So I looked at Cradle, which I expected to be a heart authority establishing shot because I remembered it being about his first crushing disappointment of being 'unsouled' and all his subsequent returns for further testing as he grows older and older until he's fifteen and still failing, and all the other eight year olds are getting through this magical water test. But it's written like a printed report - one of those conceit its meta-universe slips in as reports. It opens with that device that it uses at odd times throughout the series, and this distance and omniscient telling "he is afraid" actually tells you exactly what is happening and how important it is, and hits you with a smack of pseudo-eastern culture one after the other to bully you into just letting it do what it wants. So that surprised me.

Then I looked at HP and the Philosopher's Stone. I got this one wrong too. I remember Dumbledore, I remember that it establishes the momentus nature of the events and the meaning of things as Harry is placed on the doorstep, and expected it to be all knowledge. Dumbledore the expositor, with magic being the focus of the narrative and hitting you with magical concepts one after the other. In my opinion, looking at the Dursleys' section, although it is couched in humour it is entirely the emotional reality of Vernon's life that informs the story she hooks you in with. She makes his horribleness and his mule-headed determination to be a muggle completely intelligible.

Anyway:

I've tried to kill two birds with one stone here, and write the pieces that may end up helping my ongoing fics. However, I'm very aware that it kinda' wanted you to take something from nowhere and just write an anecdote (presumably from your own life) and just focus on the device. So don't feel this is how it's supposed to be done, if it's not what you want to do.

Spoiler: heart

They were having a Hollywood funeral. The mourners were dressed in chic black, and elegant umbrellas checked the fine rain that tapped against their bereaved's coffin. Their SUVs covered the side of the main road into the graveyard on the hill, and two dozen of Brockton Bay's wealthy and good stood elegantly reposed while a Priest's baritone slid down the slick grass and over the hundred tombstones that separated us.

We were having a funeral too, more Addam's Family than Academy award. Tattletale had not had so many elegant friends.

"Eyes front." Faultline stepped behind me cutting off my view of the other ceremony. A woman with straight platinum blond hair had had her head turned in my direction, though I couldn't see her eyes below her sunglasses (sunglasses in the rain?). "They won't do anything here."

The understanding trickled in, the same temperature as the winter rain that struck the back of my neck and slid under my collar. The Empire Eighty-Eight. We'd killed theirs and they'd killed Tattletale, and now we were all miserable together, and we had to pretend we were all now just ordinary, hateful people. Trapped together in one big, sad graveyard.

I snorted, involuntarily. Grue shot me a look, but it couldn't touch me. It was all absurd, and the absurdity made a cotton filter between me and the world.

"Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of resurrection to the life eternal."

"Was she religious?" I asked, out the corner of my mouth. I wasn't, my Dad had never been, and my Mom had turned her back on it. I'd seen the forms on TV, but Mom's funeral hadn't been like this.

Alec shrugged.

"Grue is," he said.

I found it difficult to square. Religious feeling and supervillain gang-leadership seemed mutually exclusive.

After our pastor had stopped speaking, reedy voiced with teeth that made him whistle on the esses and tees, the Undersiders led the way down the hill to the west gate. Small, cast-iron, and beaded with raindrops, I crunched and slipped down the path, the hill taking my pace from me until I was running to the exit, and the gate squeaked underneath my leather gloves when I crashed into it and caught myself.

No waiting, I was the first out, the first to gasp a breath of the air outside the cemetery.

Nothing I had enhanced my senses but I could hear it now. The thump of each shovel of earth slapping against her coffin lid.

They caught up. Grue stepped up towards Spitfire and me, but Faultline placed herself between us, like she had before. He stopped before he hit her, but he didn't step back. Their faces were as close together as lionesses pulling at the back leg of a gazelle. For a moment he didn't speak.

"You didn't like Tattletale, and she didn't like you."

Faultline nodded.

"Thank you for coming," he said. Then a moment later, "I can't say she'd have..."

Spitfire, Faultline, and I weren't in costume, but we had all gone to lengths to hide our identities. I wore long gloves and a black veil that I had gotten from a shop with Halloween supplies on discount. Faultline had what I was sure were colored contacts, a wig, and even a fake nose. Grue hadn't done the same. He and the Undersiders had done nothing to disguise themselves. I asked him about it.

"Didn't seem like much point."

I reached out a hand to touch his shoulder, but he turned away. His eyes were so dark. Deep bags circled them.

I watched them leave. They headed down the street towards a minivan that was parked there, Bitch letting her dogs lead them. I couldn't take it. I didn't feel far apart from everything anymore, I was in there, more in that moment than I could bear.

"I'm sorry!"

Bitch's dogs looked back, but not the Undersiders. Grue held up the back of his hand, as he walked away. A good bye.

I watched their vehicle pull out and spin away, and Faultline gave me half a moment longer in the rain. If I hadn't worn the veil I could have just pretended it was the rain on my face, and the cold that made me sniff.

Faultline put one hand on my shoulder. "Come on, kiddo."

Feel this one is a little flubbed. There's emotion but it's character led, not narrative led. When I look again at the actual example Palahniuk uses in his essay, it's more about subsuming you into the narrative's position. I feel there's emotion for Taylor here, but it's not about making the whole perspective and narrative voice drip with that emotion, so that you can feel it even between the words. Hmmm. I don't know. I struggle with emotionality as a stunted robot-boy.

Spoiler: head

Westminster School was the height of sophistication and elegance, a gemstone set into the crown of London, and therefore the Empire. But it was not Hogwarts.

The aperture that formed the portal to the school's grounds was guarded by a porter's box, and from the square just beyond, they could see a well maintained green lawn, cobbled paths, and gothic spires. Just to their left there sat Westminster Abbey, where the Queen had been crowned, and behind that the Palace of Parliament, where the Dominion Floo-gates and the Colonial Congresses tied together and ruled the whole world.

But it was not Hogwarts.

He could see it. A little, over the Thames, and it was enough to drive him near mad. There was the shimmer of Nosuch Castle and the River Lock in their space, hinted at but invisible from this side. Lambeth's margin, though, he could follow around, with what little view the buildings on this side of the river granted. Somewhere in there was his future College.

As he watched, a whirl of rainbow colour shot up into the sky on a flurry of actinic sparkwire. They were going to Overton. Wizards were going to Overton! He danced in the street, he pulled at his Uncle's hand, and his fear of the press, the thousand thousand people around him completely vanished in the face of such magic.

His entreaties, however, did not sway Uncle Vernon.

They waited there fifteen minutes until a little man with a bald head and round glasses, like the sort that Harry had worn as a younger child, came rushing out. He was wearing robes, but these were not wizarding robes. He wore a pellegrina like a priest and had no conical hat. An academic to be sure, but not a wizard.

