Okay, so we all know the usual drill: you can make anything plausible if you write it well enough. But...I think we can all agree that there is such a thing as demanding too much from your reader.
I write YA. My protaganist is a thief/con artist who generally uses her young/innocent/naive act to fool people. She's stolen this girl's identity and has been using her name for two years. All is well until the protag's real mother shows up, demanding something. What is this something, you MAY WELL ASK? *dramatically adjusts glasses*
She wants to know who her daughter stole the identity from, and how. The rationale behind this is that, while it's a like-mother-like-daughter situation (they're both thieves, neither of them are particularly good people and they both have the mindset of going into something for all they can get), but the mother is kind of a crappy thief -- she's spent time in prison for credit card theft and stuff. She thinks that, if her daughter can get away with sponging off people with a fake name and life, then why can't she? It will be established that, while they're both smart, they're not particularly intelligent.
But is this plausible? Is it too easily to 'ghost' as somebody? Is this a remotely realistic demand to make of the daughter, and if not, what would be more realistic? Extortion? ...something else?
I write YA. My protaganist is a thief/con artist who generally uses her young/innocent/naive act to fool people. She's stolen this girl's identity and has been using her name for two years. All is well until the protag's real mother shows up, demanding something. What is this something, you MAY WELL ASK? *dramatically adjusts glasses*
She wants to know who her daughter stole the identity from, and how. The rationale behind this is that, while it's a like-mother-like-daughter situation (they're both thieves, neither of them are particularly good people and they both have the mindset of going into something for all they can get), but the mother is kind of a crappy thief -- she's spent time in prison for credit card theft and stuff. She thinks that, if her daughter can get away with sponging off people with a fake name and life, then why can't she? It will be established that, while they're both smart, they're not particularly intelligent.
But is this plausible? Is it too easily to 'ghost' as somebody? Is this a remotely realistic demand to make of the daughter, and if not, what would be more realistic? Extortion? ...something else?