✨ The Givers Club ✨

Our Reviews for the story Secrets From Hell by @Nessya :icecream: :revolving_hearts:

Annieway's Review

Secrets From Hell Review

First impression
First of all: I’m impressed that you have 25 episodes and you still haven’t published anything. Are you planning to completely finish the story before you publish? I personally think it’s a great idea, and I admire your patience!
I read the first 3 chapters, so my review is only based on that. The description is great and I’m excited to read.

Characters
You have a lot of characters in the story, which is good, but to be honest it often made me confused. I didn’t quite understand how the characters and the different story lines are related to each other, and what is exactly DG’s role in all of this.
I personally don’t like character introductions because I prefer to get to know them through the dialogues and plot, but I must admit that your introductions looked cool and professional.

Plot
I loved the flashback scenes, they were really well done, but I had the feeling they were too long for intros of the chapters. The background stories were interesting to read, but I have to add I’m not sure you can show kids holding guns, shooting and fighting. (I might be wrong though, I can’t say I fully understand this part of the guidelines.)
As I already mentioned, I didn’t completely understand the plot. I think it would be easier to follow up if the intro scenes were a little shorter, or if they were better built up in the story’s flow. Since most of the flashback scenes were at the beggining of the episodes, sometimes I found it hard to follow the main plot, even with the filters and splashes added. I hope this makes sense.

Directing
Your directing is really good, the only thing I would suggest you is to use more of the talking animations. I noticed that you have some favourite ones and you are overusing them a little, and sometimes you use the same animation for 3-4 dialogue lines (I noticed this especially when a character is sitting). It’s not a big deal, of course, but I think it’s much more exciting to read dialogues if the characters are showing different emotions and facial expressions, so don’t be afraid to use all of those animations :slightly_smiling_face:
One more thing: At the dinner scene in episode 2 I think there was too much panning into different zones and it took a lot of time. To me it would look better if you used @cut/pan to zone X in 0 when you would like to show the characters on the other side of the table.
I hope these things can help you to make your directing smoother and more lively, but other than that, really good job.

Grammar
I think your grammar is pretty good. Some sentences seemed a little wordy to me, but they were easy to understand. If you want them to sound better, a proofreader could help, but I don’t think you’ll have a lot to change.

Overall
Really interesting and unique story, my only concern is that I got confused with the characters and the different story lines. I would probably understand more with a second read, but if you want to attract readers, you need to achieve this almost immediately. I feel like it would be a “lighter read” if you focused more on the main plot, and a little less on the backstory and on the supporting characters.

Let us know when you published :slightly_smiling_face:

Thank you to @Annieways for this review.

JemU776's Review

My Review of the story Secrets from Hell:

First of all, I really adore your custom splashes; the Warning: Advanced Directing and zooms-please tap slowly splash was very cool (it gave off a cinema vibe) as well as the volume one. The Secrets from Hell: Tap To Continue splash was wicked cool and I loved the way you portrayed scenes that contained fire.

Underling: Sir, DG is already in the castle. There’s nowhere to run! <— there should be a comma or period after castle. Also love how her name stands for Death Goddess.

DG: They could have put up a better fight… <- add the word “up” in there

Doroteya: You should have known that this silence in the last fifteen years… <- “known” instead of “know” and it’s much better to write out fifteen as opposed to 15.

She killed Maksim, the leader of the Scorpions! Yikes, there’s gonna be a bitter war, I just know it!

Love how she took down so many dudes, the underling, Maksim and then she’s like “Killing Maksim was only the start” XD

I believe you can still take flowers with you if you’re going to the graveyard in the rain XD

DG: My father killed most of them… <- it should say this. Remove the word “the” in front of most.

You had a few grammatical and spelling mistakes. Example = At one point you wrote “off” when it should have been “of”

“in a pool of blood” is more common as opposed to “on a pool of blood”

I love how the little girl protected her brother and herself like a badass by taking the gun and shooting like crazy.

When Doroteya and Darius confront that woman in the forest (who mentions the birthmark) they look like children next to her (she’s giant in comparison).

DG: Greed makes pursuers come after… <- it should say “makes” not “make”

DG: Calm, collected, observant; what you could expect from someone who has Mexican and Russian blood. <-- add the word “someone” in there because without it, the sentence seems awkward.

Markov: I want all of you prepared to come to Russia if needed! <- there should be a “to” before the word Russia.

Jason: You’ve studied business in the best college… <- again, “in” would be a better fit for this sentence as opposed to “on”

You describe Michelle as perceptive, empathic, best at questioning. And then you go on to describe more characters. You unload many characters onto the reader which can be a bit too much. Also, instead of telling the readers what the characters are like, show us.

Patrick: …and DG is her bodyguard. / …and DG’s her bodyguard. <— either one is fine but you cannot have “DG’s is her boyguard” as it’s repeating “is” twice.

I love how you ended the chapter by saying “Well…carry on reading to uncover the truth!”

Again, you have DG appear and tell the reader about Lydia “DAY” Johnson. You talk about how she’s calm, really shrewd in business matters, shy but an amazing mother. This is a bad idea as you’re just telling the reader what she’s like. We need to see what she’s like without being told and then come to an conclusion.

The atmosphere of the story was very interesting and it very much suits the action genre.

OK, so overall I enjoyed your story, it was interesting and every word had me hooked! Great job, give yourself a pat on the back and shower yourself with clapping emojis <3

Thank you to @JemU776 for this review.

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