Recycling Plots, Over and Over Again

I decided that I enjoy picking apart my old work. So once again, I dug some stuff out of the archives. Three stories, actually. All Buffy stories, all with basically the same plot just told through the different character's minds though they don't intersect at all.

One thing I've noticed about my old work is that I reused the same scenario a lot. I still do that sometimes, like with my Harry Potter stories--how many times have I killed either Harry or Hermione off and had the survivor reflect? But, at least I do it well there, I'm not sure I did with my Buffy stories.

Here's one example. The plot is that all the Scooby Gang is gone excpet one survivor, the narrator. I tell this story multiple times. Today, I look at three such stories. One from Willow's PoV, one from Cordelia, and illogically one from Buffy's.

The One Time Left Behind
By Michelle

There comes a point where each season is alike, where you don't notice when months pass by.

I've come to that point. To me time stopped a long time ago.

Okay, the opening isn't half bad. I actually kind of like that. But I'm an angst freak, always have been, probably always will be.

No, that's not true.

It kept moving, but it left me behind. As the rest of the world moved on I was stuck in the past, unable to let go.

There was too much death, too much pain, too much loss for me be able to let go. Whenever I try, I see them. They're with me still.

But it's different now.

I'm 49 this year, they're still young.

Still I see them.

In my mind they come to me, one at a time.

This fic may actually be better than I remember it being. There's nothing awful about it yet. It's a little melodramtic and darkly depressing, but that's pretty much my thing.

First comes a woman of over a millennium with the appearance of a 20 year-old. I see the demon she had been and the innocent she was. I hated her for so long, but eventually I came to call her a friend.

Anya.

Next I see the man who loved her. In his eyes I see a childhood play mate, a first love, and a man who grew to be brave and true, then died at 21. He represents the distant past, a time of innocence.

Xander. Actually, I like that paragraph. It's hauntingly bittersweet, which is fairly appropriate for teh subject matter.

Then I see a raven haired beauty. I see the vulnerability that I was blind to for so long, I see her secret struggle, I see the dreams of stardom, I see the heart broken twice, and I see her death at the hands of a common mugger at only 19. She grew so much in that last year and it hurts even more to think of her gone forever.

Cordelia.

After her is a man in his forties. He wears tweed and has befuddled look on his face, in his eyes is a look of patience and kindness. I also see the children he never had, and the ones that were his in his heart at least.

Giles. Again, not a bad section. It could have more emotion though, but this was written an awful long time ago and then rewritten some point after that.

I see a woman in her thirties. A dark-eyed gypsy who paid the ultimate price for betrayal, but gave the ultimate gift. She was my mentor, she left me a curiosity for her gift.

Jenny. Again, it should have more depth. More emotion.

There's a woman a little bit older. A mother, an unwilling participant in our would, a woman who never could understand the world her daughter lived in. She was a mother to us all, so much more than our own, and she died for her daughter as we all would have.

Joyce. I know that's not how she died in the show. But this is fiction, besides I don't think she was dead yet when I wrote this.

I see a child, with innocence and bright hopes. A child unaware of her own terrifying destiny and whose potential was never fulfilled. She was all of ours sister and the truth of who she was didn't matter to us, we loved her just the same.

Dawn. I wrote this story before the "Gift". Actaully, I wrote it before the 5th season, but then rewrote it to include Dawn and Tara.

I see another young man, this one with often-changing hair. In his eyes I see a love that I carry with me still, I see plans that were never fulfilled, and I see the beast he tried to keep inside, but that eventually drove us apart. He represents those long gone dreams, a time that I can't forget.

Oz. That part is definitly lacking in emotion. She'd have way more emotion when speaking about someone she loved that much. I'm not sure if it was depth I had a problem with, or Willow-depth, she was never my favourite character, though I did try a few times to try and capture her essence.

I see a young woman, with a gentle spirit and a quiet nature. In her I see compassion, tenderness, and love. Her love wasn't the same as the one that I had known before, but it was good and it made me feel safe. In the end she left me too, but I'll never forget, she'll always be part of me.

