@Jurevicha - Midnight Memories
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Well, if you’ve read my OP and some of the other reviews I’ve done here, you can guess what I’m about to say - the author note! If you really must address the audience, can I suggest not to list excuses? Don’t tell your readers that English isn’t your first language and don’t tell them there’s no advance directing. It sounds like you’re putting down your story. Instead, skip it all together. Maybe do some splashes or a moving intro of sorts? An author’s note is really not needed anyway.
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Ok, so I’m fine with limited CC but you say you recommend for people to leave it on the gold choices anyway? To me, that sort of defeats the purpose. Sure there are some annoying people who refuse to read unless there’s CC, but if you envision your story with certain characters, I say leave it and don’t even offer CC.
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My final note on the first episode is… Well, the fact that your first episode was just that. An author’s note and limited CC (that you don’t even sound keen on including) is not the best way to draw your readers in. Can I ask why you didn’t also include some of the storyline in the first episode?
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With the characters introductions, it does get a bit tedious to have them all explained in one conversation. Then when we’re taking to the cafeteria, Ayla can already tell who is who? I think either introducing them at the cafeteria or maybe having Naomi show “photos” of them (you could just use screenshots for this or the overlays that episode provides) would keep the story’s pace moving.
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What? Who hates flashbacks? Also, who cares if someone doesn’t like a flashback? It’s your story.
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In the flashback, be wary of your BG characters. One of them is at the wrong layer so their arm is covering someone else’s. Also consider changing up their style? A few of them just look too much like the default characters. It only takes a few seconds to change some of the features to make them look brand new.
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Lilly’s layer! She needs to be a higher number than Ayla since she’s in front.
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Ok, so I felt the flashback ended up relying a bit too much on narration. It didn’t really grip me and it was just a lot of info in one go. Ayla went from dork to bully to anorexic to bullied dork again.
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Don’t forget to animate your BG characters. Looping animations are great for this.
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So I read anorexic in your story’s description and I was wondering how you would incorporate it in… The thing is you didn’t have the best trigger warning for it in your actual story. You had the generic splash, but possibly should add a little something before it goes into that scene too. Or maybe even an choice to skip.
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If I’m completely brutally honest, I really wasn’t happy with how you approached the eating disorder in your story. Mental health is always hard to include in stories because it’s so sensitive for some people. Unfortunately, not everyone will agree with how authors decide to portray it, and for you… I am one of those people. It’s just a personal subject for me, so I am particular with how it is represented and honestly I usually choose to pass on stories like this because I know I will just get frustrated with them. (Sorry). That’s not to say all people will disagree with your portrayal, it’s just what your story describes is very different to my IRL-not-episode-story/experiences with this.
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If you want my advice on how you could better approach the subject, try not making the eating disorder all about the boyfriend. In fact, you could cut out a lot of the bullying parts of the flashback and instead show how much pressure Ayla was under to keep up her popularity, to do well on the swim team, and show how everyone feared her so she started to feel like she didn’t have any real friends… and then the constant teasing from her boyfriend could be like the straw that broke the camels back…
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I’ve been noticing you haven’t been using too many zooms. It’s handy to add them in scenes where you have one character talking, and another just standing there listening, because you can zoom in on the talking one so that your readers won’t get distracted by the listening one who’s kind of frozen.
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Nothing major, but including in the choice which one is longer/better kind of defeats the purpose. Why don’t you let your readers be surprised?
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Your layers were wrong when Ayla went to kiss Kyle…
Check out this guide to help you with layers, since it seems to be a reoccurring thing. -
I’m in the middle of episode 5 now, and I’m noticing your directing is getting more advanced. You’ve added pans and zooms. Maybe consider adding them to your first three episodes and then you can take out your disclaimer at the beginning about basic directing hehe
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Episode 6 in the cafeteria, a weird thing happened with all your characters popping in one by one… Just check your script to see if your coding is all good… It happened both times that background was used.
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I’m really confused at what’s happening in the girl’s bedroom - It looks strange that Ayla isn’t facing rear and there’s a few layers that have gotten mixed up.
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Another thing with the author’s note… It’s great that your directing is getting better, but if that’s the case and you think the directing isn’t as good in earlier episodes, why not go back once you’ve learned how to do new directing tricks? I still do that with my old stories and spruce them up whenever I have discovered I can now code something a lot cooler haha. Adding some things in now will help draw in more readers and make them want to continue.
