Our Reviews for the story The Star Necklace by @Maya6 
Annieways
First impression
Your description seems interesting, but in my opinion it would look better like this:
“You are the richest girl in your country, and in addition, you’re famous.”
Characters
I obviously hated the grandma, so I guess you did a good job with portraying her. I didn’t really like the dad’s attitude. I know that it’s not easy for anyone to confront their parents, but there are situations when we have to do it, and this is definitely a good example. I wanted to see a little more of the mother’s personality: I understand that she feels miserable, but I didn’t see what she thinks deep down of the whole situation. I didn’t expect her to confront the grandma (that would be the dad’s job), but I expected her to discuss the issue with her husband and suggest or at least think about ways to find a solution. But on the other hand the parents seem to be good material for character development, so if this is the case, I would like to see where it goes.
Plot
The story seems interesting to me, however I didn’t quite understand how the family ended up in this situation. I’m hoping you would explain in later chapters why they are still living with the evil grandma instead of trying to escape. I understand that they are poor, but I’m guessing that the father works somewhere? And since you presented his friend too, I‘m wondering why he hasn’t asked anyone for some help already.
I liked that you added another storyline with the couple that can’t have children. I’m curious to know how you will manage to connect these two storylines, so I think this was a good way to make the reader want to find out more.
Grammar
Your grammar is OK, although I noticed a few errors, they didn’t really distract me from the story. I would suggest you to pay more attention on placing the commas though, they were in the wrong place in many sentences. Also, you don’t need to use so many dots at the end of the sentences. Three is enough, like this…
Directing
Your directing is pretty good, I only noticed the below things that bothered me a little:
- Characters “slide in” at CC
- Characters speak at the same time - use the idle or arms_crossed animation when one of them finished talking
- Characters pop up in the new scenes - adding transitions or just using & for spot directing instead of @ would do the trick
Overall
I only read the first chapter so far, but I will continue sometime because I’m interested to see where the two storylines meet and whether you are planning to do the character development I mentioned. For a first chapter, I found this quite interesting, however I noticed some repetitive sentences (both from the grandma and from the parents) that are not needed. Your episode has a pretty good length, so just cutting a few sentences would be enough to make the story moving.
Thank you to @Annieways for this review <3
Bhxddiewrites
• there was actually a few errors with grammar
•Some Characters stayed on the scene even when they “exited the screen” so try saying @CHARACTER exits screen left/right
•use & instead of @ sometimes it is needed
•some characters were gliding so use does it while to have the character walk to a spot doing an animation
•I hate the grandma but u made her character extremely well so props to u.
•The backgrounds weren’t in the best quality so maybe use edited episode backgrounds instead
Thank you to @xetic for this review <3
_haruka
My Review:
Plot: The plot seems fairly interesting, and I think you portrayed the grandma well! Maybe we could see a little more of how the mother feels about this whole situation and how the family ended up in this situation. I found the other storyline with the couple that can’t have children pretty interesting, and it’ll be cool to find out how you connect the two storylines.
Grammar: Your grammar’s not bad, there were a few errors, but they can be fixed! There were several commas that were in the wrong places, so it might be a good idea to pay attention and really think about where they should be placed. And the dots at the end of sentences aren’t necessary. Just one dot is enough!
Directing: Not bad, just a couple of things that I noticed:
- In the CC, the characters slide in rather than walk in.
- Characters look like they’re talking at the same time. When someone is finished talking, make them do a non-speaking animation like a nod or even idle or arms_crossed. I know it’s a lot of work, but it can go a long way towards making your story more realistic!
- In new scenes (background changes) characters ‘pop’ into place. You could add transitions- here’s the link to @JemU776’s tutorial: Transition Tutorial! Another simple way of not making them ‘pop in’ would just be to use & instead of @ when you spot direct. For example,
Instead of:
@CHAR spot 293 293 293
Do:
&CHAR spot 293 293 293
Thank you to @_haruka for this review <3
JemU776
Episode 1 Review of The Star Necklace :
You used three dots too much when you didn’t need to and sometimes you had two dots instead of three.