Tara. Written long before she died on the show. I wasn't even watching at that point. I can't really fault myself for the lack of depth here, because I wasn't really watching the show by the time Tara was on it and I never really had much use for her character.

I see a bleached blonde vampire. In his eyes I see a love he shouldn't have possessed, I see two-hundred years of evil deeds, and I see the fact that he died for his enemy. Some how along the way he changed and he became one of us.

Spike.

I see a young man in his early twenties. I see a love that could only ever be second best, I see the fact that he loved her despite of that. He died for her, because that's all he could do.

Riley. I hated Riley.

I see a man who looks in his twenties, but is really centuries old, and who is haunted by his past. In his eyes I see a lifetime of regret, I see a curse that brought of him both joy and pain, I see a love that he couldn't stop, and I see a pure soul. He finally found his redemption, just in the way that none of us thought he would.

Angel. Some good depth there. Maybe because Angel was always one of my favourites. Still, that wasn't a great paragraph. Nothing about this story is great. Though, it's not bad either.

And lastly I see her. I see a girl forever surrounded by youth and golden beauty. In her eyes I see an innocence taken from her at 16, I see a love that she tried to deny, I see a loyal soul, and I see a destiny that couldn't be avoided. Life was never kind to her, not until the end.

Ugh, that's sappy. I was definitely into overly-poetic writing, as you can probably tell. No such things as too much angst and melodrama for me.

They're all there in the shadow land. The problem is they're so young, they represent what I left behind.

I grew up and they never will.

Even after all these years they're still the way they were. To me they're still real, even though their time ended long ago.

It's all I left.

The memories of my life before time left me behind.

The End

I don't hate this story. I'm not in love with it and think it's much, much too sappy, but... It's not all that bad. Especially since Willow is not a character I was ever able to really connect with.

Onto the next attempt at the same plot. This time it's Cordelia. A character who I used a lot in my stories and constantly tried to change from the cannon. I really wanted her to have more depth and substance than she ever really did.

Sometimes
By Michelle

The future's a scary thing, but sometimes the past is scarier.

Sometimes you're tied to it, unable to let go or move on. After a time you begin to wonder when everything changed.

Sometimes I forget how long it's been. I forget the years that have gone by since my youth.

I'm 37 and I'm the last I'm my closest friends. We all fought the good fight and they all died heroically.

Again, not a bad beginning. A little sappy, but... Also, very short and lacking in depth.

I close my eyes, only for a moment
And the moment's gone
All my dreams pass before my eyes
A curiosity
Dust in the wind, all they are is
Dust in the wind

I like song fics. I really, really do.

It's been 21 years since I learnt vampires existed, but sometimes it feels like yesterday. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if things had been different. But I'm never to know. You're not meant to know what could have been.

I've tried to move on but I don't think I've succeeded. I've lost too much to move on.

Maybe that's why I'm here, or maybe not. Maybe I'm just here because I still think of them sometimes.

Not all the time, sometimes I forget all that's happened. But not usually. Usually I can't forget. After all they were the closest thing to family I ever had.

Now they're gone.

Same old songs, just a drop of water
In an endless sea
All we do, crumbles to the ground
Though we refuse to see
Dust in the wind, all we are is
Dust in the wind

A little bit repetive.

It's dark now and I'm sure I'm a strange sight. I'm a lone woman walking in an abandoned graveyard after dark carrying a large bag and several flowers.

I walk to my main destination slowly, stopping every once in a while to lay down a rose.

I stop for a second each time, thinking about the people who are lost to me.

Jenny.

Giles.

Willow.

Oz.

Xander.

Even Anya.

Angel and Doyle aren't here, but they still mean something to me.

Or at least they did. It's been a long time.

This could have more depth and less melodrama. One advantage to the Willow fic, it had more depth. This one just seems rather lacking.

Don't hang on, nothing lasts forever
But the earth and sky
It slips away, all your money wouldn't
Another minute buy

I finally get to the last grave.

I think of them all, but I think of her the most.

Sometimes I even cry when I think of all that passed her by. I don't cry for the others, not anymore, but sometimes I still cry for her.