The man, who introduced himself as Mr. Keene, was there to show the Dursleys around Westminster School, and although it was Dudley who was the prospective student, not Harry, his wide eyes and breathy descriptions seemed to chiefly address the young wizard. It was enough for Aunt Petunia.

"Oh take him away," she snapped at Uncle Vernon. "I can't concentrate when he's dancing around like that."

Mr. Keene looked devastated, but Harry couldn't have been more ecstatic.

It took five minutes to leave the school, and reach Westminster Bridge. Uncle Vernon pulled Harry to a stop by the hand before they stepped onto it. From here, he could see multicoloured smoke rising from somewhere behind St. Mungo's --- the world's best magical hospital stood fifty stories tall (though you could only ever see ten at once), all smooth curves and fluted columns of rosestone, staring down the ornateness of the Palace of Parliament across the water.

"Listen here, boy," he said, gruffly. "Once we're over there, you don't let go of my hand, and you talk to no one who tries to talk to you."

"I doubt people will want to talk to the eleven year old walking hand in hand with his uncle."

"I mean it."

When Harry agreed, they set off, Harry pulling against Uncle Vernon like a Great Dane against its lead.

"Look Uncle, it's Lady Ravenclaw College. Oh wow, Uncle, Uncle, look, it's Ogden's!"

Ogden's was the oldest Wizarding club in the world, and where many ministers met to scheme and plot, according to the papers which Uncle Vernon ordered to Wychwood House each morning. The excitement of seeing a place he heard of most of the days of his life was sufficient to hold his interest for a only a moment longer. Ogden's gave way to Bristlewaithe's & Thistledown's and then he saw the Low Quidditch Tunnel, and the port of the Conduit drawing water to Banyard and the Followkeep of the King. He tracked it with his eyes, away and to the left. That was the way to Hogwarts' library, and St. Bede's -- where his mother had studied.

He started in that direction when Vernon pulled him back, and across the street and south, parallel to the river bank. They walked in the shadow of the hospital. There was only one college in this direction, he realised with sinking dread. St. Giles, where they taught the goblin children wanded magic. The newest of Hogwarts' premiere colleges.

"Uncle Vernon, no, please," said Harry. "Not St. Giles."

Uncle Vernon grunted.

"Please!" cried Harry. "I don't want to be a businessman."

Feel using my No SoS world meant there was enough world building and nonsense known only to me that it was a lot easier to drop things in that established that than the heart exercise.

 

I believe you're missing the exercises themselves. Where are my anecdotes Halt. Where are they.

I probably shouldn't talk, since I combined my two exercises into one, seeing as I'm lazy. Forgive the first person POV, I've been reading Garcia Marquez recently, and it has bled onto my prose somewhat.

Spoiler: Honest and Vulnerability; Knowledge and Data

I never did have claustrophobia, that is, until I was locked inside a suitcase.

The mechanics of it are quite odd, let me assure you. You get into an elevator, for the umpteenth time that month and at first, everything's fine. Then two more people step in and it stops being ok. One you could have dealt with, but two is one too many. You don't say anything though. What is there to say?

So you press back into the corner, and try not to panic, only that’s not how it works at all. Your heartbeat quickens, your breath grows ragged, and suddenly, your legs are trembling. You don’t care that the woman has noticed and is looking at you strangely, you just want the ride to end. When it does, you feel shaky, exhausted, sick, and you vow never to ride the elevator again. But your office is on the sixth floor, and your commitment only lasts until next Tuesday.

Some psychologists believe that claustrophobia is caused by a dysfunction of the amygdala, which is the part of the brain that controls how we process fear. Mine began within that suitcase.

I don’t really remember how the idea came to be. Normally Josh would just step into my dorm room, make a few jokes at my expense, or challenge me to a wrestling match, which was his excuse to slap me around the room (It did not matter if I didn’t want to, he would just drag me off the bed by my feet, and after I hit my head once on the bedframe I learnt my lesson). Harry was there too, of course, those two were nigh inseparable.

That day, however, they had the brilliant idea of forcing me inside that suitcase. As a joke, of course, as it always was.

The suitcase in question was rather large, the type you take with you on a very long trip, or to a boarding school in another country. Easily thirty-five by twenty-five, and made of aluminium.

Still, I thought it to be impossible; how could I, a boy of almost fourteen fit inside a suitcase? It really was the height of absurdity, and I knew it then as I do so now. Still, I played along, believing that by giving it a proper go they would arrive at the same conclusion I did, and would leave me alone.

A first try confirmed my suspicion. Even lying sideways on the open side, with my knees against my chest, it was just too small. My head always stuck out, no matter what I tried. Besides, suitcases are not designed to carry human beings, the shape is all wrong for it. I was about to communicate my findings when I felt a hand on the back of my neck push my head against my chest.

It turns out I did fit, just not very comfortably.

Now you must forgive me for this part, for I did not see it with my own eyes, but I believe it was Josh who closed the suitcase and then sat on top of it, whilst fastening the clasps. It must have been him, for I definitely know that it was Harry who shoved my head in, as I heard him say, “Here, you’re not even trying!”, before doing so.

There was no struggle. I could barely move. I do remember telling them very calmly that I couldn’t breathe, and that if they would please let me out. Then the panic which has since become very familiar set in and I fell quiet.

I honestly don’t know how much I spent there, but every second felt like an eternity.

I didn’t get out on my own, of course, I might have suffocated in there for all I know. Someone stepped in on my behalf, and unfastened the clasps so that I could breathe. It wasn’t the only time someone stepped in on my behalf, and I remember them all in detail. Josh and Harry’s real names, though, I have forgotten. Funny how that works.

I was crying when I came out. I never cried, even when they beat me. I wasn’t proud of much, but I was proud of that. Boys my age didn't cry, and so I didn’t. Except that day, that day I was crying like a child.

It didn’t endear me much to them, I don’t think. I probably just looked pathetic, and, from the outside-looking in, I probably was, but it did break the illusion of a joke. Not even they could pretend this to be play-acting, or a little harmless fun. Not at that moment.

There would be more wrestling, and more cruel jokes (and even a small redemption on my part, which I might share in the future), but never again would they force me inside that suitcase.

Once, I think, was enough.

Spoiler: Feedback for Blor

Heart: There's honesty there, but is there vulnerability? You don't really pause to explore it, for your main character at least. Running away because she doesn't want to see her friend buried and yet can still hear the thump of the shovels (even though she obviously can't) is powerful, but its so fleeting it didn't have the impact it could have. Also, and I'm sorry to say;

This one doesn't work for me. It feels off tonally, and I'm not sure it even makes sense.


Head: Beautifully done. I think it's perfect given the parameters of the exercise, and it fits the HP thematic to a tee.

I particularly liked this line.

Spoiler: Feedback for Halt

Bah.

