An opinion

Spooze,

You have an incredible imagination. The rat story feels like a nightmare, literally. I got that same type of weird, dark feeling that you get when you're dreaming, and everything seems to happen around you, and you can't quite absorb everything. You have a very visual mind, which is fantastic for animation. I got a good idea of what type of feel and mood and style the film might be. It's a great start.

Seeing is how you're on the right track with these stories, here are a few tips.

-Re-read your story (strories) a few times, as though you were someone who's never read them before, and had no idea what the story was about. Read it thinking to yourself "would someone reading this, know exactly what I was talking about". Often, as a writer, although the story that you're writing is going on clearly in your mind, you aren't necessarily explaining that properly in writing. (I do that all the time).

(for example...in your head, you're thinking...His mother walks into her son's room, wondering why he didn't come downstairs for dinner, after she called him to come down for dinner three times. When she opens the door and looks inside, no one's there. Once more, his mother calls out his name. When she does, I (the rat), hear her, and come out from under the bed to meet her, not realizing that I'm still a rat, and look up at my mother smiling. My mother looks down, seeing the rat, and starts screaming. I try to tell her that it's me, but I can't speak. That's when I remember that I'm a rat. I try to tell her, but I just can't. My words just come out as high-pitched squeaks. My mother panics and runs over to grab the broom behind my door, and lifts it over her head, ready to swing it at me. I try to scream at her to stop, but she doesn't understand. She swings down with the broom, and the bristles come down hard across my face, cutting into my fragile rat skin, making me bleed in pain."

as opposed to..

"My mother walks into the room and screams at the rat..She swings at me with her broom, making me bleed from the nose."

In both stories, you were saying the same thing. The only difference was, in one case, you were telling the story, doing more thinking then writing. In the other, you're painting an entire, clear image of every little detail, for the person who is reading it. They know exactly what's going on, detail by detail. You're explaining feelings, moods, reactions, settings, causes, effects, everything. That way, it's clear what's going on.

- something else...depending on what you're writing for, there are different lengths of time that the film should fall into.
For example...some studios ask for 5 minute films, some 10. If you're doing a film for TV, then the usual "slots" of time that you're permitted to do are 22 minutes, or 44. Why? Because of the commercials in between. If your film is made to fit into a half hour time slot, then there will be 8 minutes of commercials. If you want an hour slot for your film, then you'll have 16 minutes of commercials. That's how it goes.

- Now, how the hell do you write something, knowing that it'll fall into the right time slot. How do you turn words into images? There's a system that production companies have devised, that seem to do the trick. I've used this method, and it seems to work great funny enough.
When you write your film, ONE PAGE or script, should equal ONE MINUTE of filming. And if you're writing your script, the letters should be 11 pt in size,and the spacing should be 1.5. You use that method my dear Spooze, and no production company should argue with you.

- And one last thing...you need a kick-ass imagination. The ability to create a scenario that's interesting and entertaining to the audience. Well, in your case, you got it, so keep it up.

Now I'm off to pick up my little girl from ballet, so I'll talk to you soon Spooze. I really enjoyed reading your stories...they were very cool.

Talk to you soon,

Adam