You're assuming that they want to get better. The serious to semi-serious ones actually do. Then you have the ones that just write to get a fantasy off their chest and are seeking like minded others to read their work and give that OMG MOAR! as some sort of reward. Then you have the ones that do this for some sort of catharsis, that don't give a crap about improving; it's their hobby and nothing more. Et cetera ad nauseam.

It's frustrating, I get it. Writing is serious stuff to some people. To others it's just something they do.

 

This is my beef. People, for the most part, don't know how to give constructive criticism. They just mirror things they've already read (ie: bandwagoning) or they don't know the definitions of the words they are using.

'It's stilted' and 'it's wooden' are two way overused words that these people don't understand. It just sounds good to say.

'Show; don't tell' is another that people use waaaaaay too much. It's like they just want to see dialog and nothing else. Exposition is a word that is totally unfamiliar to them.

 

I mean good writing is called that for a reason, it conveys ideas better, you feel a greater connection to characters, your setting feels more grounded etc. Surely if your purpose is wish fulfillment, there's better ways to write it. M.Mgregor was basically someone who wrote wish fulfillment BTVS fits which were all great. Do their own words not grate on them after a while? I started off reading shitty Dark!Harry stories and they just gradually stopped being appealing to me. Surely, being so impassioned about a fandom as to dedicate years of your life to it and hours out of your day to write about it means you want to do your best by it.

I honestly think they're just lazy and delusional.

 

Occlumency.

In canon, it's retarded. The whole plot arc is a failure of Chekhov's Gun. Class after class of Harry not learning something and getting pissed off, which no evidence he's being taught properly (though to be honest, I think he is, as far as canon teaching goes). Of course, even if Harry did learn how to do it, it may or may not be pointless, because he's not trying to defend against a powerful wizard casting Legilimens on him, but a cursed connection inside his own mind/soul brought on by a horcurx and a blood connecting ritual. There is no logical way for anyone to know enough about this to assume Occlumency matters in this case.

And then, to cap it all off; once Harry learns *the big secret* he is encouraged to share it with Ron and Hermione, who both also haven't the slightest clue about Occlumency (and oddly, it's one of the things Hermione doesn't seem to give a toss about learning, despite the obvious selling points).

In review, this has to be the poorest narrative of any significant branch of magic in the stories. So it's not really any surprise that as pointless as it was in canon, the fanon manages to take it an make it 10,000 times worse.

Nine times out of ten you got writers who dismiss the occlude element entirely and just go for a giant fuck-you defense.

Yeah, I know - people have bitched about that aspect before. Obsidian shields and castles and whatnot (that one Hagrid-teaches-occlumency story aside, that one was awesome). But it deserves mentioning as something that was poorly done even in canon.

Edit: It gets worse the more I think about it. The obvious points where Snape is even more of a dick, because he would have known Harry wasn't Confunded or that Sirius was innocent right away in book three. Or the fact that everyone in the Order knows 'Snape is our spy'. Or or or.

Legilimency and Occlumency wrecks a lot of books 1-5 if you apply retrospectively. It's 'why was Dumbledore flying to London on a broomstick', but in ways that matter.

 

Why have a fort when you can have a palace?

 

Continuing on this current trend, "Occlumency shields." Really? So, there's a physical substance in the mental element of your brain that you can "bring down" or "crash down" or "Raise up" or whatever else? No, a wizard shields himself from legilmency. It's a verb, not a noun.

 

It would also be suboptimal. So set the scene, Voldemort is looking in to your mind and runs into a solid shield that he can't get anything from and learns you're hiding something from him... so then I guess he kills you on principle. Occlumency doesn't do much good of your opponent knows you're doing it.

 

Yep.
That's why it's best to always leave examples so the reader actually knows what a person is talking about. "In xyz scene, you wrote Harry was mad. However, could you show it a bit more rather than just telling me about it? For instance, maybe Harry clamps his jaws shut, or his right nostril begins to quiver, or . . . "

I know when I was first trying to improve, those things helped me quite a bit. In fact, I think I got pissy in the WbA a few times with members that just dropped criticisms without explanations because I wanted to know what I was doing wrong.

 

On the Occlumency thing:

The literal description of how to learn was to "Clear your mind". I feel some sympathy for Snape in those scenes. If had given in the urge to taunt Harry, he could have found out that Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived-to-take-Divination forgot something he learned from his third year.

"Tell me, Potter, how are you going to pass your divination OWL if you can't do this one thing."

Yes, that could have been harsher.

To me, Occlumency is the idea of hiding yourself and being able to misdirect or lie to your attacker... Legilimency relies on eye contact or a direct attack with the spell. If you avoid eye contact, you can lie to the person, but that also makes you look shady as fuck.

My input to this thread:

Why are there still superior!goblins/werewolves/vampires/veela/house-elf wank fics? There has to be a reason why wizards are at the top of the magical society, amirite?

Maybe they are physically/mentally/magically inclined, but what the writer is forgetting its that they are not human and thus do not think or have the same social rituals that humans do!

Maybe the goblins are rude little fuck nuggets who like exchanging insults and glares over smiles and handshakes. Werewolves ... they are literally diseased, in canon they are literally most times of the month and it only affects them around a week of the month.

 

"You heard the Prophesy, Potter, did you not?"

"I'm... I'm not telling you anything about it," the wretched boy wheezed.

"You will tell me anyway, Potter. Legilimens."

Voldemort suddenly found himself standing in a shallow bog, his feet trapped in Devil's Snare and a looming tower of thick stone and mortar just ahead of him, guarded by all sorts of creatures that would be considered fantastical in the wizarding world. Golden snitches flitted across the sky, backdropped by the moon. He seized one. It was a memory of a six year old Harry potter eating a piece of toast with his muggle relatives.

Voldemort scowled.

Then, without warning, the thousands of other snitches - all equally useless memories, he was certain, attacked like a great angry cloud of wasps.

Voldemort shook himself, regaining his stance as he left the boy-who-lived's mind.

"Letssssss try again in five minutes, Potter," he hissed. "Crucio!"

 

No memory of a drawn out shopping trip to Harrods.

9/10

 

So I just dropped a fic because everyone who spoke was oddly formal. It's was simply annoying. The author seemed otherwise competent but did they not realise teenagers certainly don't speak that way?
--- Post automerged ---
And naturally they were Slytherins.

 

I just read the opening paragraph of a code Geass fic where the chess score was 37-17 to someone in 50 games.

I can't describe how irrationality angry it made me to see someone fuck up basic addition in the second line of their story - I just closed it instantly.

 

Maybe they don't know the standard form for addressing ties? That's probably not much better.

 

In this day and age, if you can't get basic police procedure down right then you simply shouldn't be writing. And if, for some reason, you're too lazy to do basic research, go watch a modern crime investigations show. They're not perfect but they usually have the basics right.

So, when I read a story where a character is being accused of murder, I damn well expect you to get these facts right. No, a police officer can not question a minor without a guardian an/or social workers. No a police officer can not question them without a lawyer. No, you don't go off gung-ho, and arrest and charge said person on circumstantial evidence at the very first opportunity.

 

To be fair, circumstantial evidence is enough to bring someone in for questioning, and the threat of arrest is a very useful interrogation tool.