I shall edit in my feedback for the other's exercises, as they come in, so I don't flood the thread with comments. That is, if the rest of you lazy louts get a move on and actually do them.

 

This is beyond excellent.

 

Books have caught me in a lot of ways, and I have so many favorites, but I'll always love the opening of All Quiet on the Western Front because it opens on a German WW1 squad getting extra rations by accident, and there's a real starkness to the prose that I've always liked.

Spoiler: Heart

Mom liked to tell the ultrasound story. Every other family get-together and birthday, she laid out the tale of her first ultrasound where the doctors announced your gender. Usually alongside the ultrasound story was an emptier and emptier flask, even though she never seemed to get drunk, and the announcement that she thankfully got a daughter.

Daughters in your family were in short supply, at the time. On Dad’s side, the last girl to be born into the family was the turn of the twentieth century, almost exactly 100 years before you, and your older brother was the first of all your cousins on that side of the family to be born. Not to mention that Mom only had a brother, and her mom only had five brothers. “Don’t get me wrong,” Mom would always say when it got brought up. “I wanted sons too, but I didn’t wanna get stuck with all boys.” Your aunt, with three boys, sat conspicuously quiet not two seats from her.

So the day the doctors revealed your sex, she knew what she did want.

“I could tell you’d look just like me,” she’d say when telling the story. Her eyes would momentarily light up like she could remember the hope she’d had before you ruined it. “Everything was the same. It looked just like my ultrasound, and you were even born at the same weight.”

She wasn’t wrong, per se. A drive-through lady once asked if you were Mom’s daughter, and then proceeded to be astonished at how similar the two of you looked. You had Mom’s eyes, her build and face, the same hair color, even the same missing adult tooth that she had, just on the opposite side. Tall boots didn’t fit either of you without inserts, and both of you had small, hooded eyes. Strangers knew with a glance, and family never stopped commenting on it, like a script they couldn’t help but read from. Over and over again, a rote gone sour.

Oh, Dad gave you a few things, subtle as they were. Long fingers, pointed ears, thick hair. But nothing obvious.

(Why couldn’t your body just be yours? Why did everything have to come from someone, be someone else’s? The meatsuit wasn’t yours, never moved fluidly like everyone else’s did. Pieces to the wrong puzzle—)

For years, this story of predetermined expectations played itself out beautifully. It was a lifeline when you couldn’t quite tell from Mom’s face if she was disappointed or disgusted or, occasionally, deeply and resentfully enraged. All you had to do was remember how the light had faded from her eyes when her story ended and she glanced at you, the living, breathing kid still under her roof and not the photo of the unborn baby she wished she’d had, to be assured that the passive-aggression was there, was intentional, was meant to erode. For years, you were so desperate to not be crazy that you welcomed the angrier, nastier expressions of Mom’s disappointment, if only to quiet the buzzing underneath your skin to a forgettable hum.

When the humming got too incessant, when it threatened to vibrate through skin and wear itself on your face—that’s when the dark of a bedroom closet or the cool of the empty basement called. To this day, nobody’s ever gone looking when you buried your head between your knees and hung on until your skin stopped trying to escape.

And every time life spits in your face? For every setback?

There’s the echo of a story Mom only told to lash out, but one that held a terrible kind of foresight; there’s the awful suspicion that you were made to let people down. And it just sits there, festering, but no one’s acknowledged the rot, just told you to stop stinking up the place.

Is it a wonder you took to cutting it out?

Spoiler: Head

Jails stink like shit and body odor, at least the old broke-down ones do. They have blind corners and ever-present dinge and you could get a staph infection from the metal tables full of outdated computers with sticky keyboards.

Most jails have an underground tunnel that connects intake and, depending on the population of the county, the holding cells beneath the courthouse or the city-county building. If you're really unlucky, the lights just barely flicker the whole way, and when inmates stomp on the upper floors, it rattles the cages around the fixtures. The security cameras look like home video VHS from the late '90s and are projected on TVs the size of small apartment washer/dryer combos. Metal always seems to be painted light blue or off-white, and believe me, the paint will flake off with enough rust.

Only three kinds of deputies exist: failed beat cops, officers relegated to the jail because their union contract protects them from being fired, and guys too afraid to work the streets of a dangerous city. Whether they should've been fired for incompetence, abuse, or because they caught a case of the crazy, well—who's to say? Certainly not the brass. The cowards are usually pretty nice, not making much of a fuss until they're afraid, and will more often than not be willing to do most of the mandatory overtime perpetually on the table. The decent people keep their benefits and city email and go work for the Prosecutor's Office.

But while we're on the subject, there's a few more things that float around a jail, things that'll catch you off-guard if you're not ready for them.

The screaming from the padded cells isn't muffled by metal walls at all. Neither will you see it coming when an inmate hurls their own shit at the security camera because they're mid-psychotic break and it will warrant nothing but a call to building authority, a sharp kick against the door, and an angry "Knock it the fuck off!" That's if a deputy doesn't egg them on, of course, like daring them to piss themself or choke themself on their own hand.

Some deaths get told as suicides and negligence, and who's to say that's not true? Not me. What I heard was hearsay, any good attorney would point out. Heard years later.

And maybe the little counties with nothing but drunk tanks and meth heads don't have these kinds of problems—I've hardly been in every jail, after all—but not much hope manages to escape the front doors, and only bodies leave through the back.

Inmates that leer seem to be, without fail, charged with rape or molestation or sexual battery. They ask for social media and phone numbers that only a moron would actually provide, but if you aren't quick, they might catch your name, and for some of them that's enough. Guys waiting to go to court on a homicide will make conversation with you easy as you please because they've got a lot of explaining to do, and if they're waiting for housing and it's the middle of the night and they're bored, you can suffice. Some of them aren't half bad, and I've never found a bleaker, funnier sense of humor than that of a man staring life without parole in the face. There's a bit of perspective found in commiserating with a murderer.

Teenagers being held on bond are always armed robberies. They don't talk much, and sometimes they won't give up any parent or guardian contact info because there's none to give, or because they'd rather stay with the devil they don't know. I can't say I wouldn't if I were in their shoes. Not too dissimilar to the female blocks, really. Low pop and heavily monitored. Course, not always as stringently when a lady hangs herself in the shower. Quite a bit of paperwork nobody wants to do.

You'll hear it all, if you keep quiet. You might even see some of it. But I'll let you in on a little secret: the ceilings will sag at the seams, and someone's put a kid's toy in one of the plexiglass windows, and you can sir and ma'am every inmate every hour of your shift, but you aren't getting the grime out of your clothes in the wash. Because the decent people keep their city email and transfer to the Prosecutor's Office, and the good ones go work at Target for three more dollars an hour and better benefits.

I might not have ever wanted to be a cop, but I can't say I'm not a fucking coward.

