I believe A Potter Tradition of Red was pulled from ff.net after reader complaints, though you might wish to ask Jolly Rancher.

To the OP: I read the first chapter. While it's not quite as horrid as some on here would claim, it's still bad. I believe Amerision pegged it with his comment that your story is unprofessional.

I doubt you'll read this, but in the event that you do, I'll offer a few bits of critique. You seem enamored with modifiers and with excessively flowery language, ala, "Never use a big word when a more diminutive one would do." This gives your prose the character of being scribbled by a high school student who is trying too hard. Your English teacher may have taught you about modifiers and told you they were great, to be used as much as possible. You've taken her advice to heart. Good. Now forget it please.

Let's consider an excerpt from the first chapter:

Make your words count. You have so much excess that I'm reminded of wading through the trash and broken toys littering my son's room. This ruins any dramatic pacing that you might have had.

When you do use precious words, you send mixed signals. For instance, you have a Voldemort who speaks in "shalls" yet "sprung [sic]" up like Tigger on meth. Why doesn't he simply stand (aside from it not seeming dramatic enough to the author)? 'Patiently' adds nothing. Your Voldemort speaks in classic, canned "bad guy" lines that come off as corny and melodramatic. "Now that I have slain the King and stormed his castle, I shall now move the throne and follow the secret passage down to the hidden treasure chamber!" You almost expect an old-school Dracula, "Bwah ha ha ha!" It's a very clumsy way of introducing background into your story. You're not writing humor (that I can tell, anyway), so this doesn't belong here.

Next paragraph: Nodding affirmatively. Right. Face, meet palm. (Hint, it's redundant, repetitive, and, well, redundant).

Take heart: A lot of authors started similarly only to outgrow it when they realized that telling a good story is key and that everything else is secondary. Spend more time on storycraft and less on trying to impress people and you'll improve.

 

Oh boy... I'm going to start by saying that it's not enitrely atrocious. But there was very little I actually liked at all in this fic. And your reviewers called this a masterpiece?

First thing that struck me was verbosity: you're using too many words that aren't needed. Many authors are guilty of it, and I just can't get interested in a fic like it.

Furthermore, your dialogue is seriously lacking. There's no... humanity to your conversations, nothing to grab my attention. I can't empathize with your characters through dialogue because I honestly can't imagine conversations taking place in that manner. There's no flow or even apparent realism.

Moving on to characterization... well, it appears I'm part of the group here that finds your characterization of Voldemort completely unbelievable. For one, I can't believe that the Dark Lord would bother taking 'sex slaves' (I personally think his libido died when he started making Horcruxes), and there's nothing to support it. And why on earth would Voldemort collect Veela for his Death Eaters? Besides being a geographical impossibility, it doesn't make sense with his personality. Characterization for the other characters seems typical, but there's no growth.

As for plot... well, I saw what you were trying to do, but I was never a fan of DH anyway, so your plot didn't do much for me. If anything, the terrible characterization and dialogue ruined the story for me.

And as a fellow newer member... well, good luck.

1/5

 

Eh. Wasn't all bad.

2/5

 

Hi

Okay, I can certainly see why my writing isn't very good. I'm going to put an effort into changing my style of writing. I plan to eliminate what one member put as the flowered, verbose language. Those were very valid points. Thank-you.

Specifically enembee: Thanks the most. Perhaps you can see the silver lining. There is a story here and it's not really that bad. Oh, and JoJo23: Thanks for saying your enjoying, "Across the Quidditch Pitch." But at this point, I was shocked anyone here could possibly say that the way I wrote a chracter was accurate! I'm glad you think Snape is in character in it.

And.........For any of the several of you who made vicious attacks against me, you are ridiculous. I was never going to take it to heart, but it's pretty pathetic that you must personally attack me like "go masturbate" and having a "cavernous vagina." Whatever. People are always immature.

 

Agreed, I'm not in favour of the story. It makes me cringe.

 

I'm here because I just am. I don't have to justify my reasons to you or anyone. I don't see any reason why you complained about the prior post of mine. That made you complain? Of all things! To anyone else reading who didn't see that post: All it was was a bunch of my giving thanks to those that critiqued my writing!

I know...You were just annoyed that this place wasn't getting to me, and that I was trying to keep my head cool.


And you're right. It wasn't the place for emnebee to review my other story. I'll give him more credit than what you called it! His comment was more than just an irrational, update soon crap! The person liked my story and expressed his reasons why. What do you want me to do? Can't I express my gratitude in that?? I also think emnbee was being honest about his comment. He honestly liked my other story, so what???

 

I don't remember saying that.

 

Are multiple question marks the new cruise control, then?????

On to the story:
really, the pointless poems and their formatting annoyed me, but I could ignore that. The first chapter wasn't as bad as I was expecting after going through some of the reviews.

Although it seemed rather improbable that Voldemort would write down his plans and... give them to ministry employees? lolwut. I guess the first sentence in your story should have been: "Voldemort won, he owns the country." At least with that sentence the previous one would make more sense. Now it just seems like he is going to give up his plans in the hope that he will get caught. Is your Voldemort sorry for what he did and secretly wants to be redeemed? No.

The Hitleresque greeting was ridiculous to say the least.

Just a small mistake. It should be: "He had already succeeded in putting Pius Thicknesse under the Imperius Curse."

Did you forget to mention that the Alastor Moody in your story is a trap? And the part before this sentence is just ridiculous. Does your Voldemort also have ADD? One minute he's talking to his followers and the next he... OH LOOK AT THE BEAUTIFUL SNAKE!

That was the first chapter and I couldn't get myself to read more, not particularly because it was THAT bad, but because it's not Harry-centric. I won't rate your story for that reason.

 

I'm not one to jump in usually, but Pensieve, your story does need work. A lot of work. Most of the people here have given solid advice. I would just reflect on it, and try again. After your next attempt, submit that for review.

Also, a work-by-author thread can help anyone improve. I wish you better luck next time, and I wish everyone here a good night.

 

To be honest, first impressions of your story didn't do much for me. I've just finished the first chapter, and you asked for some concrit, so here it is.

Like others have said, italicise and center the poetry, if you want to keep it at all. Use some bold text for the chapter header too - currently it's a bitch to differentiate your notes from the main text from the quotes. Also, what really got me were the bits explaining the poetry. The whole point of including snippets and phrases is to illuminate some point of interest to the reader without shoving it in their faces - to make them think on it or to anticipate a theme in the coming chapter. Explaining why you're including it ruins any effect it might have. I'd also suggest only one a chapter - for instance, if you're going to have a Voldemort/Bella scene, then would be the time to include the “Every woman adores a Fascist” quote.

Look over the chapter again. To me, the first chapter is always the most important, because not only are half the people that click on the link generally not going to get further than it, but it sets the tone for the rest of your story. Your chances of getting people hooked are greatly decresed if no one can see where you're going with it. Currently you've got a 1k chapter that does almost nothing to establish a running theme. You've just got a standard scene showing Voldemort commanding his Death Eaters to do things we're expecting them to do anyway (ie. take over the Ministry), Voldemort telling them he's going away and the Malfoys in disgrace (which we know they are from the book). What are you giving the reader that's new?

Look over the language again. Like the others have said before, try for clarity. Long and floral words are great, but they only make an impact when you use them sparingly, unless you're trying to write in the style of a certain time, which you're evidently not. Some sentences are fine, but then you come out with things like this:

which just stick out to me as glaringly awful. You're justifying something that doesn't need justifying with a sentence that needs rearranging. It should read 'ever since Barty had worn the swivelling glass eye, Moody had problems removing it'. The 'it made sense that it was stuck in there' also rings wrong. Why are you telling me it makes sense? Why even mention it was Barty's meddling that made the eye stick?

To be honest, you'd have posted this in the Work By Author section if you really wanted concrit. The DLP For Review section's not a good place to post something you don't want getting skewered if it's not up to scratch. But hey, I gave it at try. Take the advice or leave it.

 

Biased brats?
I didn't like it either.

 

I'm not a fan of unnecessary slash. And I rarely read NC-17 fics because most writers go for shock value/sex than plot. I read the first chapter of the story, and I didn't particularly like it.

You also posted your story for review yourself, which I think is incredibly moronic thing to do considering the type of people who loiter around are fairly well known for being harsh critics. (see above).

But your responses were more or less in complete sentences, despite all the insults. That indicates to me that you were genuinely disappointed in not getting any help with your story.

So I'm offering to be a beta. I like the characters to have depth, logic, and if your story lacks that I can help. If you want advice I'll give it to you. You can email me the chapters, and I'll turn that thing red and question every other sentence if that's what's needed. If any of your scenes came about because of the line, "I thought it would be cool," or "I needed something shocking," I'll call it out for the massive failure that it is. In a good story the characters react to the situations around them, not because it's part of the plot.

If you don't take my advice to heart and choose to ignore me, I can't do anything about that. But if you do, you might be inspired to write a better story for later that makes it in the Library all on it's own.

Whatever, there's my offer. Take it, leave it, turn it corporeal and call it Daisy... I don't care. I'm on ff.net by the same name if you're interested.

 

I hate to do it, but I agree with most of the rest of the reviews left for you so far. This fic's development leaves much to be desired, as does the writing style itself. 1/5

As for the "Terminus" or wtf-ever convention, most of us could probably care less about a little fan-girl get together. I read HP FF because I enjoy seeing what someones imagination will come out with next, I'm not even fond of canon after OOTP.

As said before, the majority of the fics here are near novel quality, and this fic isn't even close.

 

I was originally just going to pass over this considering the amount of negative reviews, but I felt that I should actually take a look at the story to see if it was being blown out of proportion.

This is fucking awful.

And yes, I toned that description down so I wouldn't hurt your feelings.

I'm just going to start at the beginning and point out some of its flaws.

You're actually explaining the reason for the poem excepts? Really? You might as well have just left them out and replaced them with

Your grammar is horrendous and the dialogue is pathetic. Did you write the dialogue while you were staring at a picture of Voldemort while taking a ride on one of those toy vibrating brooms?

People don't talk like that.

Ever.

What the fuck does that even mean?

How does a door glint open? Let us not even mention how terribly constructed that whole thing is. "Lucius Malfoy and his wife," Ok... what about them.

Thats like saying,

"The door swung open. Shoe. The shoe was there. The shoe was on a foot, laces downcast (in shame)"

Christ almighty.

Now onto you personally.

Terminus? Who gives a shit?



These are the kind of people who go to Terminus.

Greatest representations of Voldemort in fanfiction. Oh thats a good one. Wait...you were being serious weren't you?

Oh, um ya thats kinda sad. I thought you were making a joke, probably because of how absurd that statement was.

Have you ever read fanfiction?

Yet another case of you being wrong.

Yes you're new here, and instead of actually taking the time to read the stickies and take a glance at some of the fics we have in the Library (From which you would have gained an idea of the quality we allow to enter) You shot right over to the For Review section to whore your story out. Your introduction was pathetic (Tips on that could have been found in the stickies) and you've posted nowhere else on the site.

You didn't come here for criticism, you came here for the same blind praise that you've recieved from countless other fangirls at every other site that you've whored this piece of fecal matter on.

You don't care. See there in lies the problem. We are readers, your target audience. If we think there's something wrong with it then maybe you should say, "Hmm, maybe they're right, let me take a look and see if I can add a bit more in there." But instead you basically said "Fuck you."

Again with Terminus, whoopdee fucking doo.

First of all, yes there is. And sure they are in published novels.

This however is not, nor will it ever be a published novel.

Because its bad.

schnitt, schnitt, Wut, Wut, spritz, spritz, Blut, Blut

 

Okay, seriously, just stop.

Stop trying to defend yourself, stop being so defensive, stop taking it so personally, stop trying to be reasonable and fair and all that crap, just stop. Especially stop using outraged exclamation marks. For every post you make trying to appease or justify your previous comments or your rather shitty story, you just make things worse.

Look at Xiph's rope. You made that noose and you're tightening it. If you want to remain here at DLP and have a good time, then take the reviews, use or ignore them, then spend some time on the non-HP threads here so that people can get a feel for you.

The people here think your story suck. They've said why. They weren't nice about it but they never are, unless your super-duper awesome. And, even then, they'll give you the occasional arse-raping just to keep you on your toes.

Accept this.

Move on.

Me, personally, thinks your story sucks for the most part because it's not Harry centric. I did give it a bit of a read through (the near-Ginny rape was quite lulzy) and nothing in your writing or characterisation stood out. To me, the greatest stories have a central main character that has a type of flair about them. It could be the snarky anti-hero, the determined good guy, the mischevious kid, whatever. This characterisation supercedes plot. You can make any crappy plot quite enjoyable as long as the reader has fun reading it.

You, on the other hand, have a bunch of minor-developed characters that come off as bland and dull. Even Voldemort comes off as being rather...I suppose 'normal' is the word I'm looking for. Uninspired could be another. There's no air or aura around him that makes him compelling. Even JKR had a rather compelling Voldemort with the way she put out his mannerisms and speeches.

So yeah. Before you fix up your plot, do something about your boring characters.