Reviews for And It's Empty Inside

Reviews For: And It's Empty Inside

Elizabeth 2006-12-30 ch 1, anon.	abuseTrue, the "And It's Empty Inside" story was very good. The author offered ample amounts of description which was indeed, very good. But I felt that the title had so much, so much emotion in it, and the story did not. The story did not live up to the title. Two people had just died and yet Sirius did not have as much emotion as he should have. If the author had wanted Sirius to say, be so surprised that he had no emotion, that he was not able to process yet, the author probably should have followed up with that like why he was so unfeeling. I felt the the story, as a whole, was lacking emotion in it. Death is a hard thing to bear and yet it was just sort of dismissed. In reality, this story does not hold true.
Elektra3 2005-10-16 ch 1,	abuseHere via con_crit. I think this story would be much more effective if you found some way to connect the two scenes. They're both well-written, and Sirius and Dumbledore are both IC, but they don't really seem to go together. Perhaps if you turned them into separate stories? Also: Hagrid's dialect is mostly fine, though in this line: “He’s ter got ter his aunt an’ uncle’s." you need to delete the "t" in "got." You also might want to substitute "t'" for "ter" in some places. Overall, this is a good story, barring the things I mentioned. I'm going to go check out more of your fics!
Contrarian 2005-06-16 ch 1,	abuseI think you nailed Hagrid's accent, actually. If you went through the trouble of finding a map of London for "A Game of Chess," I bet you at least checked to make sure the Hagrid-Speak (and I now claim this term is proud) was accurate. Other than a tense change somewhere in the first part and using "got" instead of "go" when Hagrid was talking, it's pretty much perfect. (I think swordsrock is rubbing off on me...)
lj brown_betty 2005-05-21 ch 1, anon.	abuseIn fic, especially at , you only have a few sentences to interest your reader. They don't have to read your fic, because there's plenty of other stuff out there to read. Your first sentence, Albus Dumbledore surveyed the two pairs of faces in front of him as the floating form of Sibyll Trelawney faded back into the basin and the room darkened once more, no longer illuminated by the glow of the Pensieve, doesn't make a strong first impression. I sense that you're trying to reel in your readers by starting in the middle of the action, but it's too jammed with information and gets bogged down. It could be helped by splitting it into two sentences. One thing that I think would help this story is a stronger sense of the point of view. I think Dumbledore is meant to be the POV character in the first part, but I don't get a really strong sense of that. It seems more like an outside observer guessing at Dumbledore's thoughts than actually Dumbledore's observations. You've got two good scenes here, but I fail to see the connection. Yes, they occur sequentially, one after the other, but your readers are already familiar with the outcome. You need to give them something new: a new insight into the character, a new perspective, even a new bit of dialogue. I think you're trying to show the effect the events had on Dumbledore and Sirius, both unable to prevent a tragedy, but the two scenes aren't tied together strongly enough to really make that point.. Occasionally, it seems as if you're reaching for more formal language than comes naturally to you, eg. "Dumbledore observed them quietly as they processed this information," could just as easily be "Dumbledore watched them as they dealt with what they'd learned," and might flow a bit more easily. When you mention, "he, Sirius Black," you're trying too hard. Sirius is "him" in that part of the sentence. A few times, you've made some odd word choices. Your readers are on your side: they want to enjoy reading this, so your goal is to not jar them out of the experience. The phrase "irony... clogging his conscience," makes it seem as if irony is a sediment and his conscience is a filter. Be very careful using metaphorical language in fiction, as it can easily go horribly wrong. On a more personal matter, I would be wary of using too much dialect with Hagrid. I know Rowling does it, but she is more familiar with the accent she's aiming for than you are (I am assuming.) Your readers all know what Hagrid sounds like, and will assume he's speaking with his normal accent unless you tell them otherwise. This story isn't deeply flawed, but it needs work to really draw your readers in. I suggest thinking more about what makes this scene compelling to you, and looking to see if you've managed to convey that.

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