Amberose's Live Thoughts on Your Stories

Ok, now that you’ve explained it more, I think I totally get what you were going for. With the layering thing - that makes sense now. I can’t remember if you used filters there or not, but in case you didn’t I’d recommend playing around with the hues so you can make the difference between reality and flashbacks/dreams really clear.

I’m looking forward to getting Roy to explain the narrator concept, and how Father Time. I feel like you said a few things just now that has sort of made me click so now I have a few theories :grin:

I think as long as those few errors you had get fixed (which it sounds like you’ve basically done now), then you’ll have the exact right amount of confusion left.

Also, thank you so much for reading my story. I saw you left fanmail! So sweet of you xx

@amberose
Thank you so much for doing this review! It’s so helpful. In terms of story direction, the plan is for the reader to go back and forth between Lindsay and Rebecca’s stories. But if that’s confusing, I could alternate it.

The old lady… can’t say much about her! :wink:

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You’re welcome!

I don’t think it needs to be altered. It clicked to me soon into episode 2 - it’s like showing two best friend’s different summers basically, right? Maybe just the intro needs to be restructured though?

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Oh ok! Yes that’s correct. Ok I can for sure work on making that smoother

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Hi!
I was wondering if you Could review my Story :slight_smile:

Style - Limelight
Genre - Drama

Author - Southampton23

Title - Tokyo Underground

Description - Takuro Lee is a terrifying force not to be reckoned with. Will his world crumble apart when he is forced to work with an agent who has the answer to one of his darkest secrets? CC

Cover

Link - http://episodeinteractive.com/s/4989611174133760

Please take as much time as you want :slight_smile:

There are 10 episodes but I’m totally not expecting you to read all of them.

Thanks in Advance!

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@paumarr - The Nation D: Moon Eyes

Hey, so before I start the review I just wanted to point out on your cover… The tag line She wasn’t who she think she was is half in past tense and half in present tense. You might want to change think to thought.

  • I liked how you started. The narration was good - it gave away the right amount of information without feeling too much like an info dump.

  • When the crowd enter the dessert, they all start off really and go down to size. It would look better to spot them offscreen so they start off at the right size.

  • In the hallway with the blue carpet, Heather looks too big when she’s walking up the corridor.

  • I think if you made your characters walk to suit their moods, it would really enhance their emotions. When Oliver and Heather have that argument, she should walk angrily and he should be sad or exhausted.

  • Be wary of looping animations. You’ve used them a lot for Lotti so she looks like she never stops talking

  • Cole just appears at the cabin, you need to have him enter.

  • Omg your cabin background is so cute.

  • And that hologram is to die for.

  • Grant and Heather get stuck on a talking loop when they’re sitting in the library.

  • Your first episode was a great length.

  • Not a fan of the author note… It’s just more like why bother telling readers they can customize next episode when they’re about to find out anyway? But that’s just my opinion.

  • when Grant finds the note, he should be scaled smaller so it looks like he’s closer to the bed, thus reaching for the note would look more believable.

  • I’m finding episode 2 a little confusing with Lotti’s official introduction. It’s just a bit hard for me to follow, but I’m sure it will make sense with future episodes.

  • To make Heather’s climb up the side of the house look smoother, I’d recommend zooming really close up instead of having a wide shot.

  • Heather isn’t wearing the outfit I chose when it gets to the next episode…

  • ohhhh she’s not supposed to be wearing the same outfit, I see…

  • When you introduce Karla, you say she fell in love with Grant… But Heather only just met Grant the other day at the library.

  • OOh, I liked that plot twist with Rosco. You caught me off guard, I would have never expected him.

  • I’m just going to do like a half way point overall thought while loading episode 4… So I am not really sure what this is about. I feel like I was given this great explanation about Zort at the beginning and it hasn’t really come into the plot all that much since then. I get it’s this fantasy/futuristic world they live in, but I’m just not sure what direction the plot is going? Is is about Lotti being found? Is it about Heather passing out? Is it about them suddenly trying to escape? Is it about Oliver being crazy? So far all of these things have been touched on, but briefly, so it’s hard to make a connection between them all, when it feels like we’re jumping from plot point to plot point. Of course, this is just from the first three episodes, so there’s still time for them to all connect.

  • Aha, the Nation D now makes sense - I was going to ask about that, but now I don’t have to.

  • I really liked how you did the transporting scene to the desert.

  • Especially when Oliver came in. Your sound was perfectly timed for that.

  • When all the screaming is happening, the speech bubbles aren’t pointing to the characters when they talk - not sure if this is because I have the new speechbubbles or if you forgot to reset them after spot directing them.

  • Very clever using the spotlight to do scanning. Great improvising.

  • I wouldn’t bother telling readers about what choice will make the episodes longer, especially because I think your lengths are spot on.

