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Well. I left my first ConCrit...
Jan. 19th, 2004 04:12 pmthat nailed an author to the wall today. The story is here:
http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1693367
And here's what I said about the story:
The good: Your writing style is actually pretty good, you apparently know how to use the spell checker, and you may have an interesting premise.
That being said...How is this a Buffy story? I see that three of the characters so far have the same names as the characters on the show, and at least one of them has the same physical description. "Queen Bitch" is a pretty good description of Season One Cordelia's personality, so you might have her character pinned down, although we haven't actually met her yet. And the Cordy on the show wasn't a one-note shallow bitch, either, although it's easy to forget that.
I understand that there are bunches and bunches of all-human Alternate Universe stories on FFN. Most of them, if you just changed the names of the characters, could be original stories with no trouble whatsoever. In fact, I really have yet to see an all-human AU in which the author actually nailed the personalities of the characters. And, unfortunately, this also appears to be one of those. Our Buffy on the show doesn't seem to be an especially profane person, and yet you have her swearing nearly non-stop. Spike, timid??? Maybe in his "William" incarnation...but then how would he get a nickname like "Spike"--unless it was a humorous appellation his friends gave him in high school? And giving him the last name "Giles," while a common fanon bunny, doesn't really make much sense when you think about it, does it?
The best thing I can tell you to do with this is to change the names of the characters, change Spike's appearance a little (I know that's hard! I love him too! Put the scar over his right eyebrow instead)...and make this an original fiction, which you can post on fictionpress.net. You won't get as much readership there as you will here with a "Buffy" story, granted, but you will have the satisfaction of making the characters YOUR OWN and not just dumping characters from a show into an AU that would never happen to them.
You should also get a beta reader. A beta will catch mistakes like using "passed" when you mean "past" and the fact that ellipses come in threes, not twos, and the switching back and forth between tenses. Find one that's anally retentive about grammar, punctuation, and spelling, and your story will be vastly improved.
I'm not trying to discourage you, and I'm not trying to be mean, I'm trying to help. I think you have potential...but you just haven't really captured the personalities of the characters here very well. Make it YOUR story, with YOUR characters. You're mostly there already anyway.
I wonder if I'll get any reaction from her at all. I don't think it was particularly mean; I just gave her my honest opinion. I guess I could have added that her disclaimer wasn't exactly true; she said that the characters weren't hers, and that's why we call it fanfiction...but the characters actually ARE hers (just with the Buffy names), and all-human AU's aren't usually Buffy fanfiction, although millions of fangirls delude themselves into thinking they are.
So...Just wondering if I was too hard on her. I tried to be as positive as I could about what I could be positive about, and I tried to stay away from "This sucks!" perjoratives. Just wondering if I'm going to have a flaming email in my inbox later today.
http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1693367
And here's what I said about the story:
The good: Your writing style is actually pretty good, you apparently know how to use the spell checker, and you may have an interesting premise.
That being said...How is this a Buffy story? I see that three of the characters so far have the same names as the characters on the show, and at least one of them has the same physical description. "Queen Bitch" is a pretty good description of Season One Cordelia's personality, so you might have her character pinned down, although we haven't actually met her yet. And the Cordy on the show wasn't a one-note shallow bitch, either, although it's easy to forget that.
I understand that there are bunches and bunches of all-human Alternate Universe stories on FFN. Most of them, if you just changed the names of the characters, could be original stories with no trouble whatsoever. In fact, I really have yet to see an all-human AU in which the author actually nailed the personalities of the characters. And, unfortunately, this also appears to be one of those. Our Buffy on the show doesn't seem to be an especially profane person, and yet you have her swearing nearly non-stop. Spike, timid??? Maybe in his "William" incarnation...but then how would he get a nickname like "Spike"--unless it was a humorous appellation his friends gave him in high school? And giving him the last name "Giles," while a common fanon bunny, doesn't really make much sense when you think about it, does it?
The best thing I can tell you to do with this is to change the names of the characters, change Spike's appearance a little (I know that's hard! I love him too! Put the scar over his right eyebrow instead)...and make this an original fiction, which you can post on fictionpress.net. You won't get as much readership there as you will here with a "Buffy" story, granted, but you will have the satisfaction of making the characters YOUR OWN and not just dumping characters from a show into an AU that would never happen to them.
You should also get a beta reader. A beta will catch mistakes like using "passed" when you mean "past" and the fact that ellipses come in threes, not twos, and the switching back and forth between tenses. Find one that's anally retentive about grammar, punctuation, and spelling, and your story will be vastly improved.
I'm not trying to discourage you, and I'm not trying to be mean, I'm trying to help. I think you have potential...but you just haven't really captured the personalities of the characters here very well. Make it YOUR story, with YOUR characters. You're mostly there already anyway.
I wonder if I'll get any reaction from her at all. I don't think it was particularly mean; I just gave her my honest opinion. I guess I could have added that her disclaimer wasn't exactly true; she said that the characters weren't hers, and that's why we call it fanfiction...but the characters actually ARE hers (just with the Buffy names), and all-human AU's aren't usually Buffy fanfiction, although millions of fangirls delude themselves into thinking they are.
So...Just wondering if I was too hard on her. I tried to be as positive as I could about what I could be positive about, and I tried to stay away from "This sucks!" perjoratives. Just wondering if I'm going to have a flaming email in my inbox later today.
