Edited: I am so sorry, I just jumped in here without reading the rules. Forgive me? My only excuses are that it's 6am, I haven't been to sleep yet, and I've had too much sugar....

Title: Still I Rise
Author: undsy1525
Pairings: DM/HG (main), HP/GW, GeW/LL
Genre: Romance/Humor
Library Category: Slightly AU; Romance
Status: WIP
Rating: PG-13
Summary: EWE? George is having a hard time moving past Fred's death, but someone will not let him grieve in peace. Upon returning to Hogwarts with the golden trio, everyone's lives are revolutionized. Draco and Hermione find themselves drawn to each other, much to everyone's dismay; Ron is tortured for fun (I just can't help it, he's so easy); and Ginny begins to panic when she's... late?
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8387697/1/Still_I_Rise


Frowning on self-promotion aside, I would really like to be added to the Library/Archive.
This is my first attempt at writing a fan fiction, and while I'm proud of it, I understand that it's possible that I might be slightly biased.

Here's a short random excerpt from Chapter Eight:

Ah, well. I hope I made you laugh, anyway. Even if it's at my expense.

 

I normally just think people are just stupid, but this has to be a troll...

 

I was wanting it to be considered for the DLP 5-Starred and Featured Authors community on FF.NET, and on the founder's (enembee) profile it says,

 

And yet, we don't care in the slightest.

 

You already did, so live with it.


The story... You honestly came here trying to fit into the five star list? And never once through about the quality of your writing? Because all these twenty something reviews do not prove that you are writing a masterpiece.

Yet even more - you have ten chapters and almost 15k words. That means that your average 'chapter' is less than 1500 words length. And that's not really enough to call a chapter.
But whatever, at least it's not 500 words apiece.

Then, you still come here, and post a tiny letter first post. When you're only 15k words in the story. There are chapters that are longer than your whole story... Never mind that. If your story was good, and I mean good, and not merely ok, you still couldn't tell from this little, as the quality might plunge after a time.


Here, we can at least tell you it's horrible from the first few pages. You set the stage for making Ron as stupid as possible, the new subjects that are pulled out of ... somewhere ... to give you reason to make Hermione and Draco work together. We can guess how you'll bring the two together and that already makes me want to close your fic.

Communications class? A school Counselor? Why?

That you believe is a perfect material. Have you even read one good fic?

Then, you have McGonagall announce a bunch of Yule Ball rip-offs, because that happens every time in Hogwarts.

And then, there's this line:

Totally not a troll.


I'll give your story a generous 2/5. At least it looks like it has somewhat proper grammar. Of course, I'm not the most reliable one to ask in that regard, but nothing stood out more than the crappy ideas, plot or execution itself.


Next, try to apply to local Olympics team, because you clearly have enough skills.

Good luck.

 

Right from the off I see that you decide to straight up tell us the POV. Never a good sign as it usually means your writing is not good enough to show us something as simple as the character narrating. Although, this is only after you put in a few lines from some random poem, again, never a good sign.

I notice you have made Hermione an utter bitch. If that was indeed your intention, then kudos, you succeeded, however I doubt that you ere trying to make me want to stab the main character. No wait. Then she meets Malfoy and what in the sweet fuck is that about.

I mean, I know it's going to be the main pairing, but you don't have to make it so ludicrously, blatantly obvious from the very first words they say to each other. Of course within a few lines Hermione is spilling every single one of her secrets that she hasn't even told Harry or Ron, because that makes sense. One conversation is enough to take them from hating each other to sharing secrets and making bad jokes. Because that's definitely how conversations work. Yep, you nailed that one.


I very quickly skimmed through the rest of it, finding ever shorter chapters and ever worse grammar (Seriously. you should keep an eye on that, the number of typos and mistakes keeps chapter after chapter. If I had to guess I'd say you were rushing to get the later chapters published, so neglected to properly proof read.). I found some truly fantastic lines, such as:

I'll give it 2/5, but only because I decided not to dock any marks for the pairing. I'm fairly sure that I can predict everything that will happen over the next however many chapters. And if I really wanted to read that old plot I could find some better writing that this to do so.




