Honest & Detailed Story Reviews Here! 👈🏼 (OPEN)

[claire.epy]

EDIT: OH MY JESUS. EXAMS, EXAMS, EXAMS. I swear on my GRAVE that I WILL eventually make it through all y’all’s stories. Oh my goodness, y’all, I apologize. -sweats feverishly- I’m going through so many issues right now, and I sincerely thank you guys for being super duper patient with my slow ass.

In summary, your review will probably take a really, really, REALLY long time. And I’m eternally sorry

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Hey guys! Here in this thread, I’ll only be doing thorough reviews of your story. These will be entirely honest, unbiased reviews that are respectful, but won’t hesitate to let y’all know any mistakes I think you can work on. Just post a link/screenshot and a brief description of your story below! I guess you can technically promote your stories here as well, but this is more of a personal review than it is a promotion thread.

For promoting your story and a guaranteed R4R from me, check out this thread

Let’s Promote Our Stories and Support Small Authors! (10k reads and under only!)

Please note that these reviews are entirely my opinion and you do NOT need to go through with my feedback. If you are unsatisfied with the score I give you, please don’t think I am trying to discourage you from writing. Anyone can improve— I’m just trying to help you, and I have the best intentions

Here is the rubric I use for reviewing a story:

For these reviews, I will read the first three chapters and score those as a whole, not individually. However, I’ll let you know if there were any chapters in particular that stood out or need to be improved. Since there are five categories, the final score will be out of 50 points. And who knows? If I end up really liking your story, I’ll add it to my favorites, and you’ll gain another loyal reader

My Instagram: @claire.epy

I’d also love some feedback on my new story as well! If you’re interested, here’s the link: http://episodeinteractive.com/s/5791197795057664
Description: When a case turns personal, a rookie police detective gets more than what she signed up for— a city with a bloody and escalating gang war, inner rivalries, and romantic intrigue.

**NOTE: I did update my story just today, so if you’d like to check it out, it’d be greatly appreciated!

Reviews I’m working on (in order)

• Twisted (REVIEW COMPLETE)
• Tribe of Malapinchi (REVIEW COMPLETE)
• Alone Till There Was You (REVIEW COMPLETE)
• Living Among The Dead by @Eva_Diva1 (REVIEW COMPLETE)
• Girls Just Wanna Have Fun by @MKiara (REVIEW COMPLETE)
• Hotel Moreno by @B.Carlton (REVIEW COMPLETE)
• Blind Date With Millionaire by @Senada (REVIEW COMPLETE)
• Mystery on Hanging Hill Lane by @Marshmallow_O (REVIEW COMPLETE)
• Love’s a Game by @B.Carlton (REVIEW COMPLETE)
• The Murder of Elizabeth Thomas by @maya8447 (REVIEW COMPLETE)
• MC: Between Worlds by @BadBoyBillionaireBBB (REVIEW COMPLETE)
• MC: Accidentally expected by @Jane.s1 (REVIEW COMPLETE)
• Unexpected Lesbian Romance by @gbxby
• Dangerous Temptation by @G_vanessa
• Behind Closed Doors by @Januva
• Blossoming From Zero by @Dorkiedork04
• Taken: Dead or Alive by @Rose.xo_97
• Tied Together by @molly247
• Trying by @PrincesTiger
• My Bad Boy Love by @Black_Widoowx
• MC: The Bar on 23rd by @Dr.Smile07
• Too Late by @ttelizabeth.epi
• The Royal Princess by @mollie.stories
• A dangerous game by @shanen
• To the stars and further by @Fatima.s
• The Unexpected by @baddie_bliss
• Queen by @STEFFI01
• Teacher or Queen? by @mystique_writer
• Beauty in Melancholy by @Clotho
• Inner Circle by @zapcV
• Rich Girls Cry Too by @avajosefine
• Hale Huna by @AnonymousAuthor1
• One Day by @elliewrites.episode
• Love Always Finds A Way by @Lillahbee96
• Scars by @xinxmyxeye
• The House Party by @gremlin.writes
• New Life Abroad by @epi_alifah
• Lost in Space by @VeronicaWrites
• The Star Necklace by @Maya6
• Modern Day by @episodekaia
• Valour by @thegreennebula.ep

[Aims1141]

Hey! Do you review unpublished stories?

[claire.epy]

Yes, I do

[Aims1141]

Great! Could you review two episodes as I haven’t completed episode 3!

Title: Compulsion
Author: Aimee.A
Description: Zyro Morte is sent on death row. He’s given the chance to extend his time after the FBI need him for a mission. Simple? One problem, he has to jeopardize his soulmates family!?
Genre: Romance, comedy and action!
Link: http://episodeinteractive.com/s/6725446713540608

Thanks again!

