Not quite as easy when it's not your native language. It's not as fluent for me. But my lacking english skills do not equal a lacking understand of what's cool and what's not.
Oh well. If there's something I have it's time. I'll re-write at some point and see what it turns out like.

Also. When you critique someone's work. Try finding what's good. Then I'll know what I don't to change. It also makes the bad parts easier to read and accept.
Cause seriously, having a lot of hard work completely torn assunder is, whether justified and needed or not, rather painful.
Something to keep in mind.

 

The biggest critic to anything I write is generally myself. Not even kidding. I'll go back a few days later and just shake my head at what I have on paper. Especially, recently I've been having trouble with putting sentences together without it being too choppy. It's frustrating and very demoralizing, depressing, and a big fucking bummer.

But that's part of the fucking process. I've been writing seriously for a few years now and not being happy with what I wrote has plagued me, but you know what? I take a deep breath and keep going. I open the file and start rewriting, editing, and deleting. The end product is something that I can be very proud of. Timeless, something I have in WBA collecting dust, is something I am very happy with.

I didn't become a decent writer by moping or hand-wringing. I just kept writing. Right now, you're at that stage. Just write. If its crap, its crap. I have two stories on here that went nowhere, but they were stepping stones. If you're serious about writing a great story, keep writing. In time things will click. You'll have a lot of 'oh yeah' moments. And those really don't stop coming. The more I write, the more I learn something new.

So, get your back up, roll with the critique, and get that rewrite going. If necessary, scrap the whole damn thousands of words, and start writing it from scratch.

 

Yeah. I'm actually already on that. The thing is that I'm starting to doubt whether I want to go the Horcrux hunt route or just write something else entirely.

 

Then your learning, questioning the cool idea you had in your head before penning it. That sounds condescending as fuck. . Sorry if it comes out that way. But I've learned to keep a healthy amount of doubt for any 'cool' idea I have in my head.

 

Mm-hmm. Might re-read wastelands of time. Is the sequel any good? I've hesitated to start it for some reason.

 

*You're.

Zeel, got your e-mail - replying when I get a chance.

 

I have wondered the same thing. Something's making me procrastinate massively every time I come to start it. It's probably brilliant, but I didn't froth ecstatically at Wastelands as much as some others on the board did, so I'm not sure. Only one way to find out and I suppose I'll get to it in the end.

Anyway, glad to see you're taking on board some of the advice on here. For the most part it's been constructive, WalkingDisaster's posts ofc excluded. The only other thing I'd say is to find an honest BETA - someone who will take you through sentence by sentence and tell you what's shit you should be writing better. I'd volunteer, but as addictedforlife can testify, I'm hardly reliable.

 

Get a roommate to read it. Not properly Beta it, but to point out REALLY stupid mistakes. I often find that if I see a large mistake in a piece (using a similar word that changes the entire meaning of the sentence, for example), I then get brought out of the words, and don't notice the little mistakes as much (such as commas, consistency, and mild typos).

 

I do have a beta like that. Unfortunate the guy hasn't read Harry Potter so I'm toast as for as that's concerned.

 

A story should be primarily about the CHARACTERS!! So damn many authors in fandoms seem to forget that. Before anything else, forget the complex fight scenes, forget the "different fields of magic" crap, forget about amazing prose or any of that.

First deal with how realistic your characters are. How they react, deal with changes and problems. A character should not just pointlessly learn about new magic. Get the character in deep, deep shit first. Then try to get him to crawl out of that shit. That's what makes a story interesting. Not the education on magic, but the arc of the character and his challenges.

JKR stuck to the characters. Thats what made us love Harry and root for him. Many authors shy away from getting Harry into deep shit.

Get that first, then worry about your world (story).

Dunno if this helps in any way, but when I read your OP and I saw that you are so caught up in the world you are trying to change/expand that you are forgetting most important aspect of a story.

Expanding the world is NOT important. Even the most skilled authors falter there. Look at LOTR, the universe was expanded afterwards but it just became a clusterfuck.

 

Character development will be the main point of the story.

 

So why involve all this new magic, when all it's going to do is complicate your character development-based story?

 

My point exactly. Zeelthor, I know you say that it is the point. But as they say, "easier said...".

The concentration on all the other aspects that don't really do much to the proper story itself leads to the cliche fics. I hope you can understand what I'm saying.

The point you make on how hunting for horcruxes leads to great character development is sound. But that worries me in two ways. Again, its damn easy to say that. The other worry is that JKR did just that already!

This is fundamentally why 'redos' (not time-travel, mind you) in my opinion falter. It'd be much more interesting if it wasn't a redo but rather entirely AU where previous events have also happened differently. And how to fill in the audience on previous events? Well I'd take HEAVY cues from stuff thats out there. The way LOST fills you in on characters' history is amazing. Just something to think about.

 

I understand your worry, but I'm not going to dedicate considerable parts of the story to magical theory or studying. Some stuff will be picked up during the quest for the Horcruxes. Mostly I want for everyone to have their personal fighting-style which change just as they do themselves.

Just wait and see as far as that stuff is concerned.
See the story as a darker twist on the Horcrux hunt where attention is paid on character development.

 

See, what you said was fine and dandy, but something like that sentence is what would be a red flag for me (and I think DLP readers too). Fighting Styles and such?

What I am trying to say is this: Don't try to make the characters cool by stuff like that. Plain and simple. Now you might have not said anything about trying to make them cool, but from your previous posts and the comment, I'm pretty sure that is that case.

You seem to be looking for help in ways to implement the cool stuff, like the magics and such. But that's not the kind of help you'll get here. The help here is a few steps back, all the way to the fundamentals, which matter the most.

Also, as a side-note, I honestly don't mean to offend you or anything so please take this in the spirit that it's supposed to be taken. You have made a thread asking for help and criticisms, yet you seem to be defending rather than implementing or considering. There are some great advices in this thread, but you have to be open to criticisms.

---------- Post automerged at 05:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:59 PM ----------

This, this, this, fucking this.

Harry cannot, and I repeat cannot defeat Voldemort by strength. Voldemort is too powerful and smart for that. Voldemort's true weakness is his basic lack of understanding people themselves. He cannot feel basic emotions and thus cannot understand people.

He is a Psychopath. I mean that in a medical form. That is his weakness. That is what leads him to his death.

 

I'm not saying you don't have good reasons to be very worried about these suggestions. Trust me when I say I've also seen a few failed attempts at it.
But would people not naturaly over the course of years of fighting develop their own styles of approaching things based on their strengths and weaknesses as well as their views on morality?

I don't want to do a fic where despite having been at war for three years Harry uses second year spells. (Not saying some of those aren't useful, but in general comparison)

It's not really that I'm trying to say you're wrong and I'm right. I'm just trying to see if I can make you see the potential that I see.

That might be me being completely retarded, I'll admit. But I will keep trying for a while longer.

Edit: No, I'm aware that Voldemort is powerful far beyond anything Harry will ever become. He's smarter and far more experienced. But if all his death eaters were dead and it was a seven on one fight, he might lose.
That's just an example. I haven't given much thought to how Harry and Voldemort might do battle just yet.

But when Harry wins, I don't it to be due to some bullshit deus ex machina either.


Now, enough on the magic stuff. Many opinions have been heard. I'll consider them many times when writing, trust me. A better authority on HP fanfiction than this forum cannot be found, but now that it has spoken on that particular topic, let's move on to another.

 

I'm not trying to say whether people would develop new fighting styles or not. This is something others are trying to tell you too. It doesn't matter if they do. That has nothing to do with the story.

Also, don't muddle personality and morality with fighting styles. I know Tae-Kwon-Do, but it does not define any of the strengths or weaknesses of my personality.

 

That's fairly different, though. If a person decides to disarm instead of kill, that definetely tells something about the person. Some magic does that better than other magic. That's kind of what I meant.

But I'll repeat, while magic will be looked into as the story progresses, it's kind of needed to make it believable. If they didn't learn new stuff, they'd have no chance.

---------- Post automerged at 04:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:42 PM ----------

Anyways. I just aim to make the fights interesting. If I have to scrap ideas to make the story work, I'll do it. The main part is, as has been said, the character development.