   crockywock 11/29/09 . chapter 1Hey there,
I came across this one-shot by accident and thought I'd review cause it started off excellently and then disappointed me somewhat. You show great potential, though, so I'll let you know about a couple of things I liked and disliked to encourage further writing. Hope this is going to be helpful.
The basic tone of your writing is elevated and very appropriate particularly for a fanfic dealing with Severus and Minerva. As opposed to many writers here, including native speakers, you often find very good words to describe what is going on, such as "he grudgingly scribbled an "O" on top of the parchment" or "in order to clarify the process". These are just two of many examples. You may want to reconsider the use of a digital display of time in a world which uses no electronic at all. It seems to fit the anachronism of JK Rowling's works to use old-fashioned clocks for this purpose. You also slipped in a "thank God" towards the end, where you might wanna consider the use of "thank Merlin", just to give the story more canon feeling. (This is being nitpicky, of course)
The entire work reads like the first chapter of a longer story rather than an independent one-shot. This is partly due to the fact that, stylistically, you are moving back and forth between short story style (open beginning and end, fast-pace) and novel style (long introduction, slow pace, etc.). It seems to me as though you didn't introduce the "Severus is ill" plot as profound enough. When I had finished reading, I took a moment to realise that the reader's "moment of realisation" should have concerned the origin of Severus's sickness. I saw people calling this one-shot a drabble in other reviews, but I think it could be a story, too (and should be, to be uploaded on ) with just a few minor changes.
Regarding the characters - I am very much a fan of Severus and Minerva stories. I think the pairing works very well together and you show them very much like I would, I think, regarding dynamics and the general tone of their discussion.
What I wasn't entirely clear about was why Minerva didn't mention the staff meeting straight away (which is what I would have done) and, of course, why it is that she has free access to his private quarters via floo. But this is canon, of course, at least from what we are told about the way the floo system works in the original books.
I mentioned language above and how I liked the general tone of this. I would also like to add my appreciation for the intuition you show in terms of canon-closeness and sticking to JK's general... mood, I suppose we can call it. (I know I use the word too often, but I really think it's an important factor in fanfiction.) Regarding some aspects of language use, I would like to offer to beta-read for you if you plan to upload anything else or re-upload this with a few new ideas, because you used one or two constructions that appear to be Germanisms, which I think can be easily eradicated by having your stories beta-read.
I'll name "overtired" and "fletching" as the ones I noticed at first glance. There may not be any others, actually. I'd have to go and re-read.
All in all, you got me interested in your writing and your ideas. I am a reader who gets hooked by tone mostly and then by content, which is also where my strength in reviewing and/or beta-ing lies. I really hope this is helpful in some way or the other. Thanks for the read and I'll definitely be looking out for more.
Greetings,
Crocky-Wock. |
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