First story ever for contest!

K cool! I’ll read it and give you feedback : )

Cheers,
R.

Heyo, read your story. My first thoughts were:
“Huh, ain’t half bad.”

Things that bugged me:

  1. Some scripting errors. Pretty self explanatory, there was the occasional scripting error but some you could over look. Also, sometimes ACTORS would disappear and never show up.

  2. Grammatical/spelling errors. These are rare, so I can tell you made sure to double check the story a lot, but make sure to triple check, as there tends to be stragglers.

  3. Constant POV changes. I know that there are two main characters, and I like it when the story switches between them, but when you start adding in secondary character’s thoughts then it gets a little frustrating because you don’t know who’s talking/thinking or even who the real main character is. If you can just stick to the choice/inner dialogue to the main characters, that’d be swell (does anyone still use that word?).

  4. Excessive swearing. Now, there is the warning at the start of the chapters that there will be mature themes and swearing, but please do try to keep in mind that EPISODE is 13+. So you might need to tone it down a bit for the younger/the audience (I personally don’t like excessive swearing and it does turn me off as well as a couple of other authors/readers I know). Which brings me to…

  5. Wrong age limit. This story is more of a 15+ then a 13+, so you might have to put a 15+ on either the story cover or at the start of your chapters because it really isn’t suitable for the audiences that EPISODE says it’s for.

Things I enjoyed:

  1. The story. The story has some originality to it, for that, good job, imaginary gold star and highfive to the face. I actually did personally like it, it isn’t the best story ever and deserves a noble prize for best writing (very rare writers have stories at that level), but it is defiantly in the category that I possibly might read again or will continue to read.

  2. Characters. The characters are very life-like and do appeal to reality. And they aren’t all that shallow! Good job, another imaginary star and another highfive to the face. You can really see where they’re coming from, and can sort of feel for them, in future chapters however, I will advise you to have some more character development, as they readers will feel more attached to the characters.

  3. Directing. The directing in this is incredibly advanced, another gold star and highfive to the face. The directing is one of this story’s most best features I guess you can call it, it was very enjoyable the camera angles, the zooms and everything was just delightful to the eye, and to authors/people who have experience in writing/movie making. To me, the author part of my brain was VERY happy. So I’m very happy for this. Good job. I know how hard it is to write/direct the script.

  4. MALE MAIN CHARACTER. UGHHHHHHHHHHHHH you can’t know how glad I am! I love male characters, mainly because there’s basically none in EPISODE, so when I finally see one I’m really happy : ) . Wow, this story has made me very happy so far. Gold star and highfive to the face.

Things you could do to improve:

  1. Just keep rechecking your script/dialogue.

  2. Make sure to keep the POV on the main characters.

  3. Tone down the swearing unless it is 103% necessary.

  4. And either keep it 13+ or change the rating to 15+.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

All in all, it was a good read. It does need a little work, but it has promise. Just make sure to keep on working and writing, practice makes perfect, also, the little bugs here and there you might want to fix later on, they are small, but they’re still there. I don’t know, depends if you want to make it 103% bug free.

4 Gold stars and highfives to the face, not bad.

Cheers,
R.

Thank you so much for the review! I really appreciate you taking the time to read it and give me detailed feedback. I’m also happy to report that I didn’t need my tissue box while reading your review lol

I will double check for scripting errors; however, when you mentioned about actors disappearing, that’s got to be the glitch that is affecting pretty much all stories. I am reviewing several stories right now, and I’ve had to close and re-open several stories to continue reading the story without errors.

Thank you for pointing out about grammatical/spelling errors. I know a lot of people get offended by this, but I’m a non-native English speaker. Though I consider myself fluent, I know I still make mistakes, which is why I really appreciate when someone points them out to me. I’ll make sure to triple check!

Regarding the constant POV changes, that’s where I will have to disagree. I enjoy reading stories in which I can get inside pretty much every character’s mind. I understand that not everyone likes that, but that’s just what I personally like and don’t think I will be changing that in my writing style any time soon. But then again, we all like different things. :slight_smile:

I work in an inner city elementary school, at this point, cussing has lost its impact. After working here, I now find questionable what people think is and is not suitable for younger audiences, specially given what the kids I work with experience on an everyday day basis despite not even being 13. Nonetheless, it is true that not everyone is comfortable with swearing. I went back to my script and cut down the cussing significantly. The only character whose cuss count I don’t think I will be able to significantly alter is Gabe’s. I just can’t picture a non-cussing Gabe. I will take your advice and include a 15+ warning label.

Once again, thank you so much for taking the time to read and review my story. I am still reading all the stories that I promised to read. My goal is to send out all my reviews by tomorrow night. If for whatever reason you don’t hear back from me by then, please feel free to PM as many times as needed. I’m not gonna flake on you.

1 Like

bump because I have nothing better to do with my life.

Closing due to one month of inactivity :slight_smile: