Here I am, reporting for concrit duty.I’ve never written concrit, but here we go.
I like the gravity of this, the grown-upness of it. This Dawn is not the teen-aged girl we’ve seen on tv. But you haven’t gone into long explanations of her situation, you’ve shown us by the dialogue and reactions from other people. Starting with conversations between the characters plunges us right into the action and captures our attention. I like your sure handling of the present tense, too. It gives a sense of immediacy.
You introduce your other characters naturally, with, again, no tedious exposition. I would certainly be willing to follow this Dawn and read more about her life. In a very short piece you’ve set up a nice little world, with conflicts and loyalties and memories.
Having said that, I don’t think I understand why Dawn wants the test to be revived. I would have liked Giles to give more arguments against it; he’s certainly had time to think about it and some personal experience. If Dawn had to counter what he said, we’d know why she’d thinks it’s essential. Is it because she believes with Quentin that Slayers need this push to stand on their own? But she doesn’t say that, another character does, so what’s her reason?
This is not a long story and I feel the structure could be a little tighter. There’s that old playwright’s rule about how a gun being introduced in the first act has to go off in the last; when you introduce Angel into Dawn’s musings, there’s no payoff. You’ve send the reader off into a path that leads nowhere. The reader must pull her attention back to your story about the Watchers’ Council, back from wondering, where the heck is Angel?
I also have a quibble about the time frame. Dawn says to Beatrice “you’re barely younger than I am” meaning 18 or so. But the language Dawn uses is so much more sophisticated than that she used in Buffy, that I thought she must be at least 10 years older. The tone she uses in her internal speech is adult, she tells us that Lydia looks at her mentor’s “simulacrum”, and while I like this Dawn much more the one I’m familiar with, there must have been some sort of transition to shape her into this adult. I would rather have read about Dawn’s becoming this person than the review of Traver’s trips to America, which, again, sent me off on a tangent, away from the story.
I hope I’ve conveyed that I really liked your story and would enjoy reading more about Dawn in this world.
no subject
I like the gravity of this, the grown-upness of it. This Dawn is not the teen-aged girl we’ve seen on tv. But you haven’t gone into long explanations of her situation, you’ve shown us by the dialogue and reactions from other people. Starting with conversations between the characters plunges us right into the action and captures our attention. I like your sure handling of the present tense, too. It gives a sense of immediacy.
You introduce your other characters naturally, with, again, no tedious exposition. I would certainly be willing to follow this Dawn and read more about her life. In a very short piece you’ve set up a nice little world, with conflicts and loyalties and memories.
Having said that, I don’t think I understand why Dawn wants the test to be revived. I would have liked Giles to give more arguments against it; he’s certainly had time to think about it and some personal experience. If Dawn had to counter what he said, we’d know why she’d thinks it’s essential. Is it because she believes with Quentin that Slayers need this push to stand on their own? But she doesn’t say that, another character does, so what’s her reason?
This is not a long story and I feel the structure could be a little tighter. There’s that old playwright’s rule about how a gun being introduced in the first act has to go off in the last; when you introduce Angel into Dawn’s musings, there’s no payoff. You’ve send the reader off into a path that leads nowhere. The reader must pull her attention back to your story about the Watchers’ Council, back from wondering, where the heck is Angel?
I also have a quibble about the time frame. Dawn says to Beatrice “you’re barely younger than I am” meaning 18 or so. But the language Dawn uses is so much more sophisticated than that she used in Buffy, that I thought she must be at least 10 years older. The tone she uses in her internal speech is adult, she tells us that Lydia looks at her mentor’s “simulacrum”, and while I like this Dawn much more the one I’m familiar with, there must have been some sort of transition to shape her into this adult. I would rather have read about Dawn’s becoming this person than the review of Traver’s trips to America, which, again, sent me off on a tangent, away from the story.
I hope I’ve conveyed that I really liked your story and would enjoy reading more about Dawn in this world.