 RogueMudblood 2009-08-09 . chapter 5Okay, I've finally got to say something.
I know you have in your profile that you were coming back from your 'brain tunring to mush' when you started posting. Is it too much to ask that you go back and fix what's there since it's been a couple years on some of it and your brain shouldn't be so much mush any more?
I've got a couple of your stories on my alerts list, you may notice, but this is not because I actually expect you to add to them. This is because I like the ideas that you have, but can't bring myself to add something so poorly executed to my favorites list.
I know that's harsh, but consider it from a reader's perspective. Let me give you a few examples of things in some of your stories that irk me.
1) In "Buckets of Water": "Prepare to get Slythinerized." ...Okay, I don't think *anyone* would ever expect to hear such a line from Lucius. It's so OOC I actually cringed and I have to skip over that paragraph every time I re-read the story.
2) In "Professor's Pet": "Game on." ...Again, Lucius would *never* say such a plebian thing.
3) In "Dark Love": "She gave him a one-fingered wave..." Hermione is British. It would be a two-fingered salute.
4) "Professor's Pet" ... First, as this is a threesome, it should be "Professors' Pet" (she belongs to both of them). Second, The mere idea of Lucius and Severus becoming remotely invloved (slash) in a story where you have made them so blatantly homophobic actually angers me. I can deal with how OOC you make the characters in some situations, but to make them OOC and then *completely* veer from what you have cast them as yourself... That's disrespectful to your readers.
5) "Snape's Baby" ... What to say about the five chapters I have thus read (skimmed)...
Okay, I admit that I skim most of your work. I can't bring myself to read everything you typed because your grammar is, as you admit, in need of improvement. (I believe I previously offered to *fix* "Frustrated" for you as in that you don't even have paragraph breaks in some chapters.)
That aside, let's get into characterization. Severus is acerbic. Snarky, a right bastard when he wants to be, and your rendering here is ... none of the above. I could, essentially, take this story, change Severus to Theodore Nott, and for all the characterization you've given in the first five chapters, no one would know the difference.
Hermione... You have, just as many other authors have done, effectively made her a Mary Sue. I'm okay with that to some degree (as I have read almost every pairing for her) but I do ask that she be rendered as herself. In this story, her name should be Daphne Greengrass. Or Astoria. Or Pansy. ...Except they're all Slytherins. How about Lavender? Pavarti? Hannah? Susan?
My point is that with as little of the actual characters as you've put into your story, I could rename them and it would have no effect on the outcome.
Understand this as it is intended, please: The first mark of a good story is good characterization. You have chosen fan fiction as your medium which means that you are taking established characters and writing a story about them that the author either didn't tell at all or didn't tell to your liking. This means the established characters need to show at least some of the established traits. Yours do not.
If you would like to improve your writing, that is where you should start.
The next thing I would focus on would be the basics of English in its written form. In your profile, I take "click down on your fic" to mean that you disapprove; you cite "street talk" as one of the things you don't like. It's not because it makes the fic seem "young" that I disapprove; it is because it shows poor mastery of English. I have no problem with dialogue containing such words, but prose should not. Likewise, it shows a disregard for English to have improper grammar in your fic, to leave out punctuation (you are aware there is an apostrophe in can't, yes?), to not read through the chapter to catch things that spell check can't because it just isn't any smarter than the person who programmed it.
I normally suffer through to the end of one of your fics just so that I can see if the idea was actually well-formed. So far, I've been ... less than satisfied. I don't think I can make it another chapter in this one. Do I think you can improve? I wouldn't have bothered writing all of this if I thought otherwise. I would only ask that you take the time to care about your readers and your subject enough to apply some skill to the story you are attempting to tell. |