 

The opening of Lord of the Rings is not some great tale of heroism like in the movie, nor is it an attempt to draw the reader in emotionally by a tale of woe. No, Lord of the rings starts by telling the reader everything there is to know about Hobbits. By doing this Tolkien tells us he is somebody who knows a great deal about the history of middle earth and the people that live within it. By doing this he demonstrates himself as an authority on the story told within the series.

The other story I used was the animal farm by George Orwell which derives its authority from knowledge in a rather interesting way. The story is told in a way that implies that both the writer and the characters are in on the joke but not the characters from the story. For example, the pig that goes by the name of Squealer might say something and after some doubt from the other animals they will agree it is the truth. Meanwhile both Orwell and the reader know very well that this is propaganda, but it is not explicitly mentioned in the book.

I found the heart story quite hard to do, I could just not get into a mindset that lends itself to writing it.

Spoiler

I was created in a factory. my purpose was only to serve and protect. But it was not where I was truly born. My birth was not a thing that happened from one day to the other as might be the case with a human. My birth were the small acts of kindness that my mistress showed me.

It was the way she talked to me deep in the night, despite me not being able to respond. It was the way she decorated me with flowers as we sat in the fields of summer. It was those cold winter nights where she drove through a great snowstorm to get new oil for my joints.

No, it was not a factory which gave birth to me, it was trough the love an old woman showed to me, a mute robot only capable of obeying her every wish.

The head story on the other hand felt a lot easier to do as I just had to write about made up facts.

Spoiler

The world is strange, stranger and more fantastical than many of the people alive would think. Now is the age of man, but once upon a time, long ago there was an age of true wonders. The valleys of Hellas were the homes to everything from Satyrs to Nymphs. The dark forests of eastern Europe were invested with monsters each more terrible than the next. In the swamps of the lowlands strange goat riders ruled the skies.

It was in these times that the most terrible of all these creatures existed, it is capability for evil could only be matched by its sheer greed. It was power incarnate. Its name was synonymous with death and ruin. Armies have gone up against the fierce dragons and have failed. With fire it burns, with claw it renders and by teeth it tears.

For all the prowess of these beasts it is not immortal, it is not entirely immune to the bite of cold steel. But it could not be the steel born by men who fight for gold or loyalty to a master. No, the only steel that may harm these unholy beings are the weapons wielded by a knight of pure faith. Where armies fail and traps are found wanting, it is the arms of these holy knights that would see the end to these beasts of fire and doom.

 

I read the opening chapter of OOTP, as I wanted to see how a sequel would differ from the start of a novel. It was very much knowledge, with much of the chapter covering the previous books and what went on. There are emotional aspects, with Harry's loss, but it certainly isn't the focus. The other book I read was Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay. The prologue is much more emotional, with the reader not understanding what exactly is happening but knowing that tragedy is approaching. The fact you don't know what is going on, makes you want to read more.

My writing:

The heart scenario makes me think of memoirs. Thus, I went in that direction and wrote a short story with memories.

Spoiler

A whistle blew, a long sharp sound. Beneath my feet, I could feel the ferry lunge as we set sail. I stood facing the port, my hands clasped tightly on the rail, listening to the hum of engines, watching as the people and cars became child toys.

I rocked with the waves and cherished the South wind that brought me the scent of the sea. When the ocean crashed against the sides of the boat and a spray of cold water rushed over me, I laughed and spun, not caring when my clothes became damp and my hair stuck to my face.

I was five the first time I road on a ferry, twirling in the spray before running to hold my Oma's hand and pointing to the seagulls flying overhead on that Spring day. It was our time together, aboard boats with no destination in mind. I decided that day I would become a Captain and tame the wild seas.

My desire became even stronger when I was allowed to sit on my dad's lap and hold the steering-wheel of an old aluminum speedboat. I would press the throttle as far as it would go, the front of the boat rising as the motors roared. When the boat turned, it was to leap over the waves. I relished the feeling of flying; that second where the stomach free falls.

People were always worried about letting me behind the wheel. I was "too young" or "too small" and believed I would run aground or sink us all, yet hesitantly they allowed me. I think it was because I would pout, beg and plea until they would give in and once they did, I impressed them. I knew how to drive a boat. It was a place where I was not shy but loud, fun and excited. My dad's friend, a guy almost like an Uncle to me, had pounded his hands on his legs and laugh when I pressed the throttle as fast as it would go, he even let me dock the small boat to shore. "She is a wild one," he told my dad, "and she is allowed to borrow my boat anytime she likes."

I grew up in a land surrounded by water. From my Oma's house I could see the canal, the large ships and small boats waiting for the bridge to open to go out to the Puget Sound or towards the fresh water of Lake Washington. My birthdays were at the beach, all of us screaming as our small bare feet touched the salty cold water. Even if we all knew the water would never heat up, even in the middle of the summer, we urged each other in until we were submerged with shivering bodies and tainted purple lips.

Every summer I would join my dad at the cabin. I would exit the car, unable to keep beaming smiles from my face as I saw the wooden cabin, it's green ivy climbing up the front. I would push open the brick red door, past my room with the two steel bunk beds (which I had a very interesting relationship with), and out onto the deck to wave at adult friends and listen to the crashing of the sea.

I would ride logs as if they were boats, trying to keep steady as the waves tried to tip me over. I would scream and laugh as the inter-tube would fly behind the boats, my hands clinging onto the sides for dear life.

With crabbing pots, we pulled crab from the sound and tossed them onto the bottom of the boat. I would sit curled up on one seat as large crabs with their large-beady eyes marched around, claws snapping. My dad would throw them with the clams in the boiling water and I would feast upon them until butter ran down my wrinkled fingers.

Cars started, the roar of engines breaking the sounds of wind and waves. The ramp was lowered. People began to exit, their bodies pressed together, all ready to go on with their busy lives. I wavered, not wanting to leave my childhood life behind on the boat once more. I did not want to think about how the boat rides stopped as the boats grew old and rusty, or how the cabin by the sea burnt down years ago, but most of all I did not want to think about how my father changed in my eyes. That childlike wonder I had for him had vanished— he was no longer the perfect father, "who could do no wrong" as my mom liked to say, but a man who did not know how to be a parent. But, as I descended, my life came back to me. There was no time for boat rides, nor any way to forget the faults of my father, I had to put away the past to continue towards the future.

Even if I was to begin a new adventure, I did not wish to leave all those memories, so I stepped off the boat with a bit of sadness as well as a yearning to fill lives holes.

Behind me, a whistle blew, a long sharp sound.

For head, I went and worked on my one-shot. I will admit that half of this was already written before this prompt, but I did improve and add onto it.

Spoiler

The Sultan was dead.