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I just got a weird feeling that Kyle might actually be someone famous… A singer perhaps? There’s been a few Shawn Mendes song references…
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In the movies, it gets a little dizzy with the panning back and forth. After the first 2 or 3 times, it would look better just to cut back and forth instead. Same in the next scene with the car.
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So Ayla wakes up wearing different clothes the next day… Just check your if/else coding and gains. There might be a simple typo.
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The 10 second kiss … um is Kevin supposed to be wearing the swimmers? I’m guessing he was used in the flashback scene by the pool and you forgot to change him back?
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The only issue I have with Miles liking her for two years is… Aren’t they on rehab? Does that mean they’ve been struggling with ED for two years with no improvement? Or did they know each other before? Or what? What’s their backstory?
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I really like how your outfit choices have been broken up into three styles: sporty, casual or classy.
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When we did CC for Naomi, her lips were covered by the other options so I couldn’t see what colour I was picking for her when it was the bright colours tab
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I’m a little unclear why her ex was specifically at the dance… America was explained, but isn’t she in rehab?
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Not a fan of the slight slut shaming during two truths and a lie. That could have been a good opportunity to point out the double standards in that guys are “players” while girls are “hoes”… But instead Ayla just rolled with it? Annoyed especially at the way Kyle seemed like he didn’t want that truth to be a truth either. Like he’s one to judge.
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Look who wants to say hi? AHAHAHAHA
Perfect animation for it too lol -
I meant to write this down but forgot at the time… So a couple episodes ago (I’m up to 13 now) in your author note you said sorry if you don’t like it because they were just talking? Look, if you’re going to do an author’s note DON’T put down your story. You should be proud of what you’re publishing and not worrying about what her people won’t like it just because it’s talking. All I’m saying is don’t worry about these kind of author notes! They make it sound like you don’t believe in yourself.
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This is me being extra picky, but Kyle takes off her shoes and then when she’s walking I can see she’s still wearing them
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Also, I’m wondering where this is going now. Past three episodes they have been pretty loved up… I still remember in one of the earlier episodes he alluded to the fact he was hiding something … I’m waiting for that to come back around…
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I found it so weird that Ayla was angry at Kyle for stopping her from kissing what’s-his-face. Like it was Kyle’s birthday and she kissed someone else, and then she was mad at him? But he had every right to stop them. It was his birthday!!!
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So I wasn’t going to say anything about the oral scene because I figured it was vague enough that it would go over most people’s heads and it was kind of funny. (I laughed so much at his comments about finishing his meal, etc.) But when Ayla was doing it and the blankets came down to show where her head was at… that was probably too far…
For reference, here’s what you’re allowed to do according to the guidelines that
I found on forums:
In saying that, I’ve also read somewhere (but I can’t find it at the moment) that your characters can be kissing on screen then strip down, then you can do a fade out so your readers can assume what happened… and then once you fade back in, they can make small referenced to it (eg. “that was amazing”) but you can’t be explicit (eg. the way you [ate your meal] during sex was so good!)… And in saying that again, featured stories tend to go beyond that nowadays too, so it’s a bit of a grey area. But maybe just keep this in the back of your mind, since people could report your story for this EVEN THOUGH featured stories have been worse… I think that you should maybe not have the blanket reveal where Ayla’s head is at though. Everything else shouldn’t be a problem for others in my opinion - still reportable, but nothing that will get your story removed, just something that Episode might message you and ask you to change.
So I quite enjoyed your story if I looked past the rehab element to it… which was just something I had to do, because the way you represented it doesn’t match my experience and my truth. Sorry I hope you understand that. I’m sure other people may like your portrayal and relate to it, but I guess everyone’s experience is different, so if this is something you’ve gone through and this is your truth, then don’t take my words to heart, since we both must just have different experiences. However if this is not something you’ve gone through and you want to change it to be more realistic, feel free to ask me questions and I can share my experiences 
In terms of the romance, I liked our two main characters and how their relationship developed slowly! That was great to see. For your directing, your biggest and only real issue is the layers! It was more problematic in the first half of chapters, but I did notice a few minor slip up with layers in some of the later episodes too