  • Episode 4 felt like a higher standard compared to the first 3. I just felt like the use of overlays, custom backgrounds and directing really enhanced the story line. It does sort of make the first three episodes feel like they were filler though :thinking:

  • The dream sequence was directed very well.

  • I have a feeling since Nation A aren’t confirmed to be dead, they might come into this again.

  • You say “We already know this part so let’s skip it” but rather than breaking forth wall you could use the iris transition to show the passing of time?

  • I noticed you put the date you first published episode 6. Not sure if you’ve done this for others and I haven’t noticed, but that’s pretty handy.

  • Wow at those capsule things.

So I think the only real thing you need to fix up is having character enter and exit scenes which makes them grow to their default sizes. It doesn’t look right since you spot placed most scenes.

I found the second half of the story a lot more engaging than the first. Not to say there was anything wrong with the first three episodes, I just felt like even though they were long, they didn’t contribute too much to get the plot moving. So keep that in mind if you decide to go back and make changes. A lot of people don’t like being told “it gets better after x amount of episodes”, so make sure you have your first half meet the quality of your second half.

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Hey, I’d be happy too. I think I’ve read the description on another thread before. Or maybe it was simply mentioned on another thread. It was a while ago, but the name definitely rings a bell. Just thought I’d say that lol…

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@gisellec - Demigodess

Since I’ve already done a review for you, I’m sure I don’t need to express how I feel about author notes haha.

  • Director (whether he’s important or not) looks too defaultish for my taste.
  • Lol at your LGBTQ warning.
  • I noticed these are the same splashes as your other story. Nothing wrong with that, although I always have fun making everything different for each of my stories, so I guess I’m a little surprised to see someone keep it the same.
  • So since I vaguely know what this story is about, the opening scene is quite fitting I think.
  • I feel like there’s a bit of an awkward pause between each character talking. I think it’s because you’re giving them animations once they’ve said their lines, so it uses up a beat. Make sure to use ‘&’ to prevent this.
  • Christian asks for her name, but the teacher already said it when she was telling him where to sit.
  • Hmmm, nice ending to episode 1. It’s intriguing.
  • Lol, just noticed your note about the LL splashes… Although by the time you publish, you’d have them done anyway, right?
  • The way Christian tells her she’s a demigod really bothered me. He was too chill. Tbh, that’s not your fault. It’s the walking talking animations. Quite frankly, they suck. You might want to consider changing that to a scene where they can stand and actually show accurate emotions.
  • MC is very easily swayed. Me in real life being told I am a demigod would need a lot more persuading for me to believe it.

And that’s me basically up to date. It’s pretty good so far, it’s just the walking-talking scene I’d suggest changing. MC should kind of be freaking out at this point but she can’t because of the lack of emotions in the animations.

Thank you so much for this review, and I’ll be working on the points you told me to!

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lol, Maybe you have :slight_smile:

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You’re welcome

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@Ezz - Getting Out There

  • I like how this starts off. I wouldn’t be able to tell it’s your first story from the opening scene.

  • Just be careful of doing an information dump. Narrator bubbles are handy to give a back story but you don’t want to have 7 narrator bubbles in a row explaining something when you could be showing it instead.

  • The I wasn’t capitalized in “I love this place”.

  • So far, your directing has been flawless, which is why when Dave and Daisy are about to go to sleep, I would recommend using some unique angles and zooms, so you don’t have to show them “walking” on to the bed and then suddenly be laying down. Do you get what I mean?

  • Well, you probably know how I feel about author notes, but at least your author note had purpose, lol. And since you as an author has blue hair, I’m wondering if this is like a semi-autobiography?

  • For the narrator bubbles that are Daisy’s thoughts, make sure to have it as NARRATOR (DAISY) so it comes up above the bubble.

  • Oh, mrs Dinklehoff is quite the character! :smiley:

  • When Dave and Daisy go to get her clothes, Dave seems a bit too tall, like his head might hit the roof. Try scaling them a bit smaller.

  • After the picture, the fade transition seemed to flash for a second, and then it did a slower fade right after.

  • When Chris sits down on the couch, he too also looks a little big.

  • I’m not sure if you want me to go one to episode 3, since you mentioned you were still writing it, but I’m going to anyway.

  • So when Dave gets the door, he’s looking like a giant compared to the door!

  • I love that you added the lipstick and brush props!

  • I’m guessing I’m up to the bit where you’re still working on it, because there’s a few things off in the bar scene - Damien being offscreen and BG characters not being animated. Plus the wrong layers when Dave goes to get the drinks with Jack.

  • So yeah, I quite liked that. I’m interested to see what kind of twist and turns you throw in there. And even after all that, I still can’t believe that is your first story. There was virtually no errors! Great effort.

