Aww thanks girl, Iām glad you think that
Thank you so much for your review! Itās very helpful! I will definitely make sure to improve my story in areas you mentioned
No problem
Keep on going sis! Make sure to take a break!
Thanks for the support sis, I shouldnāt have done so many at once, I burned myself out so the next review may take a while, sorry And when Iām exhausted I can be pretty cranky
Story Name: The Witch Prophecy
Author Name on the App: gigistorm
Genre: Fantasy
Story Description: You just found out you are a witch, how will you handle it? Not only that, but you need to now prepare yourself for the most important job in the witch world: being the Oracle!
Style: Limelight
CC (character customization): Yes
Forums Username: @gigistorm
Instagram Username: N/A
My Review:
Not a professional reviewer, all reviews are purely based on my opinion- please do not request for one if you feel like you will be offended and I encourage you to request because you need the feedback.
āPlease keep in my mind that this is my first episode everā & āthe next chapter is betterā should be removed. You lose readers by having these types of messages in your story.
When youāre letting us customize the MC, you should include a goto in each of the first two options for the choice on whether weād like to customize YOU (the MC) or not (the two options = Customize character & Use Profile avatar) and that goto should go under the line of code that either leads them to being customized by sending them to the character avatar or importing the readerās avatar. Also, the goto should lead to a label that it shares the same name with at the beginning of the choice (not before the word choice but before at least a line of dialogue that is before the choice). You can read about labels and gotos here: š¤ HOW TO: Labels and Gotos š¤. To continue, you spelled ācustomizeā wrong; you wrote costumize.
And when you give the option āI look good already!ā you should ask yes or no.
So, example:
label customize
NARR
Would you like to customize your character?
choice
āCustomize Characterā{
@YOU goes to character avatar
goto customize
}āUse Profile Avatarā{
@YOU becomes female profile or YOU
goto customize
}āReadyā{
}
NARR
Are you sure youāre ready?
choice
āYesā{
}āNoā{
goto customize
}
#continue story
When weāre naming YOU (I named her Diana) it would be better for me as a reader to see DIANA as opposed to YOU. Change YOUās display name to whatever name you assigned to the naming input code.
Ex.
If you used:
NARR
Whatās your name?
input What is your name? | What is your name? | Done (NAME)
YOU
I love the name [NAME].
Then NAME should be the display name. Whatever you wrote in the ( ) should be the display name and used throughout your story written in [ ]. You can read more on script and display names here: UNDERSTANDING: Script + Display Names
Instead of having us customize mom, you should write in your script:
@MOM becomes YOU
She will then become a look alike of YOU. From there, you can change some of her features to make her look older.
Check out: HOW TO: Customize Characters
When mom is talking with Diana, zoom in on them.
Throughout your story, youād have speechbubbles coming out of a character where you have them saying stuff but they didnāt do any animations. It looked so awkward. This happened so many times that I lost count.
You used ! a little too much. In some sentences, it should be a period. Speaking of periods, you were missing a few at the end of sentences.
When youāre zooming on Rain, the zoom is off. The zooms for both the MC and Rain are way off as they talk to each other. You can check out my zooming tutorial on my IG warrior.gem (a directing tips account).
Instead of writing:
YOU
ā¦
before a choice, you should set the speechbubbleās scale to 0% and then reset it in each option of that choice. More information here: HOW TO: Have Choices Without Dialogue šÆ š«
Rain Thunderstorm is a cool name.
When Rain walks to the history teacher Mr. Smith, she does so awkwardly. Your rear use was fine but maybe position her a little different?
When Mr. Smith is talking, you have a looping animation running where Mr Smith continues to speak even when heās not supposed to and no dialogue is coming out of his mouth. To fix this, simply have Mr. Smith start a new animation.
Actually, for characters, you should make them do a wide variety of non-speaking animations while theyāre in the scene.
When Rain is talking to Mr. Smith, sheās not even facing him so that was extremely awkward.
The history about it was pretty cool though I would have loved to see flashbacks of it, instead of being told all about it. Showing, not just telling, is more important.
When Rain, Eletrika and Alchemilla enter into the front of the school yard, they enter from the bottom and really fast, it looks really strange. Plus, they look like giants.
Actually, all of the characters look like giants.
Also, you should zoom more in on them.
And, in regards to entering a scene, you should use spot direction.
More info here:
Quick run down of spot direction:
So, just to repeat:
Eletrika: Rain thinks she found a new one. ā thinks, NOT think
Eletrikaās name was hard for me to say at first because of how itās written but I got the hang of it.
When youāre zooming on the characters, the zoom are way too awkward, it only shows like half of their face and body.
YOU comes into the scene awkwardly, too.
YOU: Me? In your dream? ā the d in dream shouldnāt be capitalized.
SQUALL: Yāall cool? ā Yāall (you + all), NOT yall
The girl behind the MC, Diana, has her hand up from an earlier animation she did, so it can be distracting. Have her do another animation.