“This story uses sound, so turn your volume up.” ← it’s better written like this, instead of using dots.
“Also, it uses advanced directing and zooms, so tap slowly.” ← again, it’s better written like this without dots.
Your use of dots was overly successive.
“Now, let’s customize our characters.” ← let’s (let + us) instead of lets
This is the first time I’ve heard the term “women abuse” be used. Maybe “domestic violence” would be better or “violence against women”
After the comma, you wrote “Please” ← the p in please should not be capitalized.
The red text effect for the warning was really cool, though.
“I was arrogant because I was the richest girl.” -when Mayah says this, it seems sort of awkward.
The necklace is her whole identity? Interesting…
Only one question mark instead of two at the end of “What was the secret of this ---- necklace?”
“Many years ago…” ← three dots instead of two.
P.S rural life doesn’t make sense to include. Scratch that out.
The grandma is a tyrant.
“crazy playing” wouldn’t make sense.
Instead, can write: “Go clean the house instead of playing so much!”
“Preferring boys was a common problem in Arab culture before Islam.” Not sure if I understand this sentence 
Also, the speechbubble covers the grandma’s face and it has too many dots.
“Recently in Jordan, nearly all females” ← much better to write.
“This grandma thinks ” ← add an s to think.
“got full marks” instead of “got a full mark”
Ezzat, please, please for the love of God, please save your children! PLEASE TAKE ACTION. If I was Adam, instead of telling Ezzat to call the police, I’d take action and call them.
One exclamation mark instead of two (!) not (!!)
A lot of it was repetitive. Like the grandma kept saying I hate girls, Ezzat kept saying how he’s helpless and can’t do anything, Ezzat’s wife kept saying she was afraid to give birth. They said this over and over again. I feel like a lot of lines could be cut from the over-repetitiveness of this.
“I can’t do this to the person who gave birth to me.” YES, yes, you can Ezzat.
The word mom was said too many times. I recommend cutting back on it.
Oh wow, not only is this grandma crazy, she believes she is a fortune teller. Telling Ezzat to marry someone else because they will have a son.
Ezzat, that’s sweet you love Jehad so much, but also show your kids that same love and get them out of there a.s.a.p.
I KNOW that if your childhood is awful, it will always stick with you forever, no matter where you run or hide.
My favorite line in the whole episode was uttered by Sarah: “Why are mom and dad so weak? Why can’t they face our evil grandma?” ← also, I edited that line to make it sound less awkward.
“Sweetie, even though this is a small house, grandma will kick us out if we disobey her.” ← better to write it this way.
Oh ha ha, the wanting girls thing only also exists in Indian culture for some people. It’s really a bad thing to favor someone because of their gender. You need to love your child no matter what. It is a good message you are portraying, by telling people that gender shouldn’t matter however your story is a bit unrealistic as the parents should easily be able to stop the suffering of their children instead of constantly begging and cowering in fear of the grandma.
I honestly feel like Ezzat is intentionally hurting himself. Not only that, he’s letting his children get harmed. That’s not what a parent is supposed to do. Parents are supposed to be protectors and heroes, not stand by and let their children get verbally abused.
Shadi, don’t insult the doctor, they are trying their best.
The toys overlay looked very cool. So did the food overlay.
So the grandma is saving money for her grandson to come into the world? Wow, this is literally one crazy grandma.
Jehad wouldn’t need to be scared if she and her husband would just leave.
“You will keep getting pregnant until you have a grandson.” It’s official, this grandma went from crazy to a full blown villain.
“What are the grandma’s evil plans?” ← So she has more? 
OK, so overall, it was an interesting read, a bit too long for me since I prefer short episodes, but enjoyable; however, there were a few grammatical errors and some scenes were highly unrealistic, in my opinion.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS REVIEW IS NOT MEANT TO HARM, IT IS MEANT TO HELP YOU IMPROVE. ALSO, I’M NOT A PROFESSIONAL REVIEWER 
Thank you to @JemU776 for this review <3
Kimballet
My Review for The Star Necklace:
For Character Customization, you said let’s create the characters now but it went to a warning. I’d put the warning before or after the CC so it makes sense. And I’d use Dara Amarie’s latest template since this doesn’t have quite all of the options.
