I suppose that's true. A lot of it comes down to preference, but it's unlikely that the author's ambition of being published will come to fruition unless he changes his writing style.

 

Being overly wordy is a problem of many nascent authors and writers, for varying reasons. Especially authors who prefer stories that are more character driven than, say, action or plot driven.

I know that despite the fact I never publish a word of it in any form or place, I'm constantly trimming down what I do write to be less wordy, less repetitive and overly detailed.

 

It's atrocious. Just objectively terrible.

The characterizations are shitty. The writing is bland and dull. The politics are beyond retarded. I don't think there's a possible comparison to explain just how fucking dumb the politics are.

I gave this a 2/5. I stand by that.

 

Even though I've been the target of Andomalius' vitriol from time to time, I have to agree with him wholeheartedly in this case. "Heart and Soul" is a shitfic.

The acceptable level of technical writing doesn't even begin to compensate for the inanity of the plot- Emo!Sirius implementing a laughable marriage "contract" to "saveguard" Harry... :facepalm

Someone must've rearraganged the authors' brain circuity before he started this miscarriage of a story. Just a small "gem" from chapter 3:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5681042/3/Heart_and_Soul


The glaring contradictions alone make this unreadable, not to speak of the abysmally failed attempt at epic narration. 2/5

 

First, wasn't responding to you, and lol, don't take offense to me warning Ellisande from wasting his time.

What particularly amuses me now that I remember it is that in the Almost Recommended Thread, I mentioned how the title exactly summarized the story: Alternate Endeavors. Completely bland and soulless. He just takes two slightly-fancier-than-the-norm words and throws them together.

He coincidentally hanged it to Heart and Soul, but now it just makes it funny because the title has what the story doesn't.

This writer has nothing going for him but for his ability to navigate a thesaurus.

Maudlin, farcical. Use of 'therein' as regular diction. Yeah, I know what those words mean, but I wouldn't use them unless the moment was absolutely perfect. The writing style of Harry Lovecraft and William Hope Hodgson has gone extinct for a reason. You'll notice that even in the era of Victorian, dreary-ish writing, there were still authors with beautiful prose like Keats or Byron or Shelley or Baudelaire. It's not simply a matter of time period and changing tastes in writing style.

And even Lovecraft and Hodgson still had a core element of beauty in their writing, under the heavy Victorian and antiquated language. That's because they're intrinsically poetic and men of eloquence.

Look at this:

This is Lovecraft, poster-child for the stereotypical dry Victorian English style, but he can still infuse his words with emotion and poignance. Hack writers will try to cite Lovecraft and use his olden style of writing as a shield, but they can't, because when it came to it, he could deliver as an artist.

This is how the writing style Sillimaure sucks at is executed in the hands of a competent writer, with the same kind of affectation and formal language but still able to conjure up feelings of scale. There's a subtle, almost unnoticeable parallelism and unifying effect in how he describes what he sees above, then what he sees below. I make the sentences are better-organized, unlike the sloppy mess of Heart and Soul. Little touches of elegance cover his writing style like fingerprints.

Also, not one thesaurusy-word.

This writer only has that overly-formalized and dreary outer shell, but without that fundamental beauty.

So you have no idea what you're talking about. This is exactly the kind of author who cannot write, but because he has a good vocabulary and uses a thesaurus, he can appear to be a decent and sophisticated writer, and you fell for it. Or if he doesn't use a thesaurus (in which case you can blow me), he just plain doesn't have it. Doesn't have the judgment or eye for words.

This is not "wordiness" or "eloquence". His writing style is simply the product of a basic working vocabulary, but without the filters and screens that good modern authors subconsciously employ to filter out words like farcical when they're writing. There's a stage of development where writers lean on a substitute for a real identity - a crutch if you will. It's easy to see once you've gotten used to it.

I don't use the thesaurus. I, simply put, don't have to use one. I try to internalize a basic reservoir of words, but find a way to imbue my wordsmithing with some measure of lyric quality. I'll say this even at the risk of sounding arrogant or cocky - I have a tone and voice, if nothing else. I don't care for false modesty so I won't apologize for saying it.

Swim has that tone color.

NoxedSalvation, even though I don't think he's posted anything of his writing for a while, has this tone color in A Witch's Shards.

JustBlaise has that tone color if you've read this 500 a day entries. Enembee has it. Neren has it. Silens has it.

Each good writer has his own, distinct tone, just like musicians produce a distinctive sound (Bill Evans, Tony Bennett) or the greatest athletes have a distinct and fluid motion (ie Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic) that separates them from the rest of the pack.

All of these writers possess this one quality this poor guy lacks.

This is 100% technical writing, dryer than the Saharan desert and I do not value or acknowledge the lack of grammatical errors beyond the most perfunctory of ways.

