Hello foxtale . I was invited to look at "Hidden Trail"  and offer my thoughts. While I’m not a professional, I hope I can help in any way.

Reading through the beginning is a little rough for me and I find myself having to re-read parts. It starts with the present, stating what Craig is currently doing, then moves to a kind of montage of the events from prior days that Craig says made him feel like an outsider. But when we come back to the “present,” I believe Craig begins recalling events from earlier that same day. Because they happened “before” the moment we’re introduced to Craig in his inner tube, I feel like they should be included in the montage of sequences preoccupying Craig’s mind.

Additionally, I think a clean break in this section letting the reader know we’ve been looking at the past could help us know that Craig is now focused on the current moment.

”Craig called out, "Did you guys see the burros…he didn't seem to hear.” I don’t feel good about this entire paragraph and I’m trying to grasp my feelings about why. Mr. Todd JUST expressed a kind of excitement toward Craig after seeing the wild burros. Both he and Craig would have exited the water at the same time with Mr. Todd most likely having to untie the rope from Craig’s tube before he could even consider hoisting the canoe. This would put him and Craig together while Craig is excitedly asking the other scouts about if they also saw the burros. I’m trying to paint a timeline here, because what’s presented does one of two things:

1: Mr. Todd is written to actually be a terrible character, seeing as how he has pulled Craig aside in an effort to encourage him to fit in better. In this instance, he decides to completely ignore Craig excitedly mentioning the burros and abandon him to potentially look foolish.

2: The scene just isn’t handled properly to consider how these characters might be interacting with one other, sequentially. Craig seems desperate so why wasn’t he trying to forcefully get Mr. Todd to help confirm what they both witnessed? It couldn’t be that Mr. Todd got out of the water so much earlier than Craig and just completely ignored him. Why didn’t Todd himself initially express anything about it? He even said, “Pretty cool, huh” upon seeing them himself.

Whichever the reason, the paragraph ultimately feels like manufactured, unnecessary conflict, which is most likely why it doesn’t sit well with me. It does appear that Todd helps confirm his sighting a couple paragraphs later when Mrs. Gates appears, but it still doesn’t seem plausible to me in the moment.

In the end, it’s Mrs. Gates and her pictures - hard proof and not some young scout’s word - that are used to convince the other scouts when it could’ve been Mr. Todd all along that set the story straight right away. He created a situation where Craig felt terrible for almost the rest of the day, and exposed his own troop members to be bullies with herd mentality. If this is how lessons are actually learned in the scouts, I’m not sure I condone.

That’s where I stand on the story itself, but let’s also talk about the form. Standard writing formats call for a new paragraph to begin when a new speaker starts talking, following a different speaker. This helps the reader know that the voice has changed as they go through the story. Several instances here are present where two people are shown to speak - as noted by quotation marks - within the same paragraph.

Mrs. Gates looked up at Craig. "You're Craig, the scout nobody believed?" Craig nodded and in embarrassment looked down at his feet. From just beyond the lantern light, Tim, the Senior Patrol Leader, spoke up, "I owe Craig an apology."

The example above is one such area where two people are speaking in the same paragraph. From just beyond the lantern… should begin the new paragraph.

I appreciate you inviting me to read this piece, but I have to say I didn’t find it plausible in the end. That combined with the writing style has me hoping a rewrite is coming along. Thank you for sharing it, and I hope you have a good weekend.

Than Pence

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .