Description: When a member of Blood Rage dies, the remaining players must solve the mystery while surviving the traps laid out by the show. Will you find out the truth or suffer the consequences?
Since this story hasn’t been published yet, this review is solely for the benefit of the author.
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SOUND AND MUSIC:
In the first episode, when Crystal and Diana are introduced to the readers, the music from the Blood Rage Audition video is still playing in the cafeteria.
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DIALOGUE:
“Then you showed me the last pictures of him you had of him.”
This is… confusing. Try rewording your sentences to make them more clear.
“Then you showed me the last pictures you had of him.”
This sentence is worded a bit better as it doesn’t repeat the word “him” twice. I would suggest rereading your script or having someone proofread your story—you could even do both to really make sure you have no mistakes.
“Looks like you finally decided to join me after 45 minutes of sucking Thea’s face.”
…
“It’s not my fault she’s irresistible. Also, she quite good at…”
sly look. wink wink, haha
For some reason, this kind of friendly, mischievous banter irritates me.
A lot.
Several authors use this sort of dialogue to introduce a reader to a particular character’s sexuality, relationship, and personality. It’s understandable why many authors write this in, but I’ve always found it to be irritating.
Although it’s written to be sort of a subtle cue to readers of a character’s personal life and such, and in this case, it’s Crystal, it always came off to me as unnecessary and annoying.
It’s filler.
Let the reader find out about the character’s personality, history, and relationships through time. It doesn’t have to be screamed at a reader’s face, people will be able to put two and two together and realize on their own.
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SPOT DIRECTING:
When Diana is walking home after the reader completes the questionnaire, she walks facing forward as she is going to the door.
That’s, uh, behind her.
I suggest having the camera zoomed in on Diana as she walks towards the door, facing the right way (as in walk_rear_loop). Perhaps, have the camera move in front of the empty driveway, then back again towards Diana’s disappointed face.
“They’re not home…”
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FOCUSING IN: CHAPTER LENGTH
Mehhh.
Haha, I’m kidding.
The first chapter was decent length, about 10-15 minutes long.
The second chapter… well… it was short.
It was about 2 minutes long. Maybe even shorter because I’m a fast reader.
The first time I read the second chapter, I chose to see the Clue Board. (Nice touch, by the way.) It lasted a decent length.
The second time I’d reread it, I chose to skip the Clue Board and the chapter ended immediately after.
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BACKGROUND CHARACTERS:
Moving background characters make a scene feel alive. In the beginning cafeteria scene, try having some of them walk around. If the overlays are too troublesome then just zoom in on the character speaking, have the BC walk behind, out of the shot, then remove the BC before the camera reveals an oddly placed BC staring into the reader’s soul.
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CHARACTER DESIGN:
Well, there isn’t much to designing a character on Episode. It’s quite different from creating your very own character on pencil and paper (or pen to drawing tablet).
Y’know, bad guys wear evil, dark colors and look mean.
Generally.
Good guys are usually the protagonists. I’ve yet to see an Episode story where the MC is the bad guy. (That might be because I don’t really read Episode stories anymore.)
But the small things you can do, no, should do is to make the lip color the same color as the skin tone.
So many ashy lipped characters on Episode.
shudders
Ryan should not have lips 5 skin tones darker than his skin tone. Please fix this.
I hope this advice helped both the author and other community members reading this. Check out this story and tell me what you think!