When Squall is talking, the camera doesnāt even focus on him. Itās on someone else.
RAIN: You cannot do your little tricksā¦ ā The y in you should be capitalized since itās beginning after a period.
Sheās the one? Hmm, very interesting.
YOU: Date? But itās not a date. ā it would be itās (itās) not its
The few choices Iāve seen were nice and Iāve noticed you used basic positions a lot. Spice it up by adding spot direction. Also hereās a cool article to check out in regards to using script symbols:
āWill Diana find out sheās a witch?ā Well, of course she will, no need to ask this question
OK, overall, I hate to be discouraging but your whole episode needs a revamp. The directing could be distracting, it was hard to follow sometimes and had way too many errors. I recommend for you to lock your story in the meantime as you fix. Do not shout out your story as it is not good, directing wise. People may give you false compliments if you do a read for read and you will not gain genuine readers as so much of this story needs fixing. Once youāve revamped your story, feel free to promote it. And again, I apologize deeply if I sound rude but I need to be honest and tell you this; I want your story to do great but so far, it has way too many errors and Iām sure people wouldnāt go to the second episode. BUT I know that you can do it, you can make it better and just know that your story has a lot of potential. Good luck! I hope all of this helps you
P.S Please note, this review is not meant to offend but to help you improve. Iām not a professional reviewer although I try my best and put my heart and soul into my reviews. Anyways, have a lovely day!
Much love, JemU776
I have these reviews left to do. After that Iām going to close up this thread for a pretty long time. This is because My Giversā Club is going to soon be opening our reviews again and Iām going to be be a story reviewer on epyxmagic so thatās going to take up time. Iāll open this back up again at some point but in the meantime, itāll be left untouched for a long time as if I stick with it, the amount of reviews I need to do will pile on and then itāll take a toll on my mental health. Same goes for my IG review account, itāll be on hold. The thing is I put a lot of work into this to make sure itās very detailed which is why it can be exhausting for me but at the end of the day, Iām happy knowing I helped someone and that makes me wake up with a smile on my face everyday (plus messy hair ) Iām also part of a Feedback Book Club with a reading partner on another platform which I wonāt say but yeah, I have a lot that Iām participating in (while I enjoy it, I canāt overwork myself). Thank you so much guys for understanding and thank you for all those who showed me support through this, I love you guys so much, Iām going to try to spend as much time as I can with you this year as when next year comes, I will barely be able to come on except sometimes (Iāll mainly stick to the directing tips category but sometimes Iāll browse other categories). Seriously, thank you for all those who went on this journey with me, itās been a pleasure to get to know you
Story Name: Youāre My Sunshine
Author Name: Faith Rose
Forums Username: @Faith.episode.cats
My Review:
*Disclaimer = this review is not meant to offend or harm, just to help you improve, itās my honest opinion
First of all, the description is missing commas while some words shouldnāt start with a capital.
It should say:
"Having a learning disability is hard for Samantha until she meets Nick, her sunshine."
AUTHOR: You can customize the MC and love interest only. <- customize, not customization
When weāre customizing the MC and love interest, they pop out of nowhere. Have them walk into the scene.
In the flasback, people will sometimes randomly pop up so it looks like they teleported and it doesnāt flow smoothly.
NICK: Why I do keep going back to the hospital? <- the āiā should be capitalized and remove āagainā at the end of this sentence as you already mentioned he goes to the hospital again (it just ends up being repetitive).
When Nick exits, he gets larger
The doctor randomly pops out of nowhere as he is about to speak with the parents.
DOCTOR: Sir, calm down. Weāre going to try everything we can. <- much better to write.
When you pan to the other zone, Nick randomly pops up.
The readerMessage should say āNick was ten years old when he had cancer.ā <- the āwā in when shouldnāt be capitalized.
The parents randomly pop up in zone 2 where Nick is crying.
The car overlay scene is sort of glitchy in the beginning.
School = hell
Haha, Samantha, girl you can relate to so many of us XD
When the mom says āDonāt let anyone bring you down Samā you have a comma at the end of this. It should be a period.
āHi, Iām Samantha.ā <- much better to write
Sam has good taste in music, I LOVE FOB!
In front of the Morettiās house, they pop up.
"and mysterious" OR āand a mysteryā but not āand mysteryā
MATTEO MORETTI: You need to get out of the house more. Youāve been trapped in your room for days.
I noticed you messed up a lot when it came to youāre vs your
MICHELLE: ā¦your past. <- so, itās your, not youāre
Sometimes you had a period when it should be a question mark.
MATTEO MORETTI: ā¦your grandparents. <- your, not youāre
Sometimes you were missing periods. When Nick talks about his parents not being able to do anything and says that heās not going to school ever again, there should be a period to split those sentences.
The girls popped up in front of the school randomly.
You described Tianna Petrov and Skylar Smith. You told the reader that Skyler is a funny, witty girl who makes jokes and loves parties while Tianna Petrov loves animals and enjoys nature. Instead of telling the reader this, show it instead.
