Perspicacity: Do it. I think it'd be great.

 

Perspicacity Johnson is right. So right. I would have quoted everything he said and added QFT if it wasn't for the fact that it would have this message much longer than it is.

I want to think that if I thought I were a good enough fiction writer that I would be published. I know people in publishing-- university presses and a major publishing company, writers-- some with MFAs and some without-- and the most talented writers who've earned MFAs in writing have talked so much about their craft-- treating their manuscripts like works of art (which they are) that they hope will be appreciated (and sold too), writers who don't have MFAs and are in various stages of their careers (one relative who got a grant from the NEA (or is it NEH?) several years ago still hasn't had the novel accepted by a publisher), and a couple of literary agents.

I know, though, that my talents don't run in that creative direction. I am a decent writer. In fact, I've freelanced for newspapers. I think my editing skills are much more superior to my writing. That being said, I know what I appreciate and I like to think that I know what people appreciate when it comes to the written (or typed) word. Obviously, not what I'm typing.

Fan fiction writing tends to be sloppy. Many months ago, Clell posted a chapter of one of his works on Rorschach Blot's group. I responded by noting that an adverb was unnecessary and another verb might be substituted. It triggered a long thread on using adverbs in writing, and the people who responded (some of whom are well-known in the HP fanfic scene) wondered if I was saying that there should be no adverbs at all. I responded by saying not none, but as little as possible, so that there would be a precision in the use of words.

I was criticized some by folks (one said that she would pay attention to someone with professional editing experience, not that newspaper copy editing mattered to her it appeared). The impression I got from that thread is that although I see writers of fan fiction talk about their craft, it's often neglected. And that neglect will be a major reason why their original works will be rejected by publishers.

Oh, and to the subject of this thread, Jeconais's new story "Hogwarts' Dawn." It's got a lot of promise. I won't go so far as to say that it was submitted for consideration too early. After all, I was the original submitter of another of his works shortly after its first chapter was released.

 

I'm taking for what it is: a humorous crack!fic. With that frame of mind and having no particular preference regarding Jeconais himself, I think it's worth between a 3 or 4 for the Humor/Parody section. I'll wait for a little bit to rate exactly, though.

 

I've always read Jeconais' fics, with varying degrees of enjoyment, and this will likely not be an exception, despite its' crackfic nature. There is certainly humor to be had, and I'll admit to being curious how things play out. To me, that's worth a solid 4/5 on promise alone, though I do dislike assigning an arbitrary number to things.

 

I found it funny, but do agree that the twin's as the 'experts' is kinda weird, but at Hogwarts I could see him going to them for help more then anyone else.

3/5

 

Word.

Why is it that people who are supposedly fans of Harry Potter can't get details like this right?

Forget the price of a wand, the prize for winning the Triwizard Tournament was 1,000 galleons. We are lead to believe that this is an amount of money would make it worthwhile to enter a contest in which most of the competitors die.

And the twins ask for 10k... The most commonly accepted exchange rate says this is 50,000 pounds Sterling OR, in American funny money, 'holy fucking Shit!'

I expect this shit from a writer whose idea of a first chapter involves a shopping trip and a list of what's on Harry's iPod (which must be magical, since both it AND the music that's on it managed to appear in Harry's possession years before either existed). Jeconais, whatever you have to say about his writing, isn't one of those people, so seeing him slap such a ridiculous figure on the table is a tiny bit disappointing, where out of other authors its just irritating until you hit the red X.

I mean, maybe it would be worth that much to Harry to have the twins fix everything that's wrong with his life, but ho about not trusting them with that much scratch until they've shown some pretty fucking spectacular results?

Bugs me.

 

Jeconais said he was taking shortcuts. Obviously this fic is about how to fix all of Harry's problems using unlimited money. It's the same genre as the fics where Harry has god-like powers, but with a twist. The bonuses Harry promised his hired goons for beating up Snape and Draco add up to more than the initial payment to G&F, and the twins got an additional "expenses" clause into the contract, so I predict Harry will end up spending 10% of the British Wizarding world's GDP to solve all his problems. It's obviously cheating, but if the author can make it entertaining, I'll read it.

 

Not to totally derail the thread, but to repeat something that everyone knows, JKR started the money problem when she mentioned a stupidly low exchange rate. £50 000 is a bit much because the story presents it like

"give us a fuckton of money, even though we're the school pranksters and never did anything serious in our lives."

"lol, ok"

If they had presented it as a £5000 monthly salary, with some kind of planning it wouldn't have been that stupid. It's the kind of money they need to start a business.

It would have made more sense for Jeconais to ignore the £5 to the galleon exchange rate, assume something around £25 per G, and give them 50 galleon a month plus performance bonus.

tl;dr: Hard to blame a fanfic author for not getting this right when Rowling fucked it up first, but he should have done better.

 

Call me dense, I did just wake up oxygen deprived (fuck sleep apnea), but how hard is 1=5? Even I can't blame JKR for that.

And, if anything, you'd think authors would think that a galleon, being gold, is worth a lot more than the pound and err in the opposite direction.

Another issue, I believe, is American authors (and others with similar or lower valued currency), not remembering that the galleon = 5 POUNDS, not dollars, which means they're nearly doubling the price on everything when they write.

 

Yeah, I'm not sure what you mean, so I'll just clarify my position: £5 per galleon makes no sense. If JKR had not specified that, smart authors would probably be working with an exchange rate closer to £25 to the galleon.