She could have had so much, but destiny wouldn't allow it.

Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if I had been the slayer instead. But we're not meant to know.

Cordelia as the slayer. Shudder. I know this one of those times when I messed with Cordelia's character, but then I do that a lot.

Dust in the wind, all we are is
Dust in the wind
Everything is dust in the wind

I stand there for a long time, not that time has any meaning now, then I finally pull myself away.

It's so hard to come here, it makes me remember what was lost.

Everything crumbled away and sometimes I wonder why.

The End

My main complaints are that the story lacks substance or real emotion. It's also very reptetive and melodramatic. The Willow story was by-far superior.

Lastly, we have my Buffy story. Improbable, but....

Forgotten
By Michelle

I am the last.

The last of a legacy.

The last slayerette.

I knew it would hurt to be the last, but I never expected it to hurt this much. Or for me to be the last.

But I am.

Not as solid a beginning as the other two. In fact, it could be way, way better. It lacks depth, detail or emotion. And it's rather sappy and over-done, but a lot of my work is.

I’ve watched them all die. I’ve seen so much. Too much.

Sunnydale’s a safer place now, not the way it used to be. Which is good. It’s what we fought for. What so many of us died for.

I try to forget.

But I can’t. Everywhere I go I see them, see reminders of the life I’ve left behind.

The world’s a safer place now, no such thing as vampires or demons. They're gone, we stopped them.

I’m glad. But I wish it had come sooner, if it had maybe things would have been different for us.

Did I ever mention that I have a problem with reptetion? All this is kind of blah and lacking of depth or real emotion.

Maybe I wouldn’t be haunted by terrifying memories. The worst ones aren’t the ones reliving their deaths, but the ones when I remember the happy times.

Cordelia and Xander’s glowing faces on their wedding day.

The pride on Oz’s face when he told us all he had a son.

Willow’s glowing face when she told me she was having a baby.

Giles and my mom’s quiet and beautiful wedding.

The look of total love on Angel’s face as I walked up the alter to him.

Those are the worst part. The reminders of how happy we were.

Needs more depth and more substance. Let's see: Maybe then I would be haunted by terrible, heart-breaking memories.

The worst memories, the ones that haunt me the most, aren't of their deaths, but of their lives. It's the memories of the good times that break my heart.

I can't help but cry when I think of how happy Cordelia and Xander were on their wedding day. They had so many plans for their future. The future that they never got to have.

Or when I think about how Willow's face when she told me she was pregnant. I'd never seen her that happy. Just like I'd never seen Oz as proud as he was when Zachary was born.

It's almost as bad as thinking about my mother and Giles and the love they found together. I remember their quiet, but beautiful wedding and it's all I can do not to scream for the injustice of it all.

But the pain of all those memories pales in comparison to how much it hurts to remember Angel and how happy we were for so short a time. My hearts break all over again whenever I think of the look on his face as I walked up the alter to him, we had overcome so many odds to get there and it was so perfect, and the look of joy and love on his face took my breath away.

Those memories are far more painful than the ones of their deaths. Because they remind me that for a moment, we were all happy and then that happiness was ripped away from us.

Not great. But better. Which of course is the product of many years of writing. After all, I wrote this story when I was 16 or 17 and now I'm 21. I've had lot's of practice.

It isn’t fair, I was the slayer. I should have been the one to die.

Not them, not the innocents.

Fate plays it’s cruel jokes. I get to live, to have my normal life.

But I have to live with all the pain.

With the memories.

My victory is an empty one, for there’s nobody to share it with.

Ugh. As I said, this very shallow and despressive and not very good. It needs more depth and less reption.

I just want it to be over. It will be soon. It has to be, I can't go on like this. I never thought I’d commit suicide, but I think I will. What other choice do I have? I can’t live this life anymore. It’s not even living.

I’m empty, hollow. I should have died years ago, in a way I did. My heart died when Angel died. Now it’s time for my body to join it. I am the last, and soon I will be gone.
And our world will be gone.

Did I mention this is depressing? And sappy?

The truth of what happened will die with me, maybe it’s better that way. The world’s not ready for a story like that.

No one is.

I wasn’t.

Maybe it’s better this way. Maybe it’s better that everything we lived and worked for will be gone.

Will be forgotten.

The End

Not great writing. This has a lot of room for improvement. Not that I'm in any mood to improve it, but maybe I should... If I get really bored, there's an idea, rewrite all my old stories. That wouldn't take a me a few years.

So, there you have it three stories, with basically the same plot. One's not actually all that badly written, the second one's okay, and the third is kind of blah. But they are also very similar, for all that the Willow-one is better written than the other two. So, there's no real reason for all three stories to exist, since one would do the job.

Ghost of Fanfics Past

I've been reading over some of my older works and first I have to say, I've written a lot of bad fanfiction over the years. My earlier stuff as a whole, is not that good, though certainly not terrible. But reading it, I can certainly see where I've improved.

But that's not that surprising. I was fifteen when I wrote my first fanfiction, one would hope that six years later I'd have improved at least slightly. Six years, that seems impossible to me. How could I have been doing this for six years?

In that six years I've written more stories than I choose to count and changed fandoms multiple times. After all, that first story was a Buffy fanfic and that's a fandom I've long abandoned. Days, Charmed, Xena. Other fandoms I've since abandoned. My muse takes me wherever my interest currently is.

I've decided to post some of my very old fanfics here and give them critical look. I'll start with the first fanfiction I ever wrote "As the Years Go By", a Cordelia piece. It was not brilliant, though not bad for a first work.

As The Years Go By
By Michelle

Many years ago someone, I can't remember who, said that of all your memories there'll be one you'll never forget. It may fade in time, but it'll always be there. I think the person was my mother.

Anyway, she said it'll either be a memory of a happy time or of something
that changed your life forever.

Mine is of a day long ago, a day our worlds shattered. When I say our I mean us, the group of us chosen to help the slayer in her fight. We weren't chosen the same way as her, but in a different way.

When I think of my teens I divide them into two parts, Before The Spring Fling of 1997 and after. Even the after I have to divide into before we lost her and after.

Let me tell you about that day I still see so clear, the day the darkness claimed one more.

Okay, the beginning could be worse, I suppose. I actually kind of like the part about memories. Though, I think the first part is a little flowery. But a lot of what I write is, so...

I remember that I was dancing with Xander and Willow was just staring at Oz, who was across the table from her. He was staring at her back. Angel ran into The Bronze. He looked around and the worried look on his face beckoned us to him.

That whole paragraph is a little awkward. The phrasing and such could be better.

"Where's Buffy?" He asked, his voice breaking. I remember my heart skipping a beat. What if something had happened to her? By the time I tuned back into the conversation, they had decided to look for her. Xander clutched my hand for support and I gave it to him.

The winter here is cold and bitter,
it's chilled us to the bone.
We haven't seen the sun for weeks,
to long too far from home.

I feel just like I'm sinking,
and I claw for solid ground.
I'm pulled down by the undertow,
I never thought I could feel so low.

I wrote too many song fics back then and most of them wer set to Sarah McLachlan. The song isn't a perfect fit for the story, but it's not weirdly out of place either, I suppose.

I was the first to see her. We couldn't find her any where and Willow suggested the park. Sure enough, there she was lying on the ground.

The worst part was that she wasn't dead when we found her. Even after all this time I still can't decide whether it was good or bad that she was still alive when we found her. Maybe it was good because we got to say goodbye, but it made us hurt more. We weren't prepared to actually see her die.

Very repetitive, I know. It's something I still have a problem with.

I think we all thought that one day we find her body then deal, grieve and move on, that's how I thought it would happen. I mean we all knew that she probably wouldn't make it to graduation, but we weren't ready. None of us, and I don't think we ever would've been.

