Penname: mandamedieval

Name: Amanda Rumm

Beta Status: Active

Age: 16

Mood: Confused

Reading (book): The Hunger Games by Susanne Collins; Dime Store Magic by Kelley Armstrong; Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain; Girl at Sea by Maureen Johnson

Reading (fanfic): Bringing Down the Walls and An Honest Mistake by mctwist

Writing: Shades of Grey

Website: Click this link or die. Your choice.

Bio: I live off of Harry Potter. Point blank. I have ever since the age of 7. I'm in Slytherin House, Death Eater and complete hater of all things good and pure. Why? Because it's all ridikulus rubbish and it's no fun, that's why.

I have only ever written Draco romance fics. Although, I've been fervently reading Lily/James fics lately so I'm thinking about maybe giving that a shot in the near future. Maybe. I don't enjoy writing about Gryffindors. I hate Gryffindors. However, I do make an exception in the Marauders' case because let's face it, they were born to be Slytherins. It's just the fact that they're all blood traitors. How sad.

Also, I don't enjoy writing things rated lower than mature because things like violence, adult language, sexual situations, etc. don't bother me and if that's how I feel my characters need to express themselves, then so be it.

As far as my writing and reading preferences go, they're pretty closely knit:

1. Draco/OC fanfictions are by far my favourite. It bothers me slightly, however, when they're all the same. For example: the OC is the child of the Dark Lord or the OC is completely against Draco being a Death Eater and when she finds out that he is, they argue, breakup, eventually get back together and he repents, trying to change his ways for her or promising that he doesn't want any of it and his father is forcing him. Clichés make me gag. However, they're pretty unavoidable.

2. For the sake of fanfiction, and fanfiction only, I'm a Dramione shipper. Yes, in the force of real life I believe and always have believed in the Ron/Hermione relationship. But let's face it, Draco/Hermione fanfictions are just really enjoyable.

3. I will never refuse Lily/James stories. Their story is just about the best one out there, even though no one actually knows how it really happened. But that's the beauty of it. You can do whatever you want with it. So long as Lily hates James, James likes Lily, sometime after fifth year they get together, get married straight out of Hogwarts, have Harry at the age of 20 and die at the age of 21. It's simple and yet so complicated because so many different things could have happened. It may be considered cliché that they get brought together in seventh year through being Head Boy and Girl together but something tells me that's exactly how it happened.

4. I also enjoy smut. I read it, I write it, I love it. Only the pairings I've listed above, though.

5. Fluff makes me want to gauge my eyes out and eat them with spaghetti. It's okay to have a fluffy moment here and there in a story but stories that are just pure fluff will not draw my attention.

6. Don't offer me anything slash because I think it's gross. No one in Harry Potter is gay except Dumbledore and I have no intention in reading about his sex life, kaythnxbai.

A Guide to Fanfiction

Spell check:
It exists. Use it. I understand that sometimes a few spelling errors can be overlooked, I can deal with that. If there are spelling mistakes everywhere on your paper because you were too lazy to actually proofread your work, I'm not going to continue reading it.

Grammar:
It's my biggest pet peeve not just in writing but in life. So if your grammar is outright horrid, you can forget about me reading your stuff. EDIT YOUR STORIES! I tend to re-read each chapter about three of four times before posting it and then about twice after posting it to make sure everything is in order. It's not that difficult.

Repetition vs. Parallelism:
There's a difference between annoying repetition of a word or phrase or the use of parallelism. For example:
Repetition
With all the force he could muster, he threw the object to the floor and it made a loud noise as it hit the floor.
Parallelism
She wished she could turn back the hands of time. She wished she could take back all the nasty things she said. She wished she could apologize to him before it was too late. She wished she could tell him she loved him.
Now, does everybody understand? I mean, tell me honestly, weren't you really pissed off when you read the first one? It made me pissed off just writing it. Well, there you have it. The difference between repetition and parallelism. DON'T USE ANNOYING REPETITION, IT'S A PAIN IN THE NECK TO READ!