[Astro.duxst]

Could you give my story a review?? You can be as brutal as you want, I will not take it personally. I really just want to improve. Also thank you in advance!!
Name: MC: All My Past Lover
Genre: Romance
Subgenre: Comedy
Description: You’ve been single for years, but now your best friend has just joined the club. In attempts to help her find a rebound, you end up running into all the boys from your past!

Cover

Art cover by @ ItarraAki

Link: http://episodeinteractive.com/s/4965475959242752

[manand61]

@claire.epy Hi! I like your rubric
I would like a review from you please?

Description:
Was I naive… or guilty? Honest… or a liar? Maybe you can be a better judge of it than me. But listen to this story carefully. It’s quite… Twisted.

Link: http://episodeinteractive.com/s/6469597339189248

[claire.epy]

I just read two chapters of your story! Here’s my review for your story thus far!

PLOT

When I read the description, I was immediately intrigued! A criminal riding along with the FBI for a shot of living for another year? A mixed genre story? This seemed interesting already!

One of my main criticisms was the incredibly slow pacing in this story. It was more noticeable in chapter 1 and improved in chapter 2, but there were a lot of moments that did not flow with the scene before and disrupted the pacing. The pace of the beginning of both chapters started out excellent, then dragged out as the chapter moved along. There were a lot of periods of dialogue in which I felt like nothing was really happening. I understand that introducing characters and making the readers feel comfortable and familiar with them is vital, but I found issues with certain characters (I’ll elaborate more on that later in the “character” section).

The plot, however, stood out so much! I loved how instead of going for the traditional bad boy/gang/criminal romance stories, you put a comedic aspect on it. Great job!

PLOT: 8/10

CHARACTERS
I loved Zyro so much! Every scene with him was the most enjoyable to read. I particularly love the interactions with him and Julian-- you managed to make those two flow so well together, and the comedy aspects of the story shine their brightest when it’s used on these two. Kendra was quite quirky and fun as well (at least, according to the choices I made), although I didn’t feel nearly connected to her as I did to Zyro.

On the other hand, one character that I didn’t really care for was Salma. Her interactions with Kendra were very wooden and didn’t flow well. She felt very OOC as well, going from chapter one to chapter two. Judging from the dialogue in chapter one, Salma seemed more reserved and stoic, while in chapter two, I felt she was written as bright and spunky.

Going back to the point I made in the “plot” section, certain flat characters didn’t help with the slow pacing of the chapter. It kinda made some scenes of the chapters feel rather pointless and uneventful. Try to establish solid traits for characters like Salma and build on those for the rest of the story to avoid character inconsistencies and create more intimate, dimensional characters. By doing this, the pacing errors of the story will be less evident by nitpicky readers (like me haha).

CHARACTERS: 8.5/10

DIRECTING
And here is directing, probably my favorite section to review haha Anyway, I loved the background and overlays you used. The spot directing was really creative as well-- the train station in chapter one, for example, was a really good example of what good directing can do to drastically improve a story! I also loved the zooms you used during conversations; they really do help keep the readers engaged, especially in long conversations! One criticism I do have is that some of the scene transitions were excellent and flowed perfectly to the next scene, others felt out place. Maybe adjust the scenes a bit to have some more buildup before the next @transition command.

DIRECTING: 9/10

GRAMMAR
The story description has a couple of errors, so you may want to polish those up (it can be a real turnoff for first impressions). While the story itself didn’t have drastic errors, there were some consistent errors with comma, apostrophe, and hyphen use. Some of the sentences were also phrased really awkwardly, which makes it harder for readers to be engaged. Haha, I loved that note at the beginning saying that Grammarly could fail you. Grammarly is a great tool for fixing run-of-the-mill errors, but I’d strongly recommend proofreading it again yourself or getting someone else to do it for you if you struggle with grammar.

GRAMMAR: 6.5/10

CHOICES
I felt like there weren’t enough choices in either of the chapters. I liked how one of the choices mattered in chapter one, but I didn’t really feel like the story was interactive enough. Personally, I don’t mind a lack of choices too much, but I know it can detract readers. Also, it sorta defeats the whole purpose of this app if there aren’t enough choices that make the reader feel like they did something that mattered.

CHOICES: 5/10

FINAL SCORE: 37/50

[JannahJackson]

Um I’m not sure if you’ve read my story before… I think you have though but I’ve lost track on who’s who lol. My story is Tribe of Malapinchi…

[Bethany1]

Title: Alone Till There Was You
Episodes: 8 (9 out soon)
Romance
About: Summer is a single mother who believes life is looking up for her, but what happens when the one she’s falling for lies to her?
Link: http://episodeinteractive.com/s/6668287837339648

[Eva_Diva1]

I would love a review

My story is called Living Among The Dead by Eva.T
Description: A war between two corrupted cults, a man with a secret and you caught in the storm of love, survival and friendship.