I’d like to commend you on writing a story in your third language, that is amazing! Plus all the coding in both Ink and Limelight took a ton of time. So this review is not meant to discourage you at all. In fact, remember that all professional writers have editors who change things around significantly before publishing. So don’t worry, you’re not alone! Some things I’d change in the story are below:
I appreciate you educating people that most people in Jordan do not feel this way about girls. However, it took me out of the story since you said it quite a few times. I think you could explain it at the end (because remember, you’re trying to hook your readers in the beginning) and maybe do a Q&A session to help educate readers. I also think parts could use rephrasing. If you want specific help, let me know!
Also, as others have said there are some grammar mistakes which do tend to take readers out of the story. Since it’s your third language, I wouldn’t worry but I’d get a proofreader to point them out exactly.
Also, I’d like more information on why the family stays there with the abusive grandmother. Maybe throw in something about a debt the family is in (maybe a hospital bill for having so many kids - don’t know if that applies in Jordan but it would in the US, sadly) so that no matter how hard he works, he can’t take the family away and escape the terrible grandmother.
All of the abuses of the grandmother are horrendous, except I don’t see what’s bad about one of the daughters doing chores. That seemed out of place for me.
I also only read the first chapter because of my time this week, but it seems like an interesting story (I think I know what will happen with the couple and the necklace, but we’ll see if I’m right), so I’d be interested in continuing if you’d like more feedback.
Thank you to @kimballet for this review <3
Mint-Episode
Episode 1
Intro
I love the cover.
You don’t need the three dots after:
“Welcome to my new story, The Star Necklace.”
“This story uses sound so turn your volume up.”
“It uses advanced directing and zooms so tap slowly.”
“English is my third language.”
“Now let’s ( lets needs an apostrophe) customize your characters.” NB// I think you should have this after you state that there may be zoom issues on the iPad.
You don’t need to use so many 'also". Note: I would recommend using music for the sound in your intro so it doesn’t fade before time. Unless you did that on purpose.
In your disclaimer , change ‘something’ to either ‘some things’ or ‘things’. I prefer the latter.
Child and women abuse: domestic violence or child abuse and violence against women then full stop after.
After behaviors, ‘This’ should be ‘this’ and just a full stop.
Just a full stop after ‘century’.
You don’t need the (…) after Islam and just a full stop after religions, lives, content and risk.
When you begin customizing, just go right to “What will be your look?”
For the ‘love interest’ I would use instead, ‘what is his look?’ or ’ what would does he look like?’
First scene
'I was a spoiled girl." (You don’t need to have so many dots after certain sentences or phrases.)
“I was the richest girl in Jordan.”
“And I was arrogant because of it.”
“Yet, it was all fake.”
“Baby girl, stop crying, everything will be okay.”
“No, Mom. Everything has changed now!”
“Everything will be okay baby, you just need time.”
Second scene
“We are going to lose Mayah.”
“If something happens to her I won’t be able to live with myself.”
“Everything will be okay, Sweetheart.”
Third scene
“Why can’t I be like everyone else?!”
Fourth scene
Instead of saying "oops I jumped too far back in time…, try “to get a better understanding of why I am in this miserable state, let me take you back to the beginning or where it all began.”
“What is the secret of this goddamn necklace?” ( It you want this to have some kind of effect, you can try using the text animations.
Fifth scene
“Once upon a time, there was a large poor family living here.”
Try readerMessage P.S. rural life
Sixth scene
“Why couldn’t I have gotten grandsons/ a grandson?”
The box that explained why boys were preferred, is covering grandma’s face.
Full stop only after ‘Islam’.
‘They thought that it was a shame to have only daughters because they were considered weak.’
‘Recently in Jordan, nearly all females are treated equally as males, even in poor areas. They are allowed to go to school and even work.’
‘This grandma believes that girls are weaker than boys. It’s very rare nowadays to find people like her.’
Seven scene
The characters are popping up after it pans, you can try ‘&’ when positioning them in each zone.
‘Mom, please let me help you with the brooming.’
Eighth scene
‘maths’ should be ‘Maths’.
Only need one “!” after ‘home’ you can use text animation to add effect to the words.
‘I feel sorry for my mom. She isn’t aware that girls aren’t weak.’
‘That’s not enough, you need to face your mom . You must take action!’
‘Your daughters must go to school!’
‘You must report her behavior to the police. That’s child abuse!’
Ninth scene
‘I want my girls happy.’
‘I also love my mom so I hope she repents soon.’
Eleventh scene
The bubble is covering the girls faces, can you try a bottom left bubble?
‘You can’t change my mind about this!’
‘I want a grandson!’
‘Mom, you need to know about the great women of Islam. They don’t sit at home all day and cook.’
‘Anyway, I received some very annoying news today.’
‘Someone like Jehad only has girls!’
‘I don’t want to have 10 granddaughters, it’s a shame to have daughters!’
‘I won’t marry anyone other than Jehad. I love her too much.’
‘I am very ashamed of myself ( not sure you meant to say “you”). I have only granddaughters!’
‘Women play a big /huge role in Islam, for example, Khadijah was a successful business woman and Aisya was the first female scholar that opened a university.’
‘In this era females are weak, that was an old era!’
'No, Mom. They were messages to the whole world that women are as strong as men. ( He is not giving any expression warrant an exclamation. May be change is animation.)
‘At least we have mom and dad loving us.’
‘Why are mom and dad so weak?!’
‘Why can’t they face that evil woman?!’
‘Sweetie, even though this is a poor small house, Grandma an kick us out IF we disobey her.’
‘It is so hard sweetie.’
Try putting the bubbles closer to the characters.
Thank you to @Mint-Episode for this review <3
MissRuby
Episode 1:
OK, so far I see NO correction of errors!
Grammar, spelling and punctuation:
You need periods at the end of sentences! This is really important to most readers and bad grammar may make them not want to continue your story. Grammar could use some work as well. Spelling is OK for English not being your first language, but it still needs improvement! Here’s a correction:
ITALIC = mistake
BOLD = correction
Welcome to my new story The Star Necklace…
Welcome to my first story The Star Necklace!
This story uses sound …so turn your volume up
Remember that this story uses sound and is best experienced with the volume up.
Also it uses advanced directing and zooms…. so tap slowly….
It also uses advanced directing and zooms so tap slowly!
Also English is my third language….
Keep in mind that English is not my first language and there may be some mistakes.
Now lets customize our characters….
Now let’s customize the characters!
And there may be issues with zooming on iPad….
If you’re using an iPad there may be issues with zooming.
Now, lets start with you…
Now you can customize yourself!
So far that was my review of the intro. As you can see, the author adds way to many “…” that can be replaced with commas (,) periods (.) or exclamation marks (!).
Directing:
Surprisingly good in my opinion. But so far I’ve found quite a few mistakes:
When she entered for the CC, she was gliding. I just hate gliding OMG! Use &, AND. Use something like this;
@MAYAH enters from screen left to screen center AND MAYAH is walk_neutral
OR
`@MAYAH enters from screen left to screen center
&MAYAH is walk_neutral`
I find it quite annoying that we have to play with the author’s name. Use inputs to let the reader pick their name:
input What's Your Name? | What's Your Name? | Send (NAME)
Later on in the script to mention what the reader wrote use [NAME].
Characters are popping out after transitions, make them enter during the transition or cut out the transition
More grammatical errors and correcting them:
ITALIC = mistake
BOLD = correction
I was the spoiled girl…
I was a spoiled girl.
The richest girl in Jordan…
The richest girl in Jordan!
I was arrogant, because I was the richest girl…
I was arrogant because of it.
But all this is fake…
But it was all fake.
That goddamn necklace is my whole true identity!
That damn necklace revealed my true identity!
I can’t believe this happened to me on the supposed to be the happiest day of my life!
I can’t believe this happened to me! This was supposed to be the best day of my life!