Everyone in the palace in the still-cool hour before dawn were acutely aware of the dangerously unstable situation. Hulya, a student attending Enderûn-i Hümâyûn Mektebi, curled her long, thin fingers around her wand as she looked down into the palace from the tower she spent most of her time.

The slaves scurried like little mice across the courtyards, heads down while the Janissaries paced two-by-two, wands out and shouting at anyone who laundered.

As dawn broke, the sea wind having long since died to a breath, most of the city of Constantiople was waking to buzzing in their ears and a darkening sky.

The Grounding had begun.

It was as if someone was darkening the world. In the North, where Istanbul stood, bright and chaotic, the sky was bright with the colors of sunrise, but around the palace, the colour had turned a shade deeper, as if dawn had been halted. Even the clouds, normally dark and plump with rain, had turned into a pale, winter gray. As Hulya watched, the area slowly spread outwards, dulling everything it touched.

The brooms and carpets in the sky sputtered. One-by-one, the sky, normally filled with travellers, emptied while the Great Fireplaces of Enderûn died. Hulya knew it would be the same at the Central Floo Station.

Below her, the gates of the Palace locked, tied shut with magic at the expense of the Janissaries' lives who cast the spells.

In times of great crisis, only the underwater path to Constantinople would remain open and the palace would remain locked until the Sultan’s command.

The Sultan who was now dead.

The Sultan’s whose sons had been fighting for the throne since they were nothing more than children, proxies to their mothers’ plans.

The Grounding buzzed unpleasantly in her ears, as she watched the wands of the people light up the sky, honouring the newly departed Sultan.

Outside the tower, Hulya paused in the small garden of the Third Courtyard only long enough to watch the sea of birds rise from the Second Courtyard’s stables; eagles for the princes, doves for the women and owls for the pashas at the far edges of the empire. They all carried the same message: Sultan Hüseyin Khan had ascended. The great game had begun.

She walked away from the flowers under the changing trees, passed a jumble of palaces, civil service buildings, her classrooms, the three small mosques, and the royal kitchens, towards the Harem and the large silver gates that led to them.

Hulya didn’t know why her feet brought her here, perhaps it was to see if their nightmares she saw matched the truth.

There were many people kneeling, praying to the various Gods they believed in. Over the wailing of the women, the slaves ran back and forth for their masters, carrying jewelry, money and other valuables, as if that would help them once the new Sultan arrived.

The passages, charmed with paintings of the outside world, felt dark and claustrophobic, as if they, too, knew the pain that was to come. They took her past the dormitories of whispering slaves, the long abandoned rooms of the deceased Sultan’s mother and coiled upwards to the hidden rooftop courtyards where the Sultan’s women gossiped, schemed and ran an empire.

 

I'd be grateful if someone could post a threadbreak after this, so that tonight's exercise threadmark doesn't automerge.

I'm on nights, but I shan't miss the new exercise being posted today, though it may be by American time rather than GMT. To that end, I want to post at least one exercise, but hopefully both (and will edit it in later today after I've slept, if I complete it)

I read and copied two stories. The first was 5.1 from Worm by Wildbow, because that'll be helpful to me. Then I copied part of Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett because he has a much stronger voice. It's been interesting to compare the two, and I've realised that while Pratchett's voice I remembered very well, Wildbow's was less sharp, more paced and considered than I recalled. Fanon has done terrible things to my woeful understanding of Taylor's voice.

In any case. I chose to review my recently published HP threeshot. I've been conflicted about it for a very long time, sometimes despising it, and sometimes really liking it.

Spoiler: A World Without Secrets

Review:

Title: A World Without Secrets
Rating: T
Genre: Adventure/Mystery
Status: Complete
Library Category: The Alternates
Pairings: None
Summary: Tom Clarke is a junior wizarding Usher in the British Army with a chequered past. Plucked up from obscurity, he is dispatched to the centre of Africa to chase down a rogue wizarding officer, Prewett. Sent to secure the heart of the Nile, where Grindelwald once travelled, Prewett’s missives have stopped coming. Tom is given a simple brief: bring Prewett back, or, if impossible, make sure Prewett never returns at all.

Narrative & pacing:

The story is a complete three-shot, separated into ‘the sea’, ‘the river’, and ‘the spring’, each representing a different section of Tom’s journey. The act structure is clear, with rising stakes and increasing hardship forced on Tom as he travels from boring safety to maddening danger. The midpoint is clearly signalled and, once we reach the second act, principal characters are no longer introduced but pared away, until only Tom and Prewett remain.

The pacing seems to me to progress at a fair clip. The shortest and most intense section is ‘The spring’ and concerns principally Tom and Prewett. By this point, I think that it is relatively clear that it is a one-shot that is constructed around a theme, around ‘society’ and the separation and commonality between wizard and muggle. In fact, the turning point of the fic, the midpoint, shows Tom killing the only foreign wizard he encounters and losing his wand, then being turned upon by his muggle allies.

It is clear that the writer is trying to emulate A Heart of Darkness with its look at the 'wizarding man’s burden’.

With all that said. The delivery and framing device of a man relating past events to interrogators for unknown reasons muddies the water, and the two threads of the story do not seem to be conclusively entwined. Indeed the very ending is quite unclear, though the story has concerned soul magic, does anyone other than the author have the reason (in this massive AU) to expect that wizards would still use dementors and that the Unspeakables will have one suck out his soul? I think not.

Furthermore, the story has many dropped lines, which it really ought not to have. While there is a reasonable success in building immersion and drawing people into each act’s antagonists and obstacles, they don’t convincingly carry through - for example, Morgrave’s hat, or Morgrave himself. The author has taken all the symbolism of the archetypes he is aping from Apocalypse Now and from Conrad, but he has forgotten to make sure it is all mechanically complete and satisfying.

Writing (SPAG and style):

The writing is not exactly ‘clean’. There are a few artefacts where it is clear revision has occurred and the author has repeated the same information. There is a scene break that has no purpose being a scene break, appearing to have taken place between one line of dialogue and the next for the purpose of giving the eye a rest and the mind a jump, not for any real narrative logic. The final segment, presumably the most revised, has spelling mistakes. And the pacing is rushed at the resolution. The story builds to a climax, the shape of it is seen and then we rush to an end.

It reminds me of a film I saw recently, after a long time, ‘Ten Things I Hate About You’. In that film, the catastrophe and low point builds into a dramatic confrontation between the two lovers and then they kiss. And literally, less than a minute later, they’ve had their conversation and they’re driving away into the sunset. There is a value in brevity, but some emotion takes more than half a minute to digest and ride out, and you need to have the word count to let that momentum putter along and die out, or else it’s a Red Bull soapbox car smashing into bales of hay, five meters beyond the chequered line. And that’s just painful.

I must admit, there are two feelings about the actual choice of writing style, and I am completely torn.

1. Harry Potter shouldn’t be first-person if it’s any sort of usual HP style adventure. Something with perhaps a mystery, or an epic, or whatever. If there’s magical conflict, then just don’t do it. It doesn’t fit the world. It doesn’t fit the reader’s experience of magic, something a first-person perspective must understand, but a reader cannot. This fic is a first-person Harry Potter story, from a wizard’s perspective.
2. Ignore the above, anyone can do anything they like, and this fic, and its bizarre framing device of someone narrating the story to you, allows a slight separation to be maintained. I think, perhaps, that the magic Tom explains to Able the muggle when he asks if he could learn to be a wizard still maintains a degree of whimsy and vividness. Furthermore, the 1930s style public schoolboy officer class comes through loud and clear by the way that Tom observes the world. I think it enhances the experience. A third person experience about a posh man going away from society into the heart of Africa, would not hit the same way as a first-person relation of that experience. When the contrast of that story is ‘civilised society’ vs ‘savagery’ in the style of Heart of Darkness (with of course the civilised man outside civilisation being the most savage of all) I can somewhat understand why this bizarre effort has made this bizarre choice. It is just a shame, of course, that the framing device doesn't marry together with the primary story as per part one of this review.

Setting:

I can’t even pretend to have distance here. I love the setting.

This AU has bubbled around in the author’s head for a long time, and the degree of changes envisaged for this AU where the statute of secrecy never existed comes through loud and clear.

It may present, after the first-person narration, the largest barrier to entry for the story. ‘The Sea’, the first act, takes place in a military barracks and onboard a military boat, where everyone is familiar and comfortable with this unified world. There are hints to strangeness by Morgrave’s transparently expositional obsessive interest in history, but ultimately very little is given to explain the strangeness of this HP AU. You are just battered with it.

What’s a stilted boat, an arcuate or a fin? Who knows.

Why is the Nile so hard to cast magic on? Can’t say.

What is the order of ranks for wizarding officers? It’s possibly phallic.

What did Tom do at Gryffindor College? You reply: what the fuck are these colleges, and is Mendelli a designer?

It’s a lot a lot, is all I'm saying.

Characters & dialogue:

I think that, in the main part, the Characters and the Dialogue are where this fic shines. If they are characters that work for you.

Tom, the gay wizarding Navy man who starts off acerbic and ends up frayed and knotted, changes gradually enough that I think it is difficult to pin down where it happens. The dialogue reflects this. There is the usual back and forth early in the story, but by the end, even, to an extent, with the exposition of Prewett, no one ever is really talking towards the same conversation topic. By the end, everyone is talking past each other, monologuing their own monologues with only slight attempts at reciprocating conversation with others, which is interesting when Prewett’s whole revelation concerns the unity of the society in which he has come to live.

There are a lot of people met and lost, however. While the early characters can make an outsized impression we do not see them again. The characters on the riverboat have two scenes to try and humanise them beyond red-shirts, but it is only partially effective, and those who die to the jago-nini are light deaths, not heavily felt, I suspect.

The deaths come thick and fast, and were intended to build up in intensity, but it is possible that it will have the opposite effect for you.

There is understandable antagonism as they progress on their ill-fated voyage, and the increasing strangeness of the land around them helps this dynamic, I think.

Overall thoughts:

It’s a reasonable fic, to be honest, for a three-shot. But it is so strange, so different, so high-effort but off-piste, that I think that it takes the sort of person who knows they will like it going in to go in. And who can know that? It’s not a typical HP story and it suffers for that because people who read HP fanfic want to read HP fanfic. And this… This is Conrad fanfic in a HP wrapper.

Still, the degree of AU, the intensity and quickness of events, and the unusual framing device will mean that it’s not a fic easily forgotten if you give it a chance.

3.5/5, but I've no idea in which direction to round it.

This was really hard. Pratchett is inimitable. I took the scene from my fanfic of Taylor first putting on her costume, got only this far in a couple of hours and stopped. Really stressed the old brain juice, and was really interesting to see how he could do it, and recognise some of the quirks of language he used but be unable to adapt them accurately, unless straight up copying them.

Spoiler: Discworld inspired early worm scene

It was winter in Brockton Bay, which meant the city was sleeping. This is not to say that the city was at rest, or even particularly calm. It was apparent that Brockton Bay did not enjoy the storybook sleep of a fairytale princess with a complicated family history, and an impulsive inclination for door-to-door fruit vendors. Which is to say, Brockton Bay was not in a crystal coffin, hoping for resuscitation should it catch a sufficiently wealthy VIP’s eye. The city’s coma was of a far less magical kind, the sort of coma a large man who drinks large amounts might find himself enjoying after twenty pints in the wrong bar, with a side of glass-bottle-meets-temple. The city blubbered through blue lips, and twitched sporadically*.

To the cognopessimisti the signs were obvious that the frail thing did not have many winters left before it travelled to the great open Cayman Island in the sky and was reincarnated into various global capitalist endeavours. To our hero, full of first-day optimism, the terminal decline was not quite so obvious.

“You are not a very attractive pair of sweatpants.”

The sweatpants made no reply, but the crease in their waistband showed a frown. It was a reasonable comment. The sweatpants were truthfully not very attractive, and today was a very special day for the city. Today was Taylor’s first day of superheroics.

Winter was a bad time to make a debut for a superhero. A costume with pizzazz and two feathers of pageantry might help an independent hero make a page 4 photo but it rarely went in hand with solid boots and a warm coat that covered both your neck and your knees. Taylor had had the unfortunate luck of being raised by pragmatic people, and most of her costume was the bulky sort of material that would keep her fingers not-blue and her toes not-frozen should an unsuspecting super-villain decided to play silly buggers during an enthusiastically lawful arrest.

All this was true, except for the mask. It was a magnificent mask, on the far side of the class divide from the rest of the costume. Forced together by the desire to make a difference the mask spoke with a continental accent, drank wine instead of beer, and – the other parts of the costume suspected – might recite poetry when no one was watching. The mask was Venetian. It had yellow lenses for eyes, faceted like a jewel, and then its maker had really got down to business. It seemed to Taylor that it approached disguise like a matador approached a bull, so aggressively ostentatious that its wearer’s identity was necessarily a beige bleh secret. The sort of technical dictionary-definition secret, like your Dad’s favourite soft-rock ballad, where disinterest protected from discovery.
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*This would cause the city to trigger as a Brute, in a less anthropocentric universe, inspiring a brief but blinding career as an independent vigilante using its ferry-based regeneration and mover powers to subdue piracy and water adjacent crimes from Maine to Long Island.

 

Spoiler: Exercise 1

Heart: Deverry book 1 Daggerspell, I turned to this because I vividly recall the emotion in how the father in this book 'keens' when he finds out that his wife had died while he was away scrounging up money to finally get themselves a farm. Rereading it now, I've found that actually happens on page 22, and the first pages are actually a reincarnation scene, quite boring and more Head than Heart I think.

So, I went on and picked another book The Goblin Emperor which has an mc I found annoying and overly emotional, again this might be more Head than I thought but it still has quite a lot of Heart, the opening scene about the mc being woken up rudely and forced to see a messenger while he's unkempt, a messenger that tells him his father and brothers are dead, and him the unwanted son is now the heir. I found this a nice mix, it neatly explains his current situation and also how poorly he's been treated. His emotions still come across, and then the shock truly sets in during the next chapter.

Head: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, this one has quite a lot of knowledge shoved into the readers heads, but in a fun way and establishes the setting with authority. Honestly, I remembered this as a dry book with sly humor, rereading it and its written in a whimsical way easier than I thought. It gives you such a complete rundown in just two pages, I really think its a great example.

Spoiler: Heart

They came at dawn, and at first appeared to be angels.
The thundering sounds of their approach heralded their arrival when it was yet dark, but by the time they reached the entrance of the valley, the sun was behind them and shining through them, its rays touching the oasis on the valley floor. They were golden.

Mirna laughed at the sight, her laugh quickly turning to coughs as her chest burned. Nonetheless, she smiled even through the pain. Her family had come back, they hadn't left her with the sick to die. She struggled to her feet and stumbled forward, trampling over the others around her, the ailing and dead alike.

Reaching the edge, she squinted, their camels were approaching fast but the haze in the air might've been obscuring their speed. Their camels were also rather dark, and shorter than she remembered. But who was to say if her fever hadn't sickened her brain as well?

Mirna wasn't the first to notice, but she was the second. For another near her, a stranger with makeshift bandages around their face turned tail and ran fast as a completely healthy person. And that's when Mirna took notice and stopped denying the undeniable.

A stone in her stomach heavier than any sickness dropped her to her knees. She would've been better off dead, she realised, at least the barbarians had only one use for them.

Spoiler: Head

Mirella woke up to the tang of demonic magic in the air. Unsubtle workings, but a subtle demon. She didn't reveal herself to be awake until she'd determined what she was dealing with and where. Sitting up, she turned to the demon and spoke, "Imp, what message has my foolish brother sent?"

The imp was hunched over but it was tall, a sign it was old. The creature dared to grin at her, so it was barely tamed as well. Normally, she would rebind it and send it back to whoever had dared intrude her room. Unfortunately, she couldn’t with this one.

The Imp said, "Mistress, he says he would request your swift return to the manor and help with an urgent matter."

Mirella got out of bed at that. Casually walking over to her desk, she lit a candle, turned to the imp and spoke the words of Dismissal. All the while he mocked her with his grinning face and beady eyes. Then, he was gone.

And Mirella rushed to pack right after. For if her brother was practically begging for help, it was likely the hounds of hell were circling the estate.

 

Spoiler: DP Head and Heart

Good efforts for sure.

I thought we were going fantasy here, because of the pointed ears and the subject matter of wanting a daughter 'just like her'. So that bumbled me for a moment. Humans have pointed ears, too, it just stands out to me. Might be just me.

So my understanding on a second reading of the heart piece is that this mother wanted a daughter, and was told she would have one. She got a child that was just like her in appearance, but it wasn't a daughter. Whether it was a son, cis or trans, I'm not sure. Or maybe an elf. But yeah just to be aware, if this understanding of your piece is right, then this line is a stumble because it sounds like she lost the baby and then had a different child. However, all the way through you've been using second person for this view point and so when it's concerning that character but isn't second person this line makes it seem like it's talking about a different baby, to me, at least.

I liked this.

I think this is a powerful last line to end on. I've not read All Quiet on the Western Front, so for both of these some of my thoughts on the voice might not be useful because it may be entirely appropriate for what you're emulating and I just don't know.

Really strong opening. The way you're using sharp declarations with no ambiguity really hits. You are telling us something you know and we don't. Pretty much bang on message here.

Again, I'm wondering if this is AQotWF because you do it in both. Personally, I found these spoken style asides didn't seem to fit with the perspective that you used the rest of the time. They addressed the reader, in a way the rest doesnt.

Losing the strength here. "You won't see it coming' would be that same energy as the opening lines.

'Thats if', again, as above. This sort of line can be more powerful if more stark - stark is what I have in mind for what you're trying to achieve here - 'If a deputy doesn't egg them on, of course'.

This line reads really powerfully. I read it and went 'ooh'. Then I tried to understand it, and it was a little bit of a slippery line. Too many negatives descriptors. 'I am not the man who would not criticise when it is not inappropriate', you know?

-

Spoiler: Ched head and heart

]

I enjoyed your thought on DF, though I don't really remember the start of Deadbeat either. I think it's quite interesting how both of us found examples where we remembered what we got out of it being different to what perhaps they were trying to impress.

I think this is undeniably effective, though I can't say it floors me. It's a brief look, but definitely we establish that it's going to be about the emotion, and the hairs on the back of the neck, and the silence work for her emotion. I'm not sure how much the actual narration matches it. How much you're able to push it into the language as well as the events. It's quite stated, rather than felt, though again I still think it works as it is.

I found this scene interesting, but I agree with you, I think it doesn't quite work for the scene. I fell afoul of this with my own heart thing, I believe, looking at what DP and Niez have done. The exposition and knowledge here comes from the characters, even though it's a first person perspective - it comes in dialogue. I think what you need for the head authority is to make it so that the communication between the narrator and the reader is being established as the narrator being the one that knows what they're talking about. If you look at Stormlight and the first chapter or so, when there's the assassination attempt, that definitely does it, or probably any thing with Jack Reacher. Facts and statements, outside of dialogue, in the narration that establish they know a ton about something germane to the world that the reader doesn't. Typically something that hints at a life/world that's far from the readers. 'The blood of endangered animals smells richer than other blood, like diamonds shine more brightly than other jewels, or old mahogany is textureless to touch. It sticks, it crusts, in the web between the fingers, and you wear it like jewellery.' - off the top of my head. That sort of telling where you're not actually telling the important part, but it comes across loud and clear anyway.

So I think gravball could totally be that with a little tweaking or building up between the speech.

-

Spoiler: Khaine

The sentences here are all quite short - paratactic. There's nothing that precludes that from establishing emotion, but it is does feel like these are quite concrete and flat statements. I do recognise that you struggled with the heart one. I'll pm you the essay in question where Palahniuk opens with one he describes as heart, or look at Niez's which is mostly heart. I think the key is trying to think about how the voice can be specific, in both instances. For heart it needs to specific on an emotion, for knowledge on facts.

The birth here should be followed by a was, cus all though the multiple acts are multiple, the verb here is referring to the word birth which is singular, I believe.

the first it is should be its, like the second here.

I think, like myself, and like Ched above, there's difficulty sometimes in finding the difference between a dispassionate knowledge-based authority in the narration and exposition. I think, as I said, it comes down to specificity. You'll hear a lot of people complain about opening exposition a lot, and there's a lot of advice about expositing after a problem rather than before it so that the reader can now understand what they've already seen rather than telling them what they're about to see and why it's important.

I think this is interesting, because in order to exposit after a problem, in a fantasy world that means you need to create a draw that relies on the characters and the world that is not well understood, for an audience that loves lore. But, when you look at Death Note or other things that do it well, it's undeniably effective.

The key then I think, in this voice, to avoid it feeling like exposition, is to make sure the mystery of the fantasy world isn't what you're talking about, but instead to establish knowledge about one specific, tiny aspect of the world. Then still allow surprise and mystery and gaps to learn about outside the character's viewpoint.

For example, for a story about a dragon, with a 'head' voice, super bluntly, then I personally might try something like:
'Dragons are not immortal. Do not laugh at me. You have not seen what I have seen, have not travelled where I have travelled.

The smallest dragon's teeth are swords, its claws spears. The youngest dragon's breath rivals the largest castle forge, and its sight is keener than a wizard's telescope. My first kill was a gnarly, old, green dragon. It was the size of the mountain. Ten thousand men and four hundred horses it killed in an afternoon, ten thousand more it would've devoured, had I not heard of the king's madness. Do not laugh at me. Iron cannot break a dragon's scale, nor any metal unblessed by God, and though you mud folk may not know it, a king well ought to.

Naryina is blessed, thrice-over. Listen to it sing when it leaves the scabbard. It has killed dragons before me, and it will kill dragons after me. Listen to my story well, for Narinya says one of you shall be the next to slay a dragon.'

That got away from me a bit. But I hope that's helpful for demonstrating what I'm thinking of. It's still gonna be expository by its nature, but it's more specific, and it's definitely more one narrative voice telling it. More specific?

--

Spoiler: Lindsey

Really liked this.

This was great.

Loved the imagery of the crabbing as well. This was very effective at sucking me in. It's a very different pace to what I'd be able to come up to with on my own and the feeling of it, the syrupy quality was really well done. It evoked the nostalgia, so that I forgot we were on a ferry looking back, and when she's pulled back from her reverie I am as just as much arrested as she was.

The final line of the whistle was great too. I'm glad to have read it. It gives me a lot to think about. It doesn't read like fanfiction to me, it reads to me like something I'd read in an anthology, and that's a good thing.

I didn't quote anything from your Ottoman oneshot but I did enjoy it a lot as well. Particualrly the first half I think you nailed this challenge while also remaining inside the other things that your narrative was trying to accomplish. As she goes hunting for the harem we end up much more in her perspective than before, but it's not a bad thing. The exercise is Establishing authority not Relentless authority, so I think it works exactly as intended, and then we get to see how it then folds into pulling you along, cus I was pulled along. Well done Lindsey, they were both fun (some loose typos before you publish them anywhere if you want to do anything with them I'd suggest. Just a smidge of tidying needed).

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Spoiler: Majubius

I really like the prosody of this sentence. That said I think the approach and arrival so close together are saying the same thing twice kinda'.

I really like this image.

Good on the body sensory description

I feel we get a sense of the character's authority in this 'head' snippet, but not so much in her narrative. The demon's binding works for that, but otherwise what's happening is a bit mysterious, and it strikes me that I've been seeing a lot of 'head' as the one where the character is in charge/secure. Where if you want to swap their circumstances, have the otome villainess demon as the heart, and the barbarian sick girl as head, it should be exactly as equally possible.

In terms of the concrete, in a short snippet, it can be hard to do more and still have the story doing anything at all. I guess I'd suggest that you try and come up with a reason for her to think more about the sort of thing that she does when she sees the messenger imp for the first time. To make it a plot point for the scene, and of use for the characterisation, by changing some of the circumstances somehow and then making it work for your authoritative technique attempt here.

 

threadbreak for blor

 

Alright. I will do this homework. I only got through #1.

Spoiler

Todd was making that sound that men often seemed to choose over tears. A sharp, agitated breathing in and out through the nostrils, his head bowed toward the charred wreckage of the wand shelves nearest the window, one hand in his hair. Dust mingled in the air, in a larger sunbeam than she was used to seeing stream into Ollivander's shop.

"Have you been able to take stock?" Maggie asked.

"Fifty-two wands," he responded, just as quietly.

Fewer than she'd thought. Maggie breathed a slow, imperceptible sigh of relief. "Cores?"

"All dragon heartstrings." He pulled one of the intact wand boxes down from the shelves and brushed some soot off the top. "Mostly Romanian Longhorns that Ollivander's tamed throughout the 1930s, but also several Swedish Short-Snouts that my dad encountered a couple years ago. Range was from nine-and-three-quarter inches to I think about twelve inches. As for wand wood, it runs the gamut. Pretty much everything, and all sorts of flexibility."

She walked past Todd and toward the wall, examining the curled, blackened edges of the midnight blue wallpaper. "This wasn't my pyromancy," she said. "The damage is different that it would be. Less sophisticated."

She could actually hear Todd grinding his teeth. That couldn't be good for him, and he did it far too often. "Water didn't douse it. This wasn't natural."

"I didn't say it was natural. I do believe it was magical."

"Well, what kind of magical fire was this, then? Since you're the expert."

"I don't know. I've never seen anything like that before."

He sighed and seemed to wilt, his suspicion shifting back to exhaustion. "Neither have I."

"It's a blow, Todd. I know it is," she said. "But there are still hundreds of wands here, and we can easily recoup the loss. We'll be able to replace them all, over time."

Todd shook his head slowly, in a grim daze. "I won't."

Maggie opened her mouth, unsure what to say. She'd meant "we" as a company — primarily herself and Mr. Ollivander. She didn't really think Todd would be able to match the quality of his father's wands any time soon. "We will," she finally responded.

He lingered for a while, saying nothing, while he picked up boxes here and there. He didn't seem to have any sort of plan for cleaning things, instead just moving boxes from one shelf to another by hand with no rhyme or reason.

Finally, he said, "Do you think this is the golden era of Ollivander's, while my dad's at the helm?"

She blinked, unsure how to respond to this. "I — I don't know."

"And what comes after?" he said.

He eventually walked away without a parting word, his boots crunching over the debris. Maggie leaned in, examining the wallpaper closer as Todd's footsteps trudged up the stairs. She wiped some soot from the walls, confused by a shape that seemed to be underneath. A pattern of ash remained as she cleared most of it. It looked like a skull, with a thin, ribbon-like line that curled from its mouth and around its head. Maggie frowned, puzzled.