About me:

I'm 25 years old, British born but currently teaching English in Santiago de Chile.

Interests include writing and reading fantasy fiction, travel and languages, physics, cooking, running, philosophy.

What should I read?

If you've arrived on my profile and have no idea which fic to start with, I recommend my story The One He Feared. If you're okay with a female Harry AU and a character based story with a lot of magical theory, you might prefer Alexandra Potter. I recommend avoiding Return and anything written before it. Those fics are much lower quality than the others.

Active Projects:

The One He Feared. A story where Harry inherits Dumbledore's memories at the start of Deathly Hallows. Probably my best story from a technical standpoint: good dialogue, canon characterisations, fast paced plot. A projected 10 chapters, each one around 10k words in length.

Alexandra Potter. Female Harry with a slightly AU world. I've expanded wizarding Britain in size (to a population of about 30,000) and made economic and social inequality a more prominent theme. A focus on magic, magical society, and character relationships. First year is very much a kind of prologue, establishing characters and their relationships, and so is more of a drama than an action-adventure. As Alex grows older her problems will become more adult and the action elements will increase. As of 20/1/14 I've performed a major edit of the story, polishing it significantly. As of 23/01/14 year one is complete. Year two will be posted as a separate story.

Story recap: to read a summary of chapters 1-13 of Alexandra Potter (year one), follow this link.

On Hiatus:

In Essence Divided. A tightly plotted action adventure involving a unique protagonist condition. 4 chapters posted, will be 6 chapters plus an epilogue when complete. Unfortunately, I've found that because of the very particular writing style this is a very difficult fic to return to after a long break. Because I'm so close to the end I do plan on finishing the fic, but it's low priority compared to my two active fics and I also want to perform a major edit before I update.

Abandoned Projects:

Lords of Magic.The first year of a seven year AU in a massively different world. In the end, this fic had one great idea and quite a few bad ones. Many of the characters were cardboard cutouts, the pacing was shot, and the plot I had for first year was rather boring (in fact, it wouldn't have even looked like there was a plot until the climax where the reader would reinterpret many previous events).

The White Wizard. Voldemort-centric Harry Potter/Dresden Files crossover. Never posted on this website, as I only have one very short chapter written, and my other projects are higher in priority. It never got off the ground, really.

Return. This is very much a relic of my past. I don't recommend reading it!

Canon Plus Guildelines

Introduction

Some years ago now DLP created Potter Law: a series of fic-writing guidelines for Harry Potter. This was a mostly humorous exercise led by and executed brilliantly by Merrill. Though a lot of Potter Law does give good advice, I think the principle aim of that project was always to have a bit of a laugh (being an HP parody of the "man law" commercials).

It occurred to me to write a more systematic and comprehensive set of guidelines for what I believe makes a good Harry Potter fanfiction. (Which for me means canon-ish). This is a collection of my personal preferences and I do not seek to impose them on anyone else. It also allows me to compile in a single place all my current thoughts on the Harry Potter world.

These guidelines are intended to be canon compliant, and as such some may find them interesting or useful. Note that I say canon compliant, not canon itself (canon: books plus Pottermore). Nothing here is contradicted by canon, and much of it can be supported by canon arguments. However, much of it is also “filling in the gaps” with my own ideas. It should be clear to the reader where these bits are.

As a result of the part-canon, part-fanon nature of these guidelines, I think of the universe they describe as “canon plus”.

The Google Document with these guidelines is here. I welcome your comments and feedback.

Reviews Policy

I especially welcome reviews containing constructive criticism based not on personal preferences but on more objective writing standards (e.g. the pointing out of contradictions, plot holes, pacing issues, inconsistent characterisation, spelling and grammar errors). I also enjoy speculation about the future direction of the fic and ego-boosting praise. Reviews commenting that the fic does not meet your personal preferences and demands for updates are less welcome.

Anonymous reviews are moderated. This is not to prevent negative reviews and flames, which I approve, but to prevent people from posting anonymous comments which call for a reply. Such comments are incredibly irritating as they cannot be replied to. Anonymous reviews which open a dialogue, either through asking questions or making an argument which I feel needs the balance of a counter-point, will not be approved.

Thoughts on Slash

I don't like slash fics.

Now, it seems to me that homosexuality is not the primary feature of the "slash" genre. Rather, slash fics are about emotional issues and frequently feminise Harry. Slash fics always describe Harry as "slender" not "thin". They refer to his hair as "locks". They talk about the smoothness of his skin and get adjective-heavy when talking about his eyes. His movements are described as elegant or catlike, not masculine. I can normally tell within a few paragraphs of reading a slash fic that it's slash, just from the writing style and description.

All this is very telling: most slash is written by teenage girls and as Harry is the protagonist, they are projecting themselves onto him. In reality, a very large proportion of gay men are not particularly feminine. They're gay, which means they're attracted to masculinity. So most slash fics are not really slash at all: what is depicted is a heterosexual relationship between a female Harry and a man. It just so happens that the female Harry has a penis.

This, of course, makes the traditional "if you don't like slash you're homophobic" defence of slash quite amusing. I think a lot of real homosexual men would be quite insulted by the depiction of homosexuality in the vast majority of slash fics.

That brings me to the point of emotional melodrama. Slash fics generally come packaged with heaps of abuse and hurt/comfort and deal with issues of mental illness like depression, self-harm and so on. Harry is frequently depicted as "strong on the surface, emotional wreck within". That just does not appeal to me. I like reading about a strong, rational Harry. Even when slash fics make Harry magically powerful, they still make him emotionally dependent on another.

So that's why I don't like slash: it generally features a weak and feminised Harry. The very fact that all these teenage girls are writing fics associating femininity with emotional weakness is extremely depressing.

There are of course other reasons why I don't like slash. Firstly, I generally enjoy canon-ish stories, and Harry shows no sign of homosexuality in canon. Secondly, as a reader I want to identify with the main character and having opposing sexual orientations loosens that identification. Thirdly, most fics either ret-con Harry to have been gay all along, or have him turn gay overnight. That's just bad writing. Finally, slash fics almost always pair Harry with Draco Malfoy, Severus Snape, or Lord Voldemort: his enemies and people well out of his age range. Plus, Snape is ugly. Those pairings are as unreadable as Harry/Bellatrix and Harry/Molly.

Original Fiction

I have written an urban fantasy short story called "Out of Control". It's about people with mind control powers set in Santiago, Chile and can be found in the urban fantasy anthology Mysterious, Monstrous, Metropolitan: An Urban Fantasy Anthology, edited by Joe Ducie. Look for it on Amazon! It's quite cheap.

I'm currently working on developing a universe I call "The Virtues Universe" in which I hope to tell a number of different stories (think Discworld in terms of series format). I'm going to be tight lipped on that for now.