Reviewer: PhotographyNut
Anonymous
Date: 07/24/2007 - 10:14 pm
Title: Sleepover Fun
Just found your fic and love it! Can't wait to read more!
Reviewer: Reviewer
Anonymous
Date: 07/24/2007 - 09:15 pm
Title: The Job and The Meeting
Hi again lovebites, a beta is a person who proofreads your fic for you and is able to pick up on any mistakes/inconsistencies that you yourself may have missed. There are lists of people willing to beta for Spuffy authors that you can access (like those found over at the Bloodshedverse), or I'm sure if you put a note at the top of your fics someone will be more than willing to help you out. And I don't mean this suggestion in a mean way - most authors will tell you that they use beta's, and the difference of having an extra set of eyes is usually quite noticable to your readers.
What I mean by structural and grammatical problems is things such as this part of your fic:
_____
Willow,” Don’t worry, it’s not that bad. He only requires that you travel-
“That is sooo easy! Gosh, you act as if I wouldn’t want to take this part.
Willow” Well...your co-star, the one who plays your love interest, he isn’t the best man in Hollywood to um, get it on on screen.
_____
If you are intending this to read as a script, introducing the dialogue by using Willow, (Willow with a comma), is incorrect - you need to use a colon like you do elsewhere (:), otherwise it just looks like you've written the word 'Willow' and forgotten to put the rest of your sentence in before the comma. If you don't want it to appear script like, then you need to replace all the 'Buffy:' and 'Willow:' bits with different ways of introduce dialogue, such as 'Willow hesitated. "Well, your co-star etc etc," she tried to elaborate.' You know, adding descriptions of how people are speaking etc... either way, pick one format and stick with it - even if you use the format only for when people are on the phone, it comes across a bit wonky.There are also other things, like not closing off your dialogue (with a "), so there is nothing to signal that a new person is speaking - it ends up looking like one big run on sentence. And other little things, like forgetting to put in spaces etc... all little things that you can look over while you're focussing on the big picture that is your plot. Again, I honestly don't mean this to be rude or nitpicky - I just hate to see good story ideas that are hard to read because of easily fixable things like formatting and grammar. (And yes, I am a total grammar natzi - I'm an English teacher!)
Reviewer: Reviewer
Anonymous
Date: 07/23/2007 - 11:11 pm
Title: The Job and The Meeting
Good concept, but do you have a beta? There are some major structural and grammatical issues you need to address, including how you switch between script format and regular prose. Other discrepancies with this and your other fics recently posted here may have people calling 'plagiarist' due to the way they appear to be cobbled together, so I'd make sure if you are writing these yourself that you address these problems ASAP.
Author's Response: I don't get what you mean...sorry if I sound completely ignorant but what is a beta exactly? How do I use one, etc? I'm used to fanfiction.net, not this site, and I also don't think the format is different from most fictions I've read...please elaborate.
Reviewer: Pam S
Anonymous
Date: 07/23/2007 - 11:02 am
Title: Sleepover Fun
They seem to getting along... famously. And Angel is going to be a problem I see.
Enjoying.
Reviewer: Your Summary
Anonymous
Date: 07/23/2007 - 10:52 am
Title: The Job and The Meeting
Is it Spike Kingly or Spike Giles?