Commentary - Editing
So, I asked for fic commentary requests. (I’m still happy to do more, if anyone wants one.)
This was written for snickfic, who requested a commentary for Editing. You should probably read that before looking at this commentary.
The original fic doesn’t look like it does normally, mainly because I needed the blockquotes for my notes…
Editing
Write about the last time you were worried, or scared.
The last time I was worried or scared was a week ago, when my sister went insane, tied me up in the basement of our house, and tried to feed me to a slime monster.
She’s talking about Normal Again.
This was written for still_grrr’s Month of Madness - with the prompt being “Buffy in Normal Again”.
I had no idea what I was going to do, but I wrote this question and answer, and it seemed to fit - so I just kept going…
Dawn contemplates this sentence, carefully. Then she crosses it out, and writes:
The last time I was worried or scared was when a guy at the mall was walking behind me, and I thought he might have a knife, or something.
But, luckily, he didn’t.
Dawn’s perception of why normal people might get scared.
She really does have to censor pretty much every part of her life - which is mainly what the first part of this fic is about.
Write about the last time you were “stressed out”, or under pressure.
I loved putting “stressed out” in quote marks!
It’s supposed to be a school assignment, so underlining relevant bits and putting quote marks around terms that are “Hip” and “With It” seemed like the appropriate thing to do.
Again - the basement. Big slimy things trying to kill you is really stressful.
Well, they are…
This also gets crossed out.
Three months ago, when we had a history test, and I didn’t know if I’d studied hard enough.
Think about the members of your family.
Write down three adjectives to describe each member of your family.
I definitely wanted to include Willow and Tara in the “family”. In fact, the original list was just Buffy, Willow, and Tara - and then I realised that Joyce and Hank probably qualified too.
Mom:
loving
cheerful
deceased
Dad:
away
absent
invisible
Dawn doesn’t have abandonment issues. No. No way…
Buffy:
strong
brave
occasionally insane and psychotic
Normal Again is kind of on Dawn’s mind at the moment.
Willow:
smart
magicaholic
thoughtful
Tara:
also thoughtful
comforting
missed
(“Missed” because she’s moved out, not because she’s dead - I hope that was clear.)
In ten words, describe your life’s ambition.
To survive Sunnydale, get a fun job, and fight evil.
What else?
Dawn frowns, and then replaces “survive Sunnydale” with “finish high-school”, and “fight evil” with “marry someone”.
In one sentence, describe your greatest achievement.
Not destroying the world in a cataclysmic burst of energy when the evil Hellgod who had kidnapped me used my blood to open a portal to go home to hell.
Or, alternatively, winning the MiniMusic! performance at my grade school when I was eight, by singing ‘Tomorrow’ - probably very badly.
Dawn really isn’t a good singer - but she can hit the notes, and I can see her winning a school competition just on all-around cuteness.
Plus - fake Dawn memory! They’re always fun.
What is your greatest hope?
That Tara and Willow will
…will get back together.
This is crossed out.
That I’ll get to travel the world, after high-school.
(And she will!)
What is your greatest fear?
I really was just writing all of this in order, as it occurred to me. I realised that I should include this bit a couple of questions ago - back at “greatest achievement”.
Dawn pauses, staring at the page. And then she slowly writes:
Fading away.
She faded in, she could fade out again…
Describe the best thing that happened to you this week.
Getting rescued from the slime monster would be pretty high up the list…
This (IMO) is when Dawn’s sense of humour starts intruding into her homework.
Describe the worst thing that happened to you this week.
When my sister went crazy.
She thinks, and then adds:
When my sister was in this weird universe where she was crazy, and I didn’t exist.
When my sister thought she’d just been imagining me.
When I started wondering if she’d just been imagining me.
After all, she was - once.
When Dawn realises that she doesn’t exist in the Asylumverse, I don’t think she’s hurt because she’s feeling all neglected. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that she knows she never existed, she’s known that for a while, and part of her is always slightly worried about that…
Describe the funniest thing that happened to you this week.
Why?
That last question made her feel a lot more cynical, and un-homeworky.
Thus, the rest of the assignment gets rather snarky.
Describe the most exciting thing that happened to you this week.
Basement. Slime monster. Duh.
Well, yeah.
(And can I just take a moment to say how dreadful these homework questions are - and how much they’re based on my memories of early high school.)
Describe the most interesting thing that happened to you this week.