Could there be a more awkward paragraph? Ouch. That one hurts to read. I suppose it should be more like: I think we all imagined that one day we'd just find her body and then be forced to deal with it. That we'd grieve and then move on. That's how I always thought it would happen. I mean we all knew that she probably wasn't going to make it to Graduation. We all knew that she was going to die young and that it would probably be in our near future, but knowing and accepting are two different things. None of us were ready for it to actual happen. I don't think there was enough preparation in the world that would have made us be ready.

Angel gathered her gently in his arms, then she weakly called us all towards her.

"Wow, this is how it ends," she said, looking at each of us in turn, "I want you guys to know I love you all, in different ways. Xander, you like a brother. Willow and Cordeila as sisters and my best friends ever. Oz you were becoming like a sturdy big brother to me too." Her voice was soft and breaking with her tears.

Then she turned to look up at Angel. "And Angel, I love you as my true love, because you were. Tell my mom, Ms.Calender and Giles how much I love them. And Angel don’t even think about making me into a vampire, it’s time. My time's run out. They say in the Bible there's a time for every thing under the heaven. I guess mine's finally over. Goodbye."

She reached up and kissed Angel one last time, it was the sweetest, purest kiss I've ever seen. Then she left us. Our sweet Buffy left us.

Oh darkness I feel like letting go.
If all of the strength and all of the courage,
come and lift me from this place.
I know I could love you much better than this,
full of grace,
full of grace,
my love.

So it's better this way, I said,
having seen this place before.
where everything we said and did,
hurts us all the more.

We all lost it, in different ways. Willow fell to the ground sobbing, and a tearful Oz comforted her. Xander just stood there, frozen, not allowing us to comfort him. Angel still held her in his arms, he was crying "Nooooooooooooooo" over and over.

I think loosing her was hardest on him. We just had to live without a friend, he had to live without his soul mate. And I was just standing there refusing to let myself think about her being gone.

Ouch. That whole part is very juvenile and lacking true depth. It's also very out of character. Both what Buffy's saying and the way Cordelia is narrating. I'm not as true to the characters as I should have been.

The style and shallowness is what bothers me the most looking back. I write the scene without any real emotion, without exploring the depths of pain, the ravages of grief. But, Hell, I was fifteen then and not experienced with either of those things.

In the same old sickly skin,
I'm pulled down by the undertow.
I never thought I could feel so low,
Oh darkness I feel like letting go.

If all the strength,
and all of the courage,
come and lift me from this place.
I know I could love you much better than this,
It's better this way.

It's been over 10 years since that day. Giles died of a heart attack 17 hours after Buffy's death. Willow and Oz married and had a daughter Elizabeth whom they call Buffy, named in honour of what the books say was the strongest slayer in history.

Angel asked Kendra to dust him, and she did right over Buffy's grave. They're together now. Mrs. Summers never found out the truth and she moved away from Sunnydale after Buffy died saying, "It's to hard. There are too many memories here."

Ms.Calender never married and was killed by a vampire 3 years ago. She's buried next to Giles. I'm glad that like Buffy and Angel they're together in death, because they loved each other the same way.

Kendra was killed months after Buffy. After she died the few of us left distanced ourselves from the slaying game. At least we tried.

The night before we were supposed to be married Xander was attacked and killed by a vampire. I gave birth to our son, Alexander Harris Chase, 7 months later. Xander never even knew I was pregnant.

I was definitely a drama queen back then. Killing off most of the characters in a short time span. What can I say, I've never liked happy endings.

After all this time I've realized as much I try I'll never forget the night it all started to crumble, though now I can say goodbye to her. I never could before.

Goodbye dearest Buffy. I believe in my heart that they're all together, Buffy, Angel, Giles, Ms.Calender, Kendra, and Xander, and that they're waiting for the rest of us to join them. Until then I will remember them with all the emotion they deserve.

The End

Okay. Let's see, most of my problems with the story are with the lack of substance. There's no depth anywhere. No real emotion. The whole plot and situation is very trite. The charchter's are also out of character.

I mean, it's not a bad story, per say, but it's not great by any strech of the imagination either. Lot's of room for improvement. First of all, I probably shouldn't have killed off most of the characters and I should have given it more depth and feeling.

Still, for a first effort, it could have been worse, I'm sure.