Cover

I’m not looking for more reads but a detailed review. I’ve applied for some but hardly ever get a response back

[claire.epy]

I’ve read two chapters of your story, but I didn’t really give a detailed review of the first three chapters. I’ll post a review for you here

[JannahJackson]

Oh sure. So youve already read before I posted on this thread? Okiesss Yeah sure you can post here.

[MKiara]

Hey I think you might’ve read my story but not sure lol

My Story: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Description: Every girl has their own story. Kiara, Willow, Samantha, and Sooyoung are 4 very different and unique girls. Follow them as they grow up and discover first love, pain and what true friendship means.

[Aims1141]

Ahh! Thank you so much! I’m kinda happy with my score How do I speed up the pacing? (Regardless of Salma!) Also, as a generic reader would you read again?

[claire.epy]

I’ve already read your story and given you feedback. But if you’d like another review here, that will be fine with me

[claire.epy]

My advice would be to make the scenes feel like they mean something to the reader. You can either do this by implementing something in the scenes that you think will keep the readers hooked (revealing something important to the plot, creatively introducing an important character, etc.) I know you can’t write every scene in a chapter as super important to the plot, so for those points in the chapters you can add creative directing, interesting dialogue, and/or choices (they don’t really have to matter, but it keeps the story interactive at least). The plot is really interesting, so yes, I would read again There were some really great moments in the story, and it has a lot of potential

[Aims1141]

Ah! So you’re saying if I make the story more interactive or intriguing through dialogue during scenes, it speeds up the chapter? I’m just worried that I’ll be dragging the chapters too much without realising! I really don’t want my story to be unlikable.

[MKiara]

Thanks I added a new chapter too plus this kind of review looks really great!!

[claire.epy]

I just read three chapters of your story. Here’s my review!

PLOT

Not gonna lie, my first impressions were “great, another cliche story about ex’s coming back into the MC’s life.” I’m not a huge fan of overdone, generic, cliche stories, but I was proven to be wrong pretty quickly! You added a great comedic twist on this genre that fits into the story so well! The pacing was pretty great— nothing felt too rushed, and nothing felt like it was dragging on for too long. One criticism I have is that the cliffhangers, especially the ones in chapter one and two, should have more buildup. For example, in chapter one, when Mabel’s phone was going crazy, that sorta just happened out of… nowhere. It happened so suddenly, that I didn’t really have time to feel the buildup and get hooked. Cliffhangers are super important and are what make the readers want to keep going, so make sure you work on that.

Also, I felt the introduction in chapter one had too much narration. I would’ve liked proper flashbacks with a bit of dialogue thrown in to make it feel more real. Adding dialogue, imo, lets the readers find out what happened in the story in a more unique way. In contrast, narration is sorta more monotone and can more easily cut straight to the chase, which doesn’t really fit the purpose of writing. Find a creative way to tell the story to entice readers!

PLOT: 8.5/10

CHARACTERS

The MC and her friend were really well-written! Mabel and Esperanza have great chemistry with dialogue that just flowed so naturally between them. Totally feeling the BFF vibe between them and love it.

On the other hand, I wasn’t feeling the love interests at all. Maybe the narration in chapter one contributed to this, but I just did not care what happened to them. This was one of the reasons why I suggested a more creative way of introducing the characters— by providing proper insight into the MC’s past encounters with these love interests through creative dialogue, it will make the readers care about these love interests 10000x more. I really hope you will elaborate on them more in future chapters, or fix the introduction a bit

CHARACTERS: 7.5/10

DIRECTING

Oh my, the directing in this story is amazing! It’s generally not flashy or over the top, but I can tell there’s a lot of creativity being implemented here! The intro before every episode is super cute and fun. The overlays you used were great and made sense in the context of the story! The creative zooms, spot directing, etc. just worked so well together! One minor criticism I have is that the text effects are sometimes too much. I understand people like to use them to highlight important parts of the story or really flash out to the audience to emphasize the dialogue, but it’s a peeve of mine when the effects get too flashy and start taking away from the dialogue. I’d suggest cutting back on them a bit or start using more simpler effects.

DIRECTING: 9/10

GRAMMAR

The grammar was pretty good, but I noticed consistent errors usually involving commas. Wrong grammar can be a real turnoff for a lot of readers, so just brush up on that a bit.

GRAMMAR: 8.5/10

CHOICES
I felt like there weren’t enough choices in any of the chapters. I appreciate the use of points system to impact character relationships, but I still felt like it wasn’t interactive enough. A lack of choices doesn’t really matter much to me personally, but I know it does for a lot of readers on the app— after all, it’s why they downloaded Episode in the first place.

CHOICES: 6.5/10

FINAL SCORE: 40/50

[B.Carlton]

Hey!
I just published my first complete story; it’s called hotel Moreno - the cover is as follows

I would love it if you checked it out!