Bottom line is, I can write in his writing style because it's easy as fuck, requires only an average vocabulary and a willingness to abuse adjectives, and it has the depth of a sheet of paper, but he can't write in mine or any of the others I named above because his writing isn't developed enough and he hasn't read enough (or if he does read a lot, hasn't absorbed great writing. At all).

/Not targeting this author, but the breed of non-writing he represents.

 

Andro, you made me feel fuzzy inside. Thanks, bro.

 

I've been catching up on Renegade Cause. I still don't like Kemester, but I like your writing enough that it now outweighs my dislike for him. I will review soon.

 

I understand about reading a particular story that's subpar because there aren't alot of good fics being updated, to a point. I had that fic on alert in the beginning, but when they got to hogwarts it just sorta fell apart for me, 'shrugs' not the worse thing ever introduced to the fanfic community, but nowhere near the best. And if you are only reading this becuase none of your other fics have updated, might I suggest going back and re-reading a completed fic that is actually one of the better one's out there? perhaps 'Summer of Change,' or you more than likely have your own stash of fics to read.

And if you don't want to re-read, than branch out. Read crossovers, or crackfics. Thats part of the reason I am on a superhero kick. Just needed something new.

 

I couldn't get through this fic mainly because most of it just makes my eyes glaze over. Case in point: the segment Andro quoted. It's just utterly uninteresting drivel that goes on and on and on. The whole story is like this. Forget the retarded tropes; the writing itself is a turnoff.

 

Lol, the entire point of Kemester is to hate him irrationally, and Silens does a great job of doing that.

 

Definitely this. I can't stand Kemester but the story's so much better for him being in it. One of the best OCs I've ever seen.

 

I remember dredging through this a couple months ago. Speaking as one of the most forgiving, crack-loving readers here, it's a pile of fail and you should stay away.

 

Thanks for the advice

 

Many lulz were had.

 

Well, I gave this story a go. Either Harry/Fleur, Harry/Hermione, or Harry/Fleur/Hermione, so it couldn't be that bad, could it?

Yeah, everyone here had it right.

-1/5 for taking two pairings (or a threesome) that shouldn't possibly suck, and making it suck.

 

Just read about half of this fic then dropped it.

I'm not necessarily instantly against the whole Marriage Contract concept - but more as a guilty pleasure more than anything else. But I think I couldn't get into this for 3 reasons:

1. As everyone else has pointed out, the writing is dry and dull. Initially, it seems decent, but there's no real feel to it. Also, the author has obviously tried to give some depth to his characters, but instead of trying to subtly work it in, he just has walls of text trying to give his insights into various characters. Eg:

That quote follows with another 7-8 paragraphs of similar stuff about Ron. It almost reads more like an author note or something. This isn't a character analysis, this is a story. You don't just directly add in descriptions like that in so basically. Either you work it into their mannerisms, or if you really want to make it obvious, you have a character do that character analysis instead.




2. J.S Delacour is like, your typical mentor in any Independent!Harry fic. He comes from somewhere outside the usual British Wizarding World, decides to help Harry by schooling Fudge and his relatives. The only cliche this avoids is Dumbledore Bashing - but it makes up for it by having a Dumbledore who is as dull as his writing.


J.S is just too politically powerful. And to make the difference so much greater, the author makes Fudge and his cohorts seem ridiculously stupid (which to be fair, somewhat follows from canon) but more important, he makes them seem like they have no power.


Another pair of characters that get bashed are Ginny and Molly. I mean seriously, Molly was preparing Ginny to be together with Harry even before she met him? Yeah right.



3. What's the whole point of reading something like an Arranged marriage fic? You want to see a bit of conflict. You're essentially taking two people and forcing them into a relationship. You want to see two people who probably wouldn't want to be together. Maybe a bit of healthy resentment for each other, resentment towards the marriage, or something like that.

If they're completely understanding and cool about it...what's the point? You might as well have Harry being saved by J.S. and taken to France for asylum, and having a relationship build up with Fleur there. There's not even any spark to the relationship.



tl;dr: Dry, and boring fic which doesn't even work as a guilty pleasure fic, since there is absolutely no reason for them to use this concept, and the characters are so dull.

 

The truth, this man knows it. And thus, you have hit the proverbial nail with the proverbial hammer, and discovered why 98% of arranged marriage fics fail.

 

We never do see conflict in these 'arranged marriage' fic's - it's all brilliant sunshine and farting rainbows.

 

Lol, I had a longer reply in my previous post before I cut it out, where I said the same exact thing - it's all about Harry's new family pissing rainbows and puppy dog ears and a lazy way to push two people together without having to build a relationship.