Definitely not doing this homework assignment.
In three sentences, describe one of your favourite hobbies.
Making papier-mache models of vampires.
It’s really fun.
And also interesting.
Is she serious? I have no idea.
Either way, it seemed to fit Dawn.
Describe one of your phobias.
Slime monsters?
That line just makes me laugh…
Describe something you’re looking forward to.
Going shopping with Buffy this weekend, to make up for the tried-to-kill-me-with-a-slime-monster thing.
…which happens in Entropy.
Describe something you’re not looking forward to.
Rewriting most of this assignment so that I don’t get sent to the school counsellor every week for the rest of my life.
(I’d love to write a fic with Dawn getting sent to the counsellor for a discussion about all the vampire references that keep appearing in her essays - but I don’t think she’d actually leave them in.)
Write down a question.
What color is the sky?
Note the American spelling. *is proud of remembering to do that*
Write down a rhetorical question.
Is this homework assignment really dumb?
Write down a hypothetical question.
If five monkeys were set loose in a movie theater, which one would bite the most people before being recaptured?
First hypothetical question I thought of. Yes, I have a weird brain.
Write down an interrogative question.
Are you responsible for seven vicious axe murders in Manhattan?
(Written purely so that I could have Dawn give a deadpan answer, shortly…)
Write down a philosophical question.
If Buffy forgot who I was, would I still be me?
A rather central Dawn question - given that her entire personality is based on a bunch of artificial memories.
Actually, it occurs to me that this is also the central question of Glowy Green Things, and Made To Order. In fact, of the 13 fics I currently have listed under “Dawn”, 9 of them are about the fact that she didn’t used to exist…
Now, answer each of the five questions you wrote down.
1) Blue
2) It doesn’t need to be answered - it’s rhetorical.
3) The one with the fluffiest tail.
4) No. I have never axe murdered anyone.
5)
Dawn pauses again.
The main purpose of this fic? To fill it so full of Dawn’s personality and general Dawnishness, that it would be clear that Dawn is nothing if not herself - even if no-one remembers that any more.
And then she picks up her pen, and writes:
Yes.
Originally, the last two questions were the things Dawn was and was not “looking forward to”. But this was so clearly where the fic should end that I moved those two questions further up the page.
This was written for snickfic, who requested a commentary for Editing. You should probably read that before looking at this commentary.
The original fic doesn’t look like it does normally, mainly because I needed the blockquotes for my notes…
Editing
Write about the last time you were worried, or scared.
The last time I was worried or scared was a week ago, when my sister went insane, tied me up in the basement of our house, and tried to feed me to a slime monster.
She’s talking about Normal Again.
This was written for still_grrr’s Month of Madness - with the prompt being “Buffy in Normal Again”.
I had no idea what I was going to do, but I wrote this question and answer, and it seemed to fit - so I just kept going…
Dawn contemplates this sentence, carefully. Then she crosses it out, and writes:
The last time I was worried or scared was when a guy at the mall was walking behind me, and I thought he might have a knife, or something.
But, luckily, he didn’t.
Dawn’s perception of why normal people might get scared.
She really does have to censor pretty much every part of her life - which is mainly what the first part of this fic is about.
Write about the last time you were “stressed out”, or under pressure.
I loved putting “stressed out” in quote marks!
It’s supposed to be a school assignment, so underlining relevant bits and putting quote marks around terms that are “Hip” and “With It” seemed like the appropriate thing to do.
Again - the basement. Big slimy things trying to kill you is really stressful.
Well, they are…
This also gets crossed out.
Three months ago, when we had a history test, and I didn’t know if I’d studied hard enough.
Think about the members of your family.
Write down three adjectives to describe each member of your family.
I definitely wanted to include Willow and Tara in the “family”. In fact, the original list was just Buffy, Willow, and Tara - and then I realised that Joyce and Hank probably qualified too.
Mom:
loving
cheerful
deceased
Dad:
away
absent
invisible
Dawn doesn’t have abandonment issues. No. No way…
Buffy:
strong
brave
occasionally insane and psychotic
Normal Again is kind of on Dawn’s mind at the moment.
Willow:
smart
magicaholic
thoughtful
Tara:
also thoughtful
comforting
missed
(“Missed” because she’s moved out, not because she’s dead - I hope that was clear.)
In ten words, describe your life’s ambition.
To survive Sunnydale, get a fun job, and fight evil.