1. I'm advocating that they should disregard Rowling's exchange rate, from a personal interpretation of the hierarchy of canon - i.e. 1000 galleons would be a large sum of money, worth risking your life over, and enough to get WWW started; one can also use the price of a wand, or the fact that they're solid gold coins.

2. The reason the amount Harry gives to the weasley twins in this story seems exaggerated is NOT because it's worth £50 000. That's the type of money they need to start a business. The reason 10 000 galleons are too much is:

a) It's 10 times what canon Harry gives them.
b) It's layed out in a ridiculously nonchalant way.

tl;dr: Jeconais failed the money thing because he used the 5/1 exchange rate, not because he ignored it.

 

For all the hate piled on RL, it's worth noting that the thread on HP currency (and structure of the Wizarding economy in general) was handled more completely there than anywhere I've seen.

I usually just skip over the Galleon/conversion thing in fanfiction, since it's basically never done in a believable way. I doubt JKR had more than a fuzzy notion of what things cost when she wrote her series.

 

Still seems like too much money to be handing the twins for him to have even been using the canon 5/1.

Maybe it's supposed to be ridiculous?

 

One thing that I have never understood about the whole Super!Harry genre in fanfiction is that wizards are able to become lords in Britain in the majority of these. I know that in the middle ages part of the requirement to be a lord was to pledge loyalty to the King, and we know from HBP that there is no wizarding royalty, hence the half-blood prince not really being a prince. I also can't picture the magic hating peasants in the middle ages obeying a feudal lord who was a wizard, considering the church's view on anything unnatural.

I feel as if this fiction should have been placed in the humor genre, because I can't really picture Crabbe and Goyle being smart enough to even accomplish basic life functions without the help of Draco Malfoy.

I agree that this is the basic formula for a super!harry fic, and I do detest reading those.

I give it a 3/5, because its much better than this other alternative tournament fiction when hedwig entered into the tournament. It really should be moved to the humor category though, with the political Fred and George. I can't picture canon Fred and George being able to train Harry in anything other than pranking, let alone being body guards. It could have the potential to get better if Harry actually learns things instead of randomly becoming a male Hermione like he becomes in other fictions.

3/5

 

Updated. Figured I'd mention that since nobody else has.

Personally, I found the second chapter to be a considerable improvement on the first. Nothing in particular strikes me as the reason why. The read was just much more enjoyable.

I stick with my 3/5 rating for now. Not officially rating prematurely.

 

I sadly found the opposite. Stuff I could ignore in chapter one just redoubled its effort and punched me in the face. It's one thing to just go along with uber rich Harry and the team of awesome, and quite another to have him miladying a loli, taking her to classes that she's legally not qualified for and overruling essentially both her guardians. Oh, and the part where he blurts out about his shitty past, then covers it with a 'I don't want to talk about it'. Won't even mention the Christoph/Melissa moments of cringing.

There's shortcut, and then there's face palm.

But the worst, THE WORST, was Albus Dumbledore. We've seen Dumbledore done as transparent as glass all while being the most evil man alive. We've seen (admittedly a lot less often) the wily, manipulative, and ultimately benevolent figure who takes it upon himself to shepherd his flock. And everything in between.

But I can't recall seeing a Dumbledore ever coming across as a naive three-year-old. Dumbledore might refuse to take the fight to the press, but that doesn't mean his utterly clueless to how it works.

2/5, tops.

 

In my review on FFA I said that Dumbledore is not an idiot. This was really strange.

I took the Gabrielle thing to be another manifestation of the sphere of influence of the omnipotent author stand-in who rights all wrongs, behaves as a fairy godmother to the characters the author likes and punishes the characters the author doesn't like. The choice of liking the character is arbitrary, and if some character is undeserving of the amount and intensity of like or dislike, the victim character will be changed to fit.

Even for a crack fic, it's lazy. And this story gets good reviews from people who can write. I don't understand this.

 

Got halfway through and then skimmed the rest. Quite bad on the whole, and nothing redeeming that I could find.

 

I find the talk of him trying to get published redundant, since he lacks the raw technical skill and creativity. There's nothing to set Jeconais apart from any other grammatically correct author.

 

-whistles Idly-

I rather liked it actually. Despite the 'time dilator', and Harry having more money than God, it's well written, moderately humorous, and doesn't have FLEUR being 'a real sweetheart under her bitchy exterior'. She's a real bitch who's weak spot happens to be her little sister.

'Teacher!Harry is mildly annoying as well, but I can suspend disbelief if I take this as a Lazy Savant fic.

3-3.5/5


PS. Personally I think he'd do alright as an author. Yes he leans toward Cliche', but that's not necessarily a bad thing when you're writing for a specific Genere. Especially if you can come up with a new take on an old Idea.

The fact that he'd have to come up with his own plot and premise actually intrigues me as he does in fact have the potential to be quite good.

 

For once, I actually agree with Manatheron. I never really start reading a Jeconais story expecting him to write to his potential. I know I'll get a story that is humorous with little struggle but also little angst or drama. The angst and drama that is there is usually solved quickly and effortlessly. Jeconais stories are pretty similar to each other, but there isn't another author that writes as many fairy tale, carefree stories as he does; and it's nice to take a break from watching Harry worm his way out of shit piled on top of shit with a carefree story every once in awhile.

4/5. It's nothing extraordinary, but I do think it deserves to be in the library at the very least. Although the flaws are obviously there, I know what I'm getting with Jeconais and in the end, I don't think I'll regret reading it.

I do like Fleurs character. It looks like there actually may be some character development around her in this story. That's kind of new for Jeconais.