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@Penspaperanddreams1 - Agent 99

  • So with the character avatar, my character didn’t show up? I thought this was due to the glitch though, so I tried to exit but it wouldn’t let me without customizing and then it when back to the story anyway, so I have no idea what happened there.

  • Ooh, spotlight. It’s been a while since I’ve read spotlight. I know most people hate it, but I find it alright.

  • “Hot stranger” lol.

  • Hmmm, I like how these points seem to work. I’ve only got one, but a culture point is not something you come across in just any episode story.

  • Some of your transitions look like they’re fade ins, when they should be fade outs.

  • I mean, the cheating this was kind of expected. But I like how you did it, making MC thinking she was going to get proposed to.

  • Well well well, did not see this turning into a heist!!!

  • And did not see that plot twist from Luke! I’m really enjoying this so far.

  • Police1 and Police2 are not the best display names to have hahaha. Nor is suspect 1 and suspect 2

  • Episode 2 felt on the short side, but that might just be the illusion of having a fast paced arc.

  • I feel like… if these tappable overlays become a thing, you could totally add an overlay of the red baseball cap so people can actually get clues.

  • When Cassidy’s calling, one of the lines she says does not have a capital “I” I tapped too quick before I could copy the line, but it was the second dialogue in their conversation I believe.

  • MC seems to be totally ok with her new circumstances all of a sudden. If it were me, I’d still be demanding answers!

  • The beginning of episode 4 threw me off. I was so confused. Am I watching the sneak peak for elemental?

  • I have a tendency to be an idiot when it comes to writing in answers, so I was just doing stupid answers not realizing it was a password. Haha.

  • Wait wait wait. Episode 4 was just a sneak peak? I have to say, that’s not cool. I thought it was going to move on to the actual episode…

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Thank you so much for your comments!!

You make some great points, and it makes me super happy to read you cannot tell it is my first story.

I am definitely going to try and change the things you pointed out (If I can figure out how, lol)
Scaling is definitely an issue, since you keep mentioning people are giants haha.

Reading your comment about Mrs. dinklehoff seriously made me laugh out loud and so happy haha.

It’s not really auto biographic, But her character definitely has me wrtitten all over it, and some stuff are kind of inspired by things that have happened to me.

Thanks again! Your review is super helpful and put a smile on my face! xx

edit: @amberose , do you happen to have an idea for the angles and zooming in the bedscene you were talking about? I have no idea how to best handle this…

Aw I’m glad I could help.

For the bed scene, if it were me, maybe zoom in on the legs, have them do tinker_loop_rear or whatever it’s called right beside the bed so it looks like they’re getting the sheets ready. Then have them lie down and at the same time cut your zoom again to them lying down.

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Hi, I’m a bit new to all this, so I’d just like to know if I’m on the right track. Sorry there’s not more content to look at, I just want to know if I’ve kinda got the basics down before I go any farther with this.

Style - Limelight
Genre: - Drama
Author - HannahTeresa
Title - Bloodlines
Description - As 18 year-old Alyssa Patel struggles with her father’s second marriage, an ancient calling reveals that her new family is not only more than human, but also on the brink of war.

Only one episode, and I’m debating on whether or not to make it longer. No cover yet, unfortunately.

Link - http://episodeinteractive.com/s/6663565548584960

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Hey there!

Thanks for making this thread! :blush:

A few days ago I published my first story. I would appreciate it if you read it and give me your genuine feedback. :nerd_face:

I’m working on this story about a year and a half and now I’m revamping the episodes before publishing, so any recommendations/improvements are more than welcome!

Thank you in advance.

P.S: English isn’t my first language, but I’m trying my best.

Title: Different Worlds
Author: dkr_episodes
Genre: Rom-Com
Description: That sassy mouth of yours, puts you in more trouble than you thought. Especially since Gabe Milinghton, a sexy jerk, has set his eyes on you. This ain’t be good, honey.
Link: http://episodeinteractive.com/s/5829240774459392

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@southampton23 - Tokyo Underground

  • I love how your splashes fit the theme of your story.

  • What a great intro! I have always wanted to see a type of “Let’s rewind and find out” story, so I really enjoyed that.

  • I see a lot of default BG characters, some which you have changed a few features of and some which are just plain default. It bothers me, but not enough to stop reading.

  • When Azana opens the door, you need to scale her smaller so she looks like she’s actually close to the door.

  • I like how you’re doing your character intros.

  • Nice map!

  • I liked the ending of episode 1, and your sounds so far have been on point.

  • Just so you know, your splash for the Olympus story is zoomed in and in grey from the ending of episode 1 though. Same with your IG splash.

  • At the beginning of episode 2, the plane passenger appears in the scene, after the transition.