Summaries:
"He loved her but couldn't tell her..." Alright, that tells me nothing. In a summary I want to be able to know the two characters and I want to have a general idea of the plot! Don't try to make your summary too 'mysterious' because it's a total turn off.
"Wat Draco wants Draco gets wat he wants is her~~~~SMUT!!~~~~R/R! LOL =D" Holy Mother of Jesus! Do you really expect me to read that now?! Using internet speak, weird squiggly lines of any sort or pointless information in a summary is going to make me run as far away from that story as possible.

Dialogue:
Most importantly is dialogue formatting and then comes dialogue accuracy. First of all, all dialogue goes in what we call "quotation marks" (see? that was it just there) Not half-quotations, or better known as apostrophes.
'Hey, what's up?' is incorrect.
"Hey, what's up?" is correct.
Second, dialogue does not all flow into one big paragraph. Each time a new person speaks, it is in a different paragraph.
The two of them looked around in utter shock. They really couldn't believe this was real. "Where do you suppose we are?" asked Jason. Tara looked around, silent for a long moment. It almost felt like a dream. It felt as though everyone and everything they were looking at was part of their own imaginations. For a moment, she had this thought in her head that if she reached out to touch something, her hand would go right through it. Tara turned back to Jason and replied, "No idea. Maybe we're hallucinating." "Oh sure, that's likely." IS VERY WRONG! It's especially difficult to read when it's a big conversation. The correct way to do it is,
The two of them looked around in utter shock. They really couldn't believe this was real.
"Where do you suppose we are?" asked Jason.
Tara looked around, silent for a long moment. It almost felt like a dream. It felt as though everyone and everything they were looking at was part of their own imaginations. For a moment, she had this thought in her head that if she reached out to touch something, her hand would go right through it. Tara turned back to Jason and replied,
"No idea. Maybe we're hallucinating."
"Oh sure, that's likely." Better right? Much better! Also much easier to read and comprehend.
Third, presenting a statement in a dialogue. If after the statement there is a "he said" "she said" "he replied" "she smirked" or any other notation, the statement ends in a comma. If there isn't, it ends in a period. If a statement is stopped midway by a "she said" notation, the first part ends in a comma and the second in a period. For example,
"Look, I'm sorry. There isn't much I can do about this."
OR
"Look, I'm sorry. There isn't much I can do about this," she cooed sympathetically.
OR
"Look, I'm sorry," she cooed sympathetically. "There isn't much I can do about this." Those are the only three ways to present a statement. It's never a mix of something in between.
My last point in dialogue, is make it seem realistic. If you have a fourteen-year-old speaking, don't make them sound like they're forty-five unless that's in their character.
"I am sure that you are not trying to hurt me. But I cannot pretend I am not afraid." That coming from a fourteen-year-old is a tad bit awkward.
"Look, you're probably not gonna hurt me, but I'm can't pretend I'm not scared." This sounds more believable. Even adults tend to use abbreviations most often but kids and teens especially do. So before you write a dialogue think logically, would you ever talk like that? Those are all the points I can think of in dialogue. It's a very vital part of a story, so I just wanted to clear that up.

Canon:
If you're writing a fanfiction, please make it canon. Do not do things like have someone randomly whip out their iPod and start listening to it while sitting in front of the Black Lake at Hogwarts. There are two things wrong with this sequence. One, iPods didn't exist until the 2000's. Harry Potter and the rest of the people in his year attended Hogwarts from 1991 to 1998. There were no iPods or MP3's. There were cassette players and walkmen. Second, we all know that it is impossible to use technology on Hogwarts grounds. So even if there were iPods in that time, or say you were writing about a later era, this would still be impossible. Also, don't do things such as write a Harry Potter fanfiction and include things that you saw in the movies but didn't read in the books. (i.e both of the Patil Twins in Gryffindor, stopping the movement of the Whomping Willow with a charm rather than pressing the knot at its roots, a piano in the Shrieking Shack--I honestly never understood why that was there in the first place--, dressrobes consisting of a regular tuxedo with a cloak, etc.) If writing a Harry Potter(or any) fanfic that's not canon, there needs to be something either in the summary or at the beginning of the story rating it AU(alternate universe).