Baby girl stop crying… Everything will be okay…
Stop crying, baby girl. Everything will by OK.
No mom, everything changed now….
No mom, everything has changed.
Everything will be okay baby, you just need time….
Everything will be OK, baby. It just takes time.
We are going to lose Mayah…
We’re going to lose Mayah.
If something happens to her, I can’t live……
If something bad happens to her, I can’t live.
Some more directing errors:
- In the rural area in Jordan, the interior of the house the characters popped up instead of appearing when the scene started.
I would recommend to use this code:
@INT. BG - DAY
@A stands spot T
&B stands spot K
&C stands spot O AND D stands spot W
&E stands spot Q AND F stands spot Y
And so on.
For the animations try using:
@A is animation AND B is animation
&C is animation AND D is animation
And so on with all of them.
I can’t help but point out what the grandma said:
sHuT uP cRaZy gIrLs!!!
Such 
a mood
Please try to make the episodes longer, Maya!
When people are running it looks so fast. But the do it in 5 to 6 seconds and it looks strange.
For this, don’t time the animations! Make them walk or run fast, it’s your choice.
The people don’t change clothes. After 15 years everyone was wearing the same outfit. Please try to change that!
Of course, this makes no difference in the story quality. It just doesn’t make sense if you want your story to be realistic.
General grammatical errors:
Use contractions to make the story more realistic! Not an error since you can write your story however you want it, but most people prefer contractions:
I am = I’m
You are = You’re
Cannot = Can’t
We are = We’re
I’ve noticed that in some scenes you’re confusing where and were .
They may be pronounced the same but they have completely different meanings. Were is the past tense of the verb are while where represents a place or position.
Try to fix those and add less “…”! So far you’ve made good progress, but I suggest fixing the errors everyone has pointed out.
Thank you to @rubywrites for this review <3
OreoBiscuit
The Star Necklace (LL)
Episode 1 summary:
A lot of … were used where it wasn’t necessary and sometimes you used 4 periods instead of 3.
The CC template is a bit old. It’s not a must that you change it however, a lot of readers would prefer to customise with all the newer features.
A few sentences did not make sense. Examples are:
“I can’t believe this happened to me on the supposed to be the happiest day of my life”. It would be better to change it to “This was meant to be the happiest day of my life! I can’t believe that this is happening!” or change it to something similar.
“Oops I jumped too much far in time”
You should change it to “Oops, I jumped too far ahead in time.”
“No! Mum! Everything changed now” which does make sense but not in the context where you were using it. You should’ve used
“No, mum! Everything’s changed now!”
If the character is not speaking, have them do an animation where their lips are not moving or have them doing the idle animation. For instance, when Ezzat was speaking with his mother, the mother was doing the talk_armscrossed_loop (I think that’s the name) animation. Another time where this happened was in the different flashback scenes when the mum was giving birth. She was laying down and doing the talking animation when other characters were speaking.
When commas were used, they were used in the right place positioned wrong. For example, you wrote “Sweetie ,don’t be sad” when it should be “sweetie, don’t be sad.”
The directing is good however, there were a few scenes where the characters popped up instead of already being on screen. A way to stop that from happening would be to use the & command instead of @.
Thank you to @OreoBiscuit for this review <3
Simila100
My review: 
- Not really much to say in my review, since I think the other reviewers already wrote what I was going to write, but:
- A few errors with grammar, but otherwise, nothing that’s wrong as far as I can see. It was a little strange / unnecessary to have the three dots at the end of sentences, although I can understand why you might have wanted to add that.
- There can be use of & instead of @ at times.
- Agree with @kimballet, how after you stated the characters were going to be CC’d, it went to a warning before the CC. Maybe add the warning before / after?
- Lmao agree with all the other reviewers. Grandma’s a total asshole, and you portrayed that very well.
- Some characters are gliding, and not walking in scenes. Maybe use the command @CHARACTER does it while? Example: @CHARACTER walks to spot 1.280 100 103 and CHARACTER does it while run_athletic or something
OVERALL: 6/10
Thank you to @Simila100 for this review <3
xxLoveAaliyah
Review:
Episode 1
- Randa is saying “Baby girl stop crying… Everything will be okay…” — That’s a direct address so a comma needs to be after baby girl.