  • If I were to guess, I’d say you wrote this a while ago, because the dresses at the party are not the mot glamorous ones LL has to offer anymore. Hahaha.

  • I don’t know if this is a result of the new speech bubble styles, but there are a lot of speechbubbles that point to the wrong person. I think the new speechbubbles have the wrong default positions tbh, so may not have to worry about it because I think episode is fixing this.

  • After showing the front page, Azana is still doing the kiss rear animation for a second in the bar.

  • This isn’t a big deal, but I notice with outfit choices, sometimes you have both words starting with a capital and sometimes not. Like this:
    Something Cute
    Something casual
    Something dressy
    So it might look better to make that all consistent.

  • The ghost (?) overlay of that girl appeared in the bedroom in the bottom left corner for a second when it first opened the bedroom scene.

  • I feel like I’m mostly pointing out the occasional error, so I just want to assure you I’m actually enjoying it, I just don’t have any speculations to comment yet, so I don’t want you to think I’m only focusing on the errors.

  • Edward when hugging his mum, is stuck on a talking looping animation.

  • Chip needs to be moved back a layer when he comes into Azala’s room and watches her on the computer.

  • There’s been a few transitions that have been kind of jumpy. May want to check that all fade out transitions are at the end of scenes and that the fade in ones are used for opening up a scene.

  • I loved your motorbike scene. Perfect animation for the steering!

  • Where I’m up to now, there’s a lot of characters entering/exiting to and from sides but going to a spot placement. So they’re really small when they’re in place, but enter/exit at default size. It would look better if you placed them at the right size of screen and just had them walk to and from the spots.

  • There’s also been a few scene changes where it starts of zoomed in on the wrong spot and then adjusts itself.

  • The shooting scene was amaaaaazing!

  • The same overlay thing that happened with the ghost, happened again with the hospital room overlay. I think what might be happening is you haven’t swapped all your “@” commands to “&” commands. Just make sure you check over and have all directing and spot placements with “&” before the scene starts.

  • I’m thinking the “bad guy” could be Edward’s dad maybe.

  • I’m also thinking James isn’t dead, because we got to customize him and he hasn’t been too heavily featured yet so that’s why I’m thinking there’s still more there.

  • Idk if you’d want to go back and change this or not, but since there now is LL police uniforms, you have that option now.

  • I’m laughing at Edward’s mini author/narrator note. I feel like it’s kind of making fun of author notes, but also kind of accurate ahahaha.

  • Ooh, Glitch Girl reference.

  • That dartboard though…

  • I really liked how you did that plane crash.

  • Claps for the crawling through the vent!!! Thank goodness for that animation release.

  • Ok, so I’m up to date now. I kinda stopped writing so many notes towards the end because I already figured out what to say in a little paragraph, so…

Your story was great, really interesting. It was nice to see something in the drama genre that wasn’t relying on romance for the drama. There were a few errors scattered throughout your episodes. They weren’t bad enough that I think anyone would stop reading, so you could get away with leaving them. However, if you want to make your episodes perfect, the top three errors I kept seeing were:

  1. Transitions - fading out when it should have been a fade in or a double transition as if it were written in the script twice.
  2. Overlays showing up in the scene for a split second then going into place. Check that all things are placed with “&” before fading a scene in.
  3. Having sentences with random capital letters - For example, I don’t Understand! You need To tell him… I just wanted to Let You know… (these are just random examples). I noticed this particular error in the more recent episodes.

But yeah, overall it was a really good story. Can’t imagine why the readers from your other story haven’t all checked this one out too :thinking:

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@HannahTeresa - Bloodlines

Hey Hannah!

This sound super interesting, so I’m excited to read.

  • TW: Domestic Violence… What it TW?
  • I thought it was good you included some class content - a lot of people use a school as a convenient way to have characters all be in the same place, but with Lyss having her dream it made the class scene feel significant.
  • I think you need Ruby to faces right a bit earlier than when she actually did.
  • Your legal jargon was good.
  • I suggest scaling Lyss and her dad smaller when they’re behind the desk at the court room.
  • Well, I’m not sure if that’s where your planning on ending episode 1 or if that’s just me catching up, but it was a bit short. If you think about the content, not enough happened yet.

Anyway, it looks like you’re on the right track :slightly_smiling_face: So keep it up

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Could you review my story? I’m so curious to see what you think of it lol.
Here are the details…

Title: From This Day Forward
Author name: goth.gaia
Style: INK
Genre: Romance
Description: After your disastrous wedding day, you decide to start fresh: new city, new you, no drama- or so you hoped. Will you say “I do” to the chaos or leave it at the altar? CC
Link: http://episodeinteractive.com/s/5073385564536832
Small cover:

Large cover:

I published 6 episodes (more to come), but don’t feel like you have to read them all. Thank you! :two_hearts:

1 Like