OC Names:
When creating an original character, there is something important one must remember. DON'T USE OLD CLICHÉ NAMES! Names like Jade and Raven need to be permanently banned from fanfiction.net. I don't intend to be mean. (btw, sorry if those are anyone's real names. this applies to fanFICTION only). Honestly though, if you have a dark and depressing girl with a troubled soul as your character and you name her Raven, get a life. The whole "making your character's name match their personality" thing was all great and wonderful in Charles Dickens' era but now it's just DEAD. It's cliché(not the good kind) and completely a pain to put up with. A name is a name. No parent names their child something weird and coincidently has that child growing up to fit their name perfectly. Doesn't happen, sorry. So let's be realistic with our OC names guys.
Another thing about OC names is be a little original. Naming your character Katie(or any form of Katherine, Catherine, Kathyrin, etc) isn't exactly being inventive. Pick something new and different. Arabella, Iris and Imogene are just a few off the top of my head that would be uncommon and not cliché. (you're free to steal those if you're stuck for one on a fanfic). So think clearly before naming your OC.

Angst:
I understand that fanfics (especially romance) can get a tiny bit angsty. Don't overdo it. If you're writing a fic that is clearly categorized as "Angst" that's completely different. If it is not, however, keep it to a minimum. The best way to do this, especially when writing a romance, is to have something else to focus the plot on. Meaning, don't make the entire story depend solely on the relationship. Let there be another main focus. I'm not sure how to best describe what I'm trying to say. Let's put it this way. Don't 'Degrassi' your story. (No one take this harshly please, I love Degrassi, I'm making a point.) The point is, that in Degrassi, that one group of kids go through possibly every teenage issue known to man. While this is fine for Degrassi itself because that's the sole purpose of the show, it is not fine for you fanfic. Don't have a single character have an eating disorder, mental disorder, suicidal tendency, family difficulties, insecurity issues and get pregnant. That's too much.

Humour:
Yes, we all love a good laugh when reading a fanfic. Please, if you know you're not funny, don't attempt it. Being funny in a story is making a cute pun, creating an inside joke between the characters or having a character say something sarcastic. Sarcasm is the most enjoyable type of humour in writing. Please, please, please for the love of all things holy, please! Please do not create a completely pointless joke and try to stretch it out for three chapters straight. No one wants to hear references in chapter 12, 13, 14, 15 and 22 about Bob the Cookie. (I read that in an actual story-minus the actual chapter numbers-either on here or HPFF, so don't get offended if it's you I'm talking about) So, if you're not funny, don't try to be.

Head Boy and Girl Dorms:
Get real. Sure, it makes for an easy setting in stories such as Lily/James or Draco/Hermione fanfictions but let's think logically here. A seventeen-year-old boy who's hormones are no doubt raging, sharing a Common Room and bathroom alone with a seventeen-year-old girl for the length of an entire school year. No headmaster or headmistress is that stupid. Besides, if there really were such things as Head Dorms at Hogwarts, then why did Percy come running into the Gryffindor Common Room from the Boys' Staircase to break up a party as Head Boy in Prisoner of Azkaban? Exactly. No Head Dorms. Quit fantasizing.

Blond or Blonde?
This is a common annoyance between many writers, I'm sure. It used to bother me to an enormous extent, until one day I thought, there has to be some kind of trick to this! And, luckily enough, after researching, I found out that there is! I wish I had the brains to look it up earlier...
When describing the colour of somebody’s hair, blond is normally used whether the person is male or female. Jane has blond hair. When used as a noun or adjective to describe somebody directly, blond is used of a male, and blonde of a female. He is a blond. Jane is a blonde.

That's all I can come up with for now but I'll update this list if I read a story that drives me up the wall because of something. Thanks for coming!

Oh, by the way, I would absolutely love it if you read and reviewed my stuff. It makes me happy :)