Clicky The formatting is slightly odd in some respects and there are some things left out, because I tend to build a story and its surroundings up simultaneously. I'd love your feedback, though. -Ed

If you're writing animated cutscenes, write them in screenplay format. (12 pt. Courier, standard margins and spacing, indented dialog blocks with centered character names, etc.) It makes it much easier to read and is pretty much essential if you going to be working with actors or animators.

It also helps you estimate how long your script is. One page of script in standard format translates to about 1 minute of screen time.

You've got about 100 pages of actual dialog here. But I can guarantee you that if it was formatted properly with the necessary amount of scene descriptions (i.e. much more than you have currently) you'd be looking at a 200-300 page screenplay.

Five hours is a lot of cutscenes.

In general you need to focus on being much more economical with your dialog. Every line needs to work toward moving the story forward emotionally or provide exposition. Or, ideally, both.

In most of your scenes you've got a lot of unnecessary back-and-forth between them that drags out the narrative beats. For example, someone says something, someone else gives a trival reply, and the first speaker continues. Try to eliminate all that banter.

Quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
If you're writing animated cutscenes, write them in screenplay format. (12 pt. Courier, standard margins and spacing, indented dialog blocks with centered character names, etc.) It makes it much easier to read and is pretty much essential if you going to be working with actors or animators.

It also helps you estimate how long your script is. One page of script in standard format translates to about 1 minute of screen time.

You've got about 100 pages of actual dialog here. But I can guarantee you that if it was formatted properly with the necessary amount of scene descriptions (i.e. much more than you have currently) you'd be looking at a 200-300 page screenplay.

Five hours is a lot of cutscenes.

In general you need to focus on being much more economical with your dialog. Every line needs to work toward moving the story forward emotionally or provide exposition. Or, ideally, both.

In most of your scenes you've got a lot of unnecessary back-and-forth between them that drags out the narrative beats. For example, someone says something, someone else gives a trival reply, and the first speaker continues. Try to eliminate all that banter.

Thanks for the feedback. I would have had it formatted, but I wrote it on a Palm Pilot. No tabs.

Anyway, these are going to be still-frame cutscenes (half of which are already drawn). Voice-overs aren't likely. And, thanks to a "summary" button available, the player can skip 'em at will and still keep up on the story.