"Tiana Petrov is Russian" or āTiana Petrov is from Russiaā is fine to write.
TIANNA: Well, we have only one more year left. <- year, not years
SKYLAR: I canāt wait until itās officially over. <- it would be itās (it + is), not its
I would recommend for you to go over itās vs its
TIANNA: ā¦fraud, heās one of theā¦ <- the āhā in he shouldnāt be capitalized as it begins after a comma, not a period.
Nick and Milio popped up randomly. Also, they are way too big! They tower over the cars.
MILIO: ā¦youāre in this schoolā¦ <-- āyouāreā not your
When Camille and Ella are talking there are some errors in their sentences.
CAMILLE: I think I know a wayā¦ <- add āaā after the word know
When Ella is asking Camille why sheās willing to help him out again, there should be a question mark at the end of her sentence as she is asking a question.
ELLA: Look, itās Sam and her loser friends. <- itās (it + is), not its and it would be āloserā not losers.
itās vs its, youāre vs your and characters popping up were a very common issue.
In the school, Samantha runs in one spot which looks awkward.
Nick comes randomly out of nowhere, they fall (it looked glitchy) and they stay on the floor for quite a while.
I told Nick off LOL
The other option for the choice of how to handle the situation should say āApologize to himā NOT apologizes
I cannot believe Nick called me a bimboā¦oh itās war you angry ball of rudeness!
Nick gets shorter as he walks off screen. Samanthaās size also changes as she goes offscreen.
Donāt tell the reader Ryan Johnson is really obsessed with pizza. Show it instead (actually, you did a really good job of showing Ryanās pizza addiction, props to you for that).
Donāt tell me what the others are like, show me.
āAlex loves art is a tomboyā is not right. This means her whole name is Alex loves art. Instead āAlex loves art and she is a tomboyā although like Iāve stated previously, itās better to show than tell.
The three students tower over the lockers, so it looks very strange.
RYAN: ā¦new pizza place thatās down the street! <- thatās (that + is), NOT thats
RYAN: First, we have to eat pizza togetherā¦ <- the āwā in we shouldnāt be capitalized.
NICK: Iām not interested in making friends. <- interested, not interest
Nick and Ryan eating pizza together and talking Italian was funny LOL, I enjoyed the scene a lot.
The teacher pops out of nowhere.
In the classroom, the students pop out of nowhere.
āPlease give the overlays some time to pop up.ā <- this readerMessage should be removed.
So, um, the characters are not behind desks at all. In fact, it looks like theyāre sitting on air.
SKYLAR: ā¦have no fear, Sky is hereā¦ <- the s in sky should be capitalized as itās her name.
SAMANTHA: I think thereās a better way to handle thisā¦ <- thereās (there + is) instead of theirs. Also, three dots instead of two.
āWithout violenceā not āwithout violencesā
SKYLAR: We kidnap her and put her in the backseat! <- kidnap, not kidnapped
Woah, haha, their humor is dark and boy did things take an extreme turnā¦
The blue haired guy on the phone in the bottom right corner repeatedly walks in one spot. It looks very strange.
LEON WOODS: Yo, itās Daddy Woodsā¦ <- it would be itās (it + is), not its
SKYLAR: Oh why, yes you canā¦ <- much smoother to write.
SAMANTHA: Ignore my friend, we were wonderingā¦ <- we were, not We was
Make them all shocked at once, not one by one.
NARR: Oh no, what will happen to Samantha? <- happen, not happened
OK, overall, your story has a lot grammatical and directing errors but it had its funny moments like the pizza scene and its emotional moments where Nick had cancer. Fix those errors and you should be good to go! Great job and I hope this helps XD
Oh, some other things!
When you transitioned into a background, it showed the BG, flashed and then showed the BG again. This is a transition error. Iām guessing you used āfade outā instead of "fade in"
Can read more here:
When youāre placing characters, use &
Also before a pan is taking place, have the character in the zone beforehead.
Can read more:
Grammar guides:
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/its-vs-its/
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/there-their-theyre/
https://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/commas.asp
https://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/apostro.asp
*youāre vs your guides can also be found online as well as many other helpful guides on spelling and grammar.
Hi, just letting you know your review is next
Okay! Thank you so much! Take your time
Okay Thank you so much for reviewing my story ill definitely correct the errors.
No problem
Sorry guys reviews might take some time, Iām just really depressed at the moment
Edit: Iām feeling a bit better Talking to my mom helped OK SO it still might take me some time but rest assured, Iāll have those reviews out
Can you review my story? Thereās only one Episode right now, and Itās my first Limelight story!
Tittle: Whoās Who? (Cover Coming Soon!)
Author: Tay11
Link:
https://episodeinteractive.com/s/5915374336671744
Iām temporarily closed
When requests are closed, Iād appreciate it SO much if ppl donāt request
More detail here:
Aww man! Can you do it when itās not closed?
Iām not sure, rn i have to take care of my well being