- Space between the ellipsis and the word.
- Also, you should tone down your usage of ellipsis. You should limit them when a moment is tense or something suspenseful is about to happen. Right now you’re using it a lot and it doesn’t look good.
- These author notes are a nice touch.
- Sometimes you use two or four ellipsis and that’s not correct. Only use three.
- Characters pop in after the transitions. Here is an example of how to make that look cleaner: ↓
INT. BACKGROUND NAME - DAY &CHARACTER stands screen right AND CHARACTER faces right AND CHARACTER is idle_armcrossed @transition fade in black in T
- You have “Nothing is wrong ,baby girl.” It should be ** Nothing is wrong, baby girl.** ” The comma needs to be next to wrong.
- You have commas in the wrong place. Use the comment above to help fix those errors.
- “My daughter, Selma, got full mark in math exams. I am proud of her!” Correct this to ”My daughter, Selma, got a full mark on her math exams. I am so proud of her!”
- After the characters are done taking then you should put them in an idle animation.
- ”I wish my mom would update her mind, and allow my girls to attend school.” That comma after mind does not need to be there, take it out. The update doesn’t really fit well with this sentence. Correct it to ”change”.
- You stated that you wish the mom will allow the daughters to attend school, but the next line says ”It breaks my heart when I see my girls come home after school. which one is it?
- Adam says ”Sorry to say this, Your mom is abusive and disgusting!” That your doesn’t need to be capitalized because it’s in the middle of a sentence.
- Up close zooms would suffice in this conversation between Adam and Ezzat.
- You’re missing a period after the bye.
- Eh. The sound effects aren’t needed. It’s quite off-putting, but that’s my opinion.
- The grandmother is a bitch… Does she realize she’s a woman?
- The siblings don’t look alike at all. It looks like you threw some names and clothes on default characters lol.
- Grandma says ”You’re garbages !!” Incorrect. Change it to ”You’re garbage!!”
- Amira says ”I don’t understand what boys have we don’t have…” Change this to **”I don’t understand what boys have that we don’t have.”
- God is a name so that needs to be capitalized all the time.
- The name in the direct address is always set apart from the rest of the sentence by a comma or commas.
- If you want realistic background I would suggest using faithy_edits
- One of the girls is sliding through the bedroom.
- The table overlay should have been higher. Or better quality.
- Glitchy overlays. Use & instead of @
- Grandma is standing on a table. I would suggest using better quality backgrounds. I get you want the poor look, but these aren’t it. They look weird with overlays.
- Grandma is a bitch. Also, very abusive.
- The Midwife is gliding through scenes, looks a bit weird.
Episode 2
- Eh. Some of this dialogue isn’t for me. ”She can’t wait to get rid of them” wow okay.
- Bahieyeh isn’t gliding through the slides. This is a recurring thing. I would suggest using the walk animations.
- Directing mistakes carry over from episode 1 to episode 2.
- You’re missing commas.
- A lot of verbal abuse in this story. You might want to tone that down a notch. We get that grandma hates the kids.
- I had to turn my volume down because of these sound effects.
- More characters sliding through the scenes. Here is how to avoid that. ↓
Example: @CHARACTER walks to spot 1.280 203 16 in zone 3 in T AND CHARACTER is walk_neutral THEN CHARACTER is idle_cry.
- A lot of these sentences don’t make sense.
- Your speech bubbles are long. I would suggest putting the character in an idle_loop talk animation.
- More glitchy overlays.
Episode 3
- I would have run away too. Soha is smart.
- Are they just going to steal a baby? Lol
- Ezzat is a coward.
- Directing errors continue over to episode 3.
- Punctuation/grammar mistakes continue over to episode 3.
My comments: Correct these mistakes and errors and your story will be better! I would also suggest watching or reading some guides on basic directing because you had a lot of recurring issues.
Thank you to @LiyahxWrites for this review <3