This is an interesting story that uses simple yet powerful language and narrative structure to get its message across. I have read it many times over, sometimes looking for overall structure and sometimes examining the small details.
The language you use is stiff and formal, at times excessively so (I longed for an occasional elision) and this helps convey the mood of formality appropriate to the Watcher’s Council. Dawn, we learn to our shock, is still very young, and yet she too talks and thinks in the stiff tones of the others. Thus very neatly showing the ethos she has taken on, the woman she is becoming under their tutelage.
Your characterization of Giles is I think the best – conveying sparsely but clearly his desperate defense of his pre-chosen beliefs. And even Quentin Travers, dead and only referred to in absentia, becomes a more rounded character than he ever was on the show – being given motives and an emotional role for Lydia. (Was he her watcher, I wondered, when she was a young potential?)
I am giving you almost a line by line critique because in a story this short every word has to count and pull its weight.
“I can’t believe you are the one suggesting this,” says Giles. “After what your sister went through—-what you went through-—I can’t believe you could possibly be saying this.”
This is a powerful introduction, raising questions in the reader’s mind and therefore hooking the interest.
“You could have died. She could have died.”
“She didn’t,” I point out, with more facility than I feel. “She was up to the challenge. And I didn’t even really exist yet, so there was never any danger of me dying. He couldn’t have killed me.”
This is an interesting idea and one that I only really grasoed on the fourth reading – that Dawn, not Joyce, was the one seized during Buffy’s cruciamentum. I don’t know if this is an idea you have referenced elsewhere in your fic or if it is a commonplace in Dawn fanon, but coming to the idea fresh it struck me as a clever and plausible one. However, as I say I only noticed it on the fourth reading. What I think would be nice is if you referred back to this idea later in the story, thus both making it more apparent and carrying on an important theme. (More of that later.)
“I won’t march those girls into danger,” he says, resolute. “I wouldn’t do it before and I won’t do it now.”
’March’ is an odd choice of verb from Giles. Does it have exactly the resonance you were looking for?
I walk up to Giles, put my hand on his shoulder. “You won’t have to,” I tell him. “I’ll do it.”
And a nice strong ending to this first section, rounding off what is a very good start to the story.
It is put to a vote before the High Council. Giles votes against it, of course; Roger Wyndam-Pryce votes in the affirmative. Lydia Chalmers, the sole survivor of the Council headquarters explosion, abstains. It’s up to me, the youngest member of the High Council, to break the tie. Of course, I introduced the motion, so we all know how I'm going to vote.
That paragraph includes ‘vote’ twice and ‘votes’ twice. Repetition of a word can be useful for rhythmic emphasis or to create a specific effect, but I don’t think that is what you were aiming for here because unfortunately it comes across as rather stilted, miss-weighting the paragraph.
“Aye,” I say, wondering how many girls I am condemning to death, and knowing in my heart that is necessary.
Should be ‘That it is necessary’. More or less the only typo I spotted.
“The motion passes,” says Roger Wyndam-Pryce with a too-smug smile as he records the result of the vote.
It is doubtless just my juvenile mind but ‘the motion passes’ instantly evoked images of the lavatory. Made worse by RWP’s smug smile. You should perhaps rephrase.
“The practice of the Cruciamentum is reinstated.”
Another powerful, punchy end to a section. You are good at those and it gives the piece an overall rhythm.
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Concrit
Date: 2005-09-24 11:21 am (UTC)The language you use is stiff and formal, at times excessively so (I longed for an occasional elision) and this helps convey the mood of formality appropriate to the Watcher’s Council. Dawn, we learn to our shock, is still very young, and yet she too talks and thinks in the stiff tones of the others. Thus very neatly showing the ethos she has taken on, the woman she is becoming under their tutelage.
Your characterization of Giles is I think the best – conveying sparsely but clearly his desperate defense of his pre-chosen beliefs. And even Quentin Travers, dead and only referred to in absentia, becomes a more rounded character than he ever was on the show – being given motives and an emotional role for Lydia. (Was he her watcher, I wondered, when she was a young potential?)
I am giving you almost a line by line critique because in a story this short every word has to count and pull its weight.
This is a powerful introduction, raising questions in the reader’s mind and therefore hooking the interest.
This is an interesting idea and one that I only really grasoed on the fourth reading – that Dawn, not Joyce, was the one seized during Buffy’s cruciamentum. I don’t know if this is an idea you have referenced elsewhere in your fic or if it is a commonplace in Dawn fanon, but coming to the idea fresh it struck me as a clever and plausible one. However, as I say I only noticed it on the fourth reading. What I think would be nice is if you referred back to this idea later in the story, thus both making it more apparent and carrying on an important theme. (More of that later.)
’March’ is an odd choice of verb from Giles. Does it have exactly the resonance you were looking for?
And a nice strong ending to this first section, rounding off what is a very good start to the story.
That paragraph includes ‘vote’ twice and ‘votes’ twice. Repetition of a word can be useful for rhythmic emphasis or to create a specific effect, but I don’t think that is what you were aiming for here because unfortunately it comes across as rather stilted, miss-weighting the paragraph.
Should be ‘That it is necessary’. More or less the only typo I spotted.
It is doubtless just my juvenile mind but ‘the motion passes’ instantly evoked images of the lavatory. Made worse by RWP’s smug smile. You should perhaps rephrase.
Another powerful, punchy end to a section. You are good at those and it gives the piece an overall rhythm.