Well I definitely don't see any reason you shouldn't be proud of this. It's well written, flows nicely, and brings up an interesting ideas with Buffy as the "relationship counselor" for the other Slayers. It does seem like the kind of job she might be good at. Although the cynical part of me wonders how she's going to give anyone advice about having a normal, human boyfriend. :p
But aside from that, it's very well done. Maybe my only criticism would be the dialogue that gets kind of bogged down in bigger chapters, where you go from dialogue to narrative to dialogue to narrative several times within the same paragraph. It's not bad, it just makes it kind of cumbersome to read. But really, that's a pretty minor issue.
You've got quite a lot of nice potential here, and considering your excellent jumping-off point, you could only go from good to excellent. I hope you keep writing and keep putting stuff out there, I'd love to see what you could do as you get more confident in your already very respectable abilities.
Aww, thanks, Mac. I appreciate the positive reinforcement.
Any suggestions on the paragraph thing? I had some trouble deciding exactly how they should break, and ended up usually breaking them only when the speaker changed. Would it work better if I limited it to one or two quoted sections per paragraph?
Well take this paragraph here: Giles' total lack of response seemed odd to Buffy, until she realized that she had reopened that particular wound twice in this conversation without really meaning to. She winced a little at her lack of sensitivity, but, figuring the best cure was a good chain-of-thought disruption, Buffy charged ahead. "It's not that I didn't want to help, I just really couldn't. My life was too different from theirs. And at the time, volunteering to be a Slayer counselor would've meant talking to Faith, who needs way more than just informal counseling, or talking to myself, which leads nowhere good." Giles and Buffy shared a smirk at that, and she was pleased that he seemed to be back into the conversation now. "But now that I've been here for a few weeks, and I've seen what you needs are, it just seems to make sense. Pretty much any tortured relationship scenario, I've been through it. And I'll be talking to Slayers, so I can make suggestions like 'go kill something, you'll feel better,' without sounding like a psycho
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It does, actually. I'm so used to writing for myself, that I'm not used to taking that step back when I review what I'm working on and thinking about what I would need to see if I was a first-time reader who didn't know what was going on.
I was going to work on Part 2 tonight, but the night has somehow gotten away from me. I'll be putting your advice to good use on it tomorrow, if all goes well. Thanks!
Thanks, a2z! I'm still a bit nervous about sending my fics out into the wild; it's nice to see that I can get some constructive criticism that will make them better, along with some positive reinforcement to get me to want to write more
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Thanks for the FB, and thanks for the friending! I've been hemming and hawing about posting for a while, and Influx 1 was the first thing I've posted since an aborted attempt to rewrite The Freshman a couple of years ago that I posted on fanfiction.net. I hate unfinished things myself, and really didn't want to start posting something and then leave people hanging (like I did with my The Freshman rewrite). Plus, I was nervous about putting my stuff out there before I felt it was perfect (which it never is). So, I'm glad that people seem to like Influx part 1, and I am committed to getting this whole story out there (which includes Influx and at least one other fic after that one). Look for part 2 by the end of the weekend, if all goes well.
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But aside from that, it's very well done. Maybe my only criticism would be the dialogue that gets kind of bogged down in bigger chapters, where you go from dialogue to narrative to dialogue to narrative several times within the same paragraph. It's not bad, it just makes it kind of cumbersome to read. But really, that's a pretty minor issue.
You've got quite a lot of nice potential here, and considering your excellent jumping-off point, you could only go from good to excellent. I hope you keep writing and keep putting stuff out there, I'd love to see what you could do as you get more confident in your already very respectable abilities.
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Any suggestions on the paragraph thing? I had some trouble deciding exactly how they should break, and ended up usually breaking them only when the speaker changed. Would it work better if I limited it to one or two quoted sections per paragraph?
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I was going to work on Part 2 tonight, but the night has somehow gotten away from me. I'll be putting your advice to good use on it tomorrow, if all goes well. Thanks!
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How's learned thumb?
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