Lol, the handwriting was that hard to read.

Basically, James and Sirius get chased by a police car down an alley, banter is exchanged (including the Sirius-serious pun), 3 strangers on broomsticks arrive, James and Sirius magic the police car into the air such that the riders of the broomsticks crash right into it, then escape on the flying motorcycle.

The whole thing is from the police officer's point of view. I suspect the broom riders were either Death Eaters or the Ministry investigating underage magic/violation of the Statute of Secrecy.

The writing is rather poor quality, and the first paragraph especially is rather unwieldy. Read it here: http://www.mugglenet.com/app/news/full_story/1684

 

I read that and it made me vomit in my mouth a little.

Seriously, if only she was half the writer that some of the better fanfiction authors here are, this would've been a cool opportunity. Of course, it might have been longer than 800 words and taken her more than 5 minutes on the toilet to write it and then wipe her ass with it.

After all, why donate actual money to a charity - and L25,000 is less than pocket change to her - when you can spend five minutes on shit like this and its so much easier!

Thank God she isn't writing a prequel. Or anything else, apparently.

Kevin

 

Must be a kick, though, getting paid 25k for something you spent half an hour writing. Sure, it all went to charity, but still. I can kind of understand her.

 

Oh... Oh my god. She made a poor, poor Sirius/Serious joke. And I mean appalling. That is just a forced attempt at humouring the fanbase who find that kind of crap funny. And I did, the first or second times. The fiftieth? Nah.

Story is dire, DLP writers could come up with much better, that of which I'm sure. Frankly I'm just happy it wasn't a story set at Hogwarts, so she couldn't mess up their characters and then make that canon. I like MWPP fics, and I don't want them to be FUBAR'd by her and her incessent need to wreck things.

I was underwhelmed by the story, but not surprised.

 

It's just very mediocre... she could at least have made an effort. All she did was make everybody's day worst, and raise next to no money, relatively speaking.

 

Really? Because I was under the impression that when you're raising money, either for profit or charity, the ONLY thing that mattered was selling your goods for the highest possible price.

Oh...wait. The main purpose wasn't actually to raise money, but to be thrust into the public spotlight once more, while maintaining a sense of elitism, all under the guise of altruism. Suddenly, it all makes sense.


As for the prologue itself...to be honest, I'll read it, but only when someone gets around to putting it in text.

 

WhataDykewhataDykewhataDykeDykeDyke. Her writing sucks, the funds raised suck, her tits suck...she's officially a Mugglenetter.

 

The link in my post is in text, not the handwriting version.

 

How... Utterly lame was that. :/ I mean, I have little faith in Rowling anymore, but even this beat my worst expectations by a substantial amount.

Fuck you, Rowling. Fuck you very much.

 

Everyone... It's not a serious story, it was written for a Waterstones postcard thing in 20 mins tops. There will be no prologue and it got 25k to charity. It was Waterstones that advertised it. No attention whoring, no money-grabbing, chill.

 

Indeed. I was deluded enough to convince myself that there was the possibility that this would be good, but not only was the plot about absolutely nothing, but the writing reveals that Rowling's writing skill does indeed come almost completely from re-writes and editors.

 

Meh. Not sure I see how so many people here can hate it.

It's less than 800 fricking words. It's one short scene without any context. The humor fell pretty flat (Elvendork is unisex?) but I thought it was mildly amusing. And worth the minute and a half it took to read.

As short as it is, I'll save people the link and quote it.

Personally, when it comes to a prequel, I picture James and Sirius with helmets. Bicycle helmets. In the back seat of a station wagon with fake wood paneling. And asking Lily to turn on the Muggling Wireless.

EDIT: And yeah, JKR's is just one of thirteen Waterstones' What's Your Story? promotional mini-ficlets. You can go here and read other famous authors. Neil Gaiman's got my mind imagining some fun possibilities.

 

...

What kind of plot can you develop in a semi-decent way with only 800 words written?

If anything, she is rather coherent with her previous sayings that she would not write a proper prequel. This isn't a story. It's a mere scene, written with no purpose at all (literarily speaking), and contrary to what most of you feared and lamented about, of absolutely no consequence on the series.

As such, I don't think it's the trainwreck most claim it to be. The writing is all right, maybe not as polished as in the books but quite good nonetheless. The scene in itself is okay; it's every bit the pointless little one-shot it was supposed to be. I personally enjoyed reading it.

And surprisingly enough... Given how little character study there was in this scene, my being a bit of a James fangirl has nothing to do with my enjoying it.


EDIT: nonjon beat me to it. >_>

 

Evidently you don't read enough one-shots. I've seen plot developed in under 1000 words many times.

Eh. Read the first paragraph again.

It's one of the most awkward pieces of writing I've ever seen. No exaggeration. It just doesn't flow at all.

 

Gah, this is just...crap. 800 words of drivel that is mostly tasteless and extremely boring. I read the back of a cereal box this morning that was more interesting.

 

[The speeding motorcycle] [took the sharp corner] [so fast] [in the darkness] [that both policemen] [in the pursuing car] [shouted, "Whoa!"]

The first sentence has 7 different sections. It's just a mess, with far too much description. The motorcycle is speeding, the corner is sharp, the speed is extra-fast, it's dark, there's multiple policemen in a single car following them, and then these policemen shout something. There's just too much going on for one sentence to handle

It's all just very staccato.

 

To give you an idea of what you can do in less than 1,000 words, here's a Pirates of the Caribbean vignette prequel, one-shot:

PotC

Captain Jack Sparrow climbed up the last boulder and took in the view. From the highest vantage point he could find, he had a fairly good view of the island he was stuck on. There wasn't much to it; a long stretch of beach, a cluster of palm trees and tropical foliage growing dense against the ocean winds, and the high pile of boulders he had just scaled.

All things considered, it was rather ungrateful of his crew to abandon him there after the mutiny, and with only two bottles of rum. "Ingrates. I'll be off this rock , and have the Pearl back soon enough. . . I'll show them what it's like to be stuck with minimal rum rations then."

An annoyingly happy voice spoke up, "You should forgive them, and be nice. Then they might be nicer to you in return."

The expression on Captain Jack Sparrow's face was, for lack of a better term, one of utter 'WTF?'. This was not without just cause, for before him stood an odd green-furred creature with a white belly, about the size of a dog standing on its hind legs. "And who are you to give me orders like that? And how'd you get here?" Regardless of how odd it was, it might have a boat.

The . . . thing . . . giggled. "I'm Gentle Heart Lamb, and I come from Care-A-Lot. I'm going to stay until I've helped you take a kinder view of the world."

Jack gave this statement proper consideration.

---------------------------------

On reflection, the lamb-thing had been right. After a good meal of mutton, Jack's mood had improved immensely. The meat had been oddly sweet, though, as if it had been marinated in sugar, but a splash of rum was enough to wash away the saccharine aftertaste.

Looking at the bones and bits of wool that remained, inspiration struck. He could make a rope of the wool easily enough, and the sea turtles he'd noticed sunning themselves earlier would be simple enough to harness. . .

 

You can. If you want to. If you don't, then it can still be engaging, albeit pointless. This isn't. That is where she dies.

On the subject of charity: do you not believe, that perhaps if she tried, organized something which took just a little bit of effort, or perhaps even got get her mug and voice stuck to one of the existing organizations, that she wouldn't generate a shit lot more money? But since she doesn't do that, or anything even remotely similar, stunts like these just scream attention whoring.

 

Have you people even looked into what this is?

Waterstone's is sponsoring a little contest thingie called "What's Your Story?"

They're all handwritten on these little post card things. From the looks of it they may have all been written on the fly off the top of the author's head. True, there are some people who can create worlds of wonder in just a few paragraphs, but read some of the others. They're not much better. JKR went ahead and auctioned off her post cards to charity as well. Let's crucify her for that one.

Would it be more fair to call this a short drabble that comes into the timeline well before any of the canon books? Of course. But in an article it's quicker to call it a "prequel" and misrepresent the whole thing to legions of Potter fans.

Don't get me wrong, the big-titted greedy bitch didn't impress me with this. But it takes a pretty bitter antagonistic fucktard to make a big stink and get upset about this.