Fanfiction: "Could It Be"

Author: Lea

Reviewer: Stacie

Summary: Post-Chosen; After Andrew returns to Rome with the Slayers (from AtS: "Damage") and tells the gang about what happened with the Slayer from that episode. Buffy goes to L.A. and confronts Angel, only to find him with Nina and Spike alive. And so the story goes...

· Grammar: There were mistakes. You always should read the story out loud so that you can catch your grammatical mistakes. A beta would also be very helpful. There were places where there should have been apostrophes and where words should/shouldn't have been capitalized. Numbers lower than one hundred should always be written out. There are places where commas would have been nice. Nicknames should be capitalized. There are places where "your" should be "you're." Ellipses (the '...') should always be three dots. Song titles should be capitalized and in quotations. "Werewolf" is one word. A distinction between dialogue and song lyrics would be nice.

· Spelling: "Hectic"; "Unlocking"

· Improbability: My suspension of disbelief is in full effect since this is basically Canon.

· Cliché: I haven't read many stories that took place after the series finale of Buffy. But then, I don't usually read Canon. (Liz's comments: I've read millions of "Post Chosen" fanfictions - I notice them because I read a lot of canon. Yes, it's true - a lot of people want to continue the story of the Whedonverse after the season finales, but it's starting to get a little bit ridiculous when a whole site has updates full of just "Post Chosen" fics. You need variety.)

· Plot Development: Well, I had a steady idea of what was going on (ignoring the places where the lack of separation marks confused me), but I do have a problem with how the whole "Angel is the enemy now that he has Wolfram and Hart" subplot didn't seem to have a conclusion.

· Characterization: Generally, the characterization is good. There were a couple of places where I felt that a character wouldn't have said or done things they did in the fic. Particularly with the end: I don't think Buffy would've necessarily talked like that - Scrambling to get "Angelus" to forgive her. Also, I'm pretty sure Angel wouldn't have turned Buffy to keep Angelus placated; he most likely would have told her to kill him.

· Use of Words/Description: I had a general picture of what was going on, combined with how I thought things would look. Nevertheless, it felt kind of flat.

· Continuity: Stemming from the show, yeah. But within the story, she didn't mention/resolve that whole "enemy" thing with Angel and that bothered me.

· Dialogue: I think I covered that under "Characterization" actually.

· Tediousness: I wasn't bored. My attention did stray a bit because of the grammatical errors, though.

· Diction: I don't really remember parts of the fanfiction where I thought, "Oh, this would sound better like this," but I did see places where the words were switched around.

Feedback (how I would like this if I was a normal reviewer):

I'm a B/A shipper, I kind of think I should point that out before I start. The B/S smut was fairly tolerable mainly because of that line where Buffy was thinking about how she didn't love him. Plus the fact that he went poof! Ya-a-ay poofiness! Also during that, I changed the word "Spike" to "Angel" in my mind. The grammatical errors are a problem. I was a little confused in some parts because there weren't any marks to show that we were switching scenes. (Liz's comments: I wouldn't even bother trying to read it without that. Seriously - if things are too damned confusing to read like that, why strain your mind trying to figure out what the hell is going on? Reading fanfiction is supposed to be something you want to enjoy without being bothered by a whole lot of confusion.) I did like the end, but I think that you should've fluffed it up some. By "fluffed," I mean that maybe you should've added some things to make the end a natural conclusion. I think I covered everything else in my comments up there. Oh! The beginning felt...off. It was kind of like walking into a movie five minutes late and not knowing what was going on. (Liz's comments: More confusion that could have been avoided only if you gave this to a few people before you posted. I'm not talking about a beta. It's not a bad idea if you send a friend or two a fic just to see if they enjoy it or not.)

Comments on Judging:

I spent a lot of time trying to decide if I should recommend (to Liz) sending a button/banner for this fic. Now though, if you're willing to make the corrections I suggested, I think we can very easily send you one. This story does have potential (oh, how I hate that word). (Liz's comments: It's true. "Potential" gets used quite often, because truly - the suckiest suck of fanfiction (ones that a beta doesn't even know where to start fixing) have potential. Keep in mind that I'm not calling your fic the "suckiest suck of fanfiction" - it was just a metaphor.) Nevertheless, the story is sort of buried beneath all the errors and quick solutions. Also, I'm pretty sure Angel wouldn't have turned Buffy to keep Angelus placated; he most likely would have told her to kill him.

Advice:

I really think you should get a beta. You may already have one, but he/she isn't doing his/her job. If you need help finding one though, contact us and we'll see how we can help.