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@Mia13La - Last Dance

Going to start off with saying you recommend me reading the whole story (which is fine, I do that with most), but you say it’s because you were learning new things every time you wrote. So from that, it gives me the assumption that each chapter is going to get better (again, this is also fine), but looking at that from a marketing point of view, you want to make sure you go back and edit the first episodes so they meet the standard of your later episodes, so that you have that consistency and that readers are drawn in from the very beginning.

  • Loved your first few splashes… And then your author note came up :unamused: I hate author notes, I will never not tell someone to get rid of them, hence my advice being to scrap it. But at the end of the day, that’s your choice.

  • This feels very fast paced. I honestly feel like I’m watching Gilmore Girls, because all the characters on that show talk fast.

  • You’re lacking transitions. A simple transition fade in/out would look great for changing scenes.

  • In the flash back there’s a few errors.

  1. Chloe is walking on the spot
  2. When you pan to the other zone, it’s blank and then the characters pop in. Make sure to place them in their spots before you pan.
  3. Those extra characters are also far too big for where they’re standing. Use the houses as references to scale them down.
  • Woah, your first chapter was extremely short! I know you can’t publish unless you have 400 lines, but - not to scare you - people can actually get reported if it has less than 50 lines of dialogue. I think if we took out your author notes, you actually could be awfully close to 50-100 lines of dialogue.
  • I’d also say to not tell your readers how many lines you used. Most people are only readers, and have no idea how making an episode works so the comment about the lines will just seem pointless to them.
  • For the hair and lipstick change, it would be worth adding the props to go with it.
  • So many of your background characters at the Shoo Club are wearing beach clothes. Seems random.
  • The scene where Chloe and Logan start dancing is another case of characters popping in after the background is already there. Make sure you place them all at the same time using & instead of @ to avoid this.
  • You could probably merge episode 1 and 2 together to have a decent length-ed pilot episode.
  • I liked the OTS shot to start of episode 3, but I would suggest having it switch back and forth so we get to see Logan’s face too.
  • That was a clever way to have Chloe and Jane hi-5.
  • Chloe in bed, where you say you don’t have the night version… Why is her skin so overly tan now? Also, if you’ve got the night version, I’d recommend swapping that in now. Or if not, use the EFFECT DIM 60 overlay.
  • I think this is because I’ve recently got the new speech bubbles, but in episode 4 Chloe’s face is being covered by almost every bubble. You may want to go back and spot place them…
  • For the dream sequence, it might be better to go with a filter or a white transition so we can tell the difference. I was very confused until Jane actually said it was a dream.
  • Episode 5 was another very short episode. If you’re apologizing for it being short, that means you know it too so you should definitely go back and fill it up. Also, just another thing to take into consideration, instead of rushing to publish chapters for your readers that end up being short, take your time to make them longer and to give them more content. Your readers will be happy to wait and you’ll most likely gain new readers because of the quality. More people will give up on a rushed story over one that takes a while to update.
  • Chapter six started off with some really cute splashes.
  • I feel like I know what you were referring to when you said each chapter you learnt more - I’m now seeing the mirror scene… Just note though the Chloe’s reflection has a different lip colour.
  • You have some very nice custom backgrounds. I feel like there’s a good flow throughout Chloe’s house.
  • The zooms are sometimes a bit fast… Especially when Chloe meets Logan outside.
  • The ending of episode 6 was a bit of a blur. I think they might have been zoomed in to the wrong spots?

Overall, it’s not a bad effort. There’s definitely a few things that could use some work, but you’ve got a nice plot to work with. If you do take my advice, here’s some points of what I would suggest to do:

  1. Set the scene with every character placed before you pan to a zone.
    INT. BLACK - DAY
    &MIA13LA stands screen left in zone 2 AND MIA13LA faces right AND MIA13LA is shiftweight
    &AMBEROSE stand screen center in zone 2 AND AMBEROSE faces left
    @transition fade in black
    AMBEROSE (talk_shrug)
    Something like this is how it should be coded, for example.
    This needs to be done in the beach scene, the dance scene, the cheating scene and a few other scenes, but mostly those first three.
  2. Consider combining some of your episodes together. I’m coming from experience here. I recently revamped one of my contest entries. I brought the first half of episode 2 into episode 1, then added a bunch of new scenes to episode 2 and kept the episode 2 ending the same, then added more scenes to episode 3, as well as making another ending. It took most of my episodes from about 800 lines to 1600, and I feel like it improved the quality too. So I would recommend you do something similar to this. You could add in more scenes, or just combine some episodes together?

Those two points alone I think will really bring your story to the next level :slightly_smiling_face:

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