Chapter 1.2: When Hunter Met Slayer

Hiya, DottieSnark! Dropping in for a quick review. I've never watched any Buffy, but I thought I'd swing by and try and help shift this from the Green Room.

I'll start with the good stuff first. Like Zoom says, you're good with dialogue - I could feel the personalities of Buffy and Giles, and from the way they spoke to each other I could tell they were close. Even outside of dialogue, you have a very strong voice while writing. Even though your prose is quite stripped back and to-the-point, it feels confident and assured. You vary your sentence lengths a lot, which makes it pleasant to read.

Even as a cold reader with no knowledge of Buffy, I'm not a fan of how expository your writing (and occasionally dialogue) can be. I understand that you don't want to rewrite canon, and you still want it to have an impact on the story, but I would honestly rather be confused. Let's look at this moment, for example:

“You think I’m overworking myself because of my breakdown with the Master a few nights ago?”

This feels like Buffy is talking to me, not to Giles. It feels like she only says this so you can inform the reader about what is going on. Zoom has also pointed out a lot of paragraphs that have a similar function - you explain that Sunnydale High School library is the headquarters, you explain how vampire slayer activation works, you summarise Buffy's altercation with the Master. It only feels like it's there for my benefit, which breaks the immersion. As a reader, I like to feel like a fly on the wall, like the story would continue independently whether I was snooping on it or not. I think you're underestimating how much your reader can work out for themselves.

So my main advice would be to seriously cut down on the amount of exposition. Let us learn as we go. If there's anything you really, really need to inform the reader of, a good way to do it is to have a character within the story who is just as uninformed as the audience. In Harry Potter, for instance, it makes perfect sense for Harry to ask questions about the wizarding world, because he doesn't know much about it. In this scene, because both Buffy and Giles are aware of what happened with the Master, is doesn't make a whole lot of sense for them to be taking about it so much.

So don't spoonfeed your reader. Try to get away with explaining as little as possible. It will make the story feel a lot more natural and easy to lose yourself in. I do love your characterisation and dialogue, so keep that up.

Keep writing!
~Pan

Yaaaay Buffy. I'm totally here to stay haha.

So this is a lot better than the previous chapter (not that the last one is bad, this is just better).

Again the dialog is a high point and your strength is your ability to maintain a good flow of conversation. The characters seem distinct and this shows with what they say and how they say it. And again your use of action tags is very good.

As for issues, I only really have one this time. I think this chapter fragment is suffering from the same problem the last one did, in that you're alluding to a scene in the past that sounds more interesting than the current scene. You're showcasing Buffy and Giles's dynamic well, however they keep referring to a previous scene (the slaying of The Master) and I'm like, why am I being told about cool stuff that happened in the past when I could be experiencing it for myself!

That's all this time, just slightly too many exposition paragraphs. I've bolded them below. Everything unbolded is your scene, what the reader is immersed in and visualising. Everything bold is you saying "wait hold up, you need to understand all this stuff before you can continue". A line here and there isn't a big deal because the reader can slip straight back into the scene. A paragraph is pushing your luck. Multiple paragraphs in a scene? It's just not a good look.

There’s an old saying: No rest for the wicked. Apparently, there’s no rest for the righteous either, as Buffy Summers, the Vampire Slayer, realized while working out on Sunday morning.

Bright red boxing gloves covered her fists. Her watcher, Rupert Giles, wore strike pads. Right, left, right, left, she thought as she struck the pads. She worked hard, but it was Giles who grunted.

“Oh, right, I think that’s enough for today,” he said. Giles remove the pads.

Buffy raised an eyebrow. “You’re not quitting on me already?”

They were working out in the Sunnydale High School library, which had become the de facto headquarters of Sunnydale’s resident Vampire Slayer and her Watcher. Buffy Summers was the one girl in all the world who was imbued with mystical powers to fight evil and monsters. She was part of a long line of slayers; when one died the next slayer is activated. She was activated in 1996, about a year ago, when she was fifteen.

The library was filled with rare lore books from all over the world. Buffy’s friends, the few people who were in on her secret, often came here to research. But on this quite Saturday it was just Buffy and her watcher.

“I’m afraid you’ve winded me,” Giles said. His breath was slightly ragged. “You deserve a break.”

“I’m good,” Buffy said as she picked up a jump rope. She started a cardio routine.

Giles watched. He looked like he wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words. Instead he pulled off his glasses and wiped them clean with a cloth. It was a motion Giles did so commonly that it might actually be a nervous tic.

Buffy stopped jumping. “You want to say something.”

“Uh, yes,” Giles said. He put his glasses back on.

“You think I’m overworking myself because of my breakdown with the Master a few nights ago?”

The Master was an ancient vampire who killed Buffy last year. Yes killed. He drowned her and she was only resuscitated at the last few moments by her friend Xander. She got her revenge, though. She killed him. Permanently. Still, he haunted her dreams. Buffy wasn’t coping very well with her temporary death. A few nights ago the Master’s vampiric cult tried to bring him back from the dead. They failed, Buffy had made sure of that.

“I smashed his bones,” Buffy said. “There’s no body for him to come back to. He’s gone. Forever.”

“The effects of what he did to you are still lingering. You promised you’d stop pushing people away.”

Buffy sat down. The words felt like a slap. She had promised that but that was a harder promise to keep than she realized. “I’m not trying to push you guys away. It’s just...”

“Hard to express the way you feel?”

Buffy smirked. “Well, you people have never died before. Kind of a hard thing to empathize with.”

Instead of the half-smile half-laugh she was expecting she received a stern frown from Giles. Opps! So much for trying to lighten the mood. Giles opened his mouth but then quickly shut it without saying a word.

“What?” Buffy said. She might be playing things close to the vest these days, but that didn’t mean she wanted Giles to. She’d pry it out of him if she needed to.

“Well I have certainly never died, nor any of your friends. But you do know someone who did.”

Buffy’s eyebrows wrinkled. What was Giles suggesting? “Angel?” she asked.

Angel was a 200-something year old vampire who helped her out in her slaying duties. While it may seem weird for a vampire and vampire slayer to be friends, he had a soul, so he was totally one of the good guys.

“As hesitant as I am about your friendship with him, he might be the only person in your life to understand what you’re going through.”

Buffy bit her lip. She hadn’t spoken to Angel in a few days. Last time they spoke, well, it didn’t end on a high note. It ended in the aforementioned crushing of bones.

“I’m not sure he even still wants to be friends,” Buffy said.

Giles smirked. “I doubt that very much. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. And while I may disapprove, I think he may be the only one to understand your hardship at this moment.”

Buffy nodded and thought over what she would do. She liked Angel. She more than liked Angel. She only hope he would be there for her in her time of need.

Is it too early to ship Sam & Buffy?

I can't wait for the crossover to begin haha.

Please continue!

-Zoom