*sigh* Another visit to the Pit of Voles
Jun. 16th, 2004 04:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
agilebritAnd another author in dire need of a beta reader.
This is the review I left:
The good: You have an intriguing premise here, if you're going to get into more of who the Immortal is. You know where your spell checker is, and you know that spell check is your friend.
The bad? You switch tenses at the beginning. You go from "says" to "said" in the space of a paragraph--but at least you don't switch back. Spell check doesn't catch homonyms, such as "bite" as opposed to "bight." The dialogue is clunky; people use contractions when they talk. Buffy would be more likely to say "It's, like, one in the morning," than "It is like one in the morning." Reading dialogue out loud to see if it sounds right can be very useful. Commas and periods, too, are useful things and help prevent confusion about where one thought ends and another begins.
You should get a beta reader who knows the ins and outs of spelling and grammar--preferably a teacher or an adult who won't be afraid to tell you what's wrong with it, not one of your friends who might not want to hurt your feelings. Please don't misunderstand this for a flame--all I've done is told you that it needs work; I haven't attacked you personally or told you that you should never put hand to keyboard again. You have potential; you just need help. We all did when we first started out. :-)
Heh. I think my review was longer than her story. Was I too hard on her? I have the feeling she's not very old; although I could be wrong about that. Anyway. It's a signed review, so if I've offended her she can send me an email.
This is the review I left:
The good: You have an intriguing premise here, if you're going to get into more of who the Immortal is. You know where your spell checker is, and you know that spell check is your friend.
The bad? You switch tenses at the beginning. You go from "says" to "said" in the space of a paragraph--but at least you don't switch back. Spell check doesn't catch homonyms, such as "bite" as opposed to "bight." The dialogue is clunky; people use contractions when they talk. Buffy would be more likely to say "It's, like, one in the morning," than "It is like one in the morning." Reading dialogue out loud to see if it sounds right can be very useful. Commas and periods, too, are useful things and help prevent confusion about where one thought ends and another begins.
You should get a beta reader who knows the ins and outs of spelling and grammar--preferably a teacher or an adult who won't be afraid to tell you what's wrong with it, not one of your friends who might not want to hurt your feelings. Please don't misunderstand this for a flame--all I've done is told you that it needs work; I haven't attacked you personally or told you that you should never put hand to keyboard again. You have potential; you just need help. We all did when we first started out. :-)
Heh. I think my review was longer than her story. Was I too hard on her? I have the feeling she's not very old; although I could be wrong about that. Anyway. It's a signed review, so if I've offended her she can send me an email.
