proper noun.

For example, from chapter 5: "I appreciate the help, Lucy." She mumbled, sarcastically.

That's also an example of the tense issues I just mentioned.

"I appreciate the help, Lucy," she mumbles sarcastically.

The comma before sarcastically isn't needed.

Even if the dialogue ends with a question mark, the tag should still be lowercase. So, for example, "Are you okay?" she asks. Dialogue tags are continuations of the dialogue, not a new sentence. That's why they are lowercase unless they are a proper noun, and also why dialogue cannot end with a period if you are using them.

The main suggestion I have has to do with chapter 3, which is Cynthia's POV. She's a child, but her POV doesn't feel much different (in terms of the structure of the writing, not the content) from her mother's. She feels a bit too mature in her POV. Her future POVs are great, especially in chapter 5, but in chapter 3 it feels a bit too clean and mature to feel like a child's POV.