What else?
Dawn frowns, and then replaces “survive Sunnydale” with “finish high-school”, and “fight evil” with “marry someone”.
In one sentence, describe your greatest achievement.
Not destroying the world in a cataclysmic burst of energy when the evil Hellgod who had kidnapped me used my blood to open a portal to go home to hell.
Or, alternatively, winning the MiniMusic! performance at my grade school when I was eight, by singing ‘Tomorrow’ - probably very badly.
Dawn really isn’t a good singer - but she can hit the notes, and I can see her winning a school competition just on all-around cuteness.
Plus - fake Dawn memory! They’re always fun.
What is your greatest hope?
That Tara and Willow will
…will get back together.
This is crossed out.
That I’ll get to travel the world, after high-school.
(And she will!)
What is your greatest fear?
I really was just writing all of this in order, as it occurred to me. I realised that I should include this bit a couple of questions ago - back at “greatest achievement”.
Dawn pauses, staring at the page. And then she slowly writes:
Fading away.
She faded in, she could fade out again…
Describe the best thing that happened to you this week.
Getting rescued from the slime monster would be pretty high up the list…
This (IMO) is when Dawn’s sense of humour starts intruding into her homework.
Describe the worst thing that happened to you this week.
When my sister went crazy.
She thinks, and then adds:
When my sister was in this weird universe where she was crazy, and I didn’t exist.
When my sister thought she’d just been imagining me.
When I started wondering if she’d just been imagining me.
After all, she was - once.
When Dawn realises that she doesn’t exist in the Asylumverse, I don’t think she’s hurt because she’s feeling all neglected. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that she knows she never existed, she’s known that for a while, and part of her is always slightly worried about that…
Describe the funniest thing that happened to you this week.
Why?
That last question made her feel a lot more cynical, and un-homeworky.
Thus, the rest of the assignment gets rather snarky.
Describe the most exciting thing that happened to you this week.
Basement. Slime monster. Duh.
Well, yeah.
(And can I just take a moment to say how dreadful these homework questions are - and how much they’re based on my memories of early high school.)
Describe the most interesting thing that happened to you this week.
Definitely not doing this homework assignment.
In three sentences, describe one of your favourite hobbies.
Making papier-mache models of vampires.
It’s really fun.
And also interesting.
Is she serious? I have no idea.
Either way, it seemed to fit Dawn.
Describe one of your phobias.
Slime monsters?
That line just makes me laugh…
Describe something you’re looking forward to.
Going shopping with Buffy this weekend, to make up for the tried-to-kill-me-with-a-slime-monster thing.
…which happens in Entropy.
Describe something you’re not looking forward to.
Rewriting most of this assignment so that I don’t get sent to the school counsellor every week for the rest of my life.
(I’d love to write a fic with Dawn getting sent to the counsellor for a discussion about all the vampire references that keep appearing in her essays - but I don’t think she’d actually leave them in.)
Write down a question.
What color is the sky?
Note the American spelling. *is proud of remembering to do that*
Write down a rhetorical question.
Is this homework assignment really dumb?
Write down a hypothetical question.
If five monkeys were set loose in a movie theater, which one would bite the most people before being recaptured?
First hypothetical question I thought of. Yes, I have a weird brain.
Write down an interrogative question.
Are you responsible for seven vicious axe murders in Manhattan?
(Written purely so that I could have Dawn give a deadpan answer, shortly…)
Write down a philosophical question.
If Buffy forgot who I was, would I still be me?
A rather central Dawn question - given that her entire personality is based on a bunch of artificial memories.
Actually, it occurs to me that this is also the central question of Glowy Green Things, and Made To Order. In fact, of the 13 fics I currently have listed under “Dawn”, 9 of them are about the fact that she didn’t used to exist…
Now, answer each of the five questions you wrote down.
1) Blue
2) It doesn’t need to be answered - it’s rhetorical.
3) The one with the fluffiest tail.
4) No. I have never axe murdered anyone.
5)
Dawn pauses again.
The main purpose of this fic? To fill it so full of Dawn’s personality and general Dawnishness, that it would be clear that Dawn is nothing if not herself - even if no-one remembers that any more.
And then she picks up her pen, and writes:
Yes.
Originally, the last two questions were the things Dawn was and was not “looking forward to”. But this was so clearly where the fic should end that I moved those two questions further up the page.