P.S: This isn't really important, but when you decided to make some of your characters Irish you gave one of them the name Faris... why? It's about as un-Irish a name as you can get.

 

Ok, so you see that our C2 is filled with stories like Make a Wish, (Insert-favorite-Nonjon-Story), the Denarian Trilogy, and another 200 great stories on top of it, and you think your Hermione/Draco Story is in the same league as them?

Your first story starts off with some lyrics from a song. That's step one in the bad fic trainwreck checklist. Actually, step one is putting in a pairing that caters exclusively to fangirls mostly wishing to self insert themselves in the story and fall in love with the oh-so-dreamy, mysterious, dark, witty, rich Draco Malfoy. Of course, the method of shoehorning themtogether is a random contrived plot device, rather than something that is actually remotely believable.

Your chapters average under 1,500 words, and that is very short. Canon averages like 3,500-4,000, and there's people on this site who regularly write chapters for their stories that are long than your whole story.

The story is about what you would expect from someone who just joined this site to post this thread, and knows nothing about this website, already set up an avatar, and is already defensive from the start.

The story isn't funny. The multiple point of views is annoying, and all the characters read the same. There's minimal plot, and what is there isn't appealing. The character interactions and, ahem, romance is just overall awful, and not very believable.

I don't think this story would even make it into a DLP 2 Star Story C2.

 

Some advise on technical writing: -Chapter 1-

-> Word doubling.

-> N.E.W.T.

Very bland writing + word doubling.

-> Use more colorful language!

One last quote from chapter two -this is where I stopped reading:

This is BAD writing, driven by the author's desire to get to the "juicy" part of the story as fast as possible. Why in hell would Hermione bare her innermost soul to Malfoy the first time they speak after the end of the war? I'm not a Dramione fan, but I read my share when I first started devouring fanfiction- and this reeks of the worst examples of the genre. I bet Hermione will have "deep feelings" for Draco before the first month back at Hogwarts has passed... :facepalm

There are several other problems with your story:

1) No hook in your opening - there must be thousands of fics out there using the old "Another Hogwarts year after the war" trope. Give your lead character -Hermione I assume- a devastating secret that could bring her in conflict with someone important, build tension through her abandonment of the budding relationship with Ron. Or you could include Draco in the first chapter, showing what happened to his family and building antagonistic tension between Hermione and him.

2) Your characters are flat as cardboard cutouts: Give them some depth through intense dialogue and show their inner turmoil. Let the reader get a real taste of Hermione's agony over her conflict with her parents. Give your audience a peak into George's ripped soul after Fred's death. Dreams, flashbacks or even diary entries can help you achieve that.

3) Stop the obvious authorial fiat! It's irritating to observe you construct the school year in such a way that two of the main pairings (DM/HG & GW/LL) are a direct result of partnering them up for the freaking "Communications" class. It's lazy writing.

To summarize: Your story is lacking in important areas and will not enter the DLP library.

1.5/5 rounded up to 2/5

 

I agree with what these guys are saying, except I wouldn't have said it quite these terms. Your story doesn't exactly gel with what the community looks for. I don't think it was required for people to be quite so vitriolic, but as I pointed out in my profile 'tough skin is a requirement'.

I wouldn't take everything here to heart, though there are some good suggestions with regards to your writing that you might want to consider.

 

First thing to consider author, do you honestly think Hermione would even think about dating Draco if he's an asshole like he was in Canon? And the only reason you get them together is because of a "communications" class? The hell? Seriously? That's a horrible plot device to get them together (and seeing those 2 together is revolting in the first place). Which is why I didn't bother reading your story.

Haven't you noticed there's virtually almost 0% HG/DM stories here? Oh, yeah. That's right. Because the pairing wouldn't work. Just being completely honest with you here. First off...ditch the entire story, and if you're going to post stories with horribly boring story plot devices, make it at least seem realistic. I honestly don't see Hogwarts having a communications class. Maybe a pureblood/muggle class.

 

Well, thank you all for taking the time to read part of my story. I appreciate that a lot.

Everything is dully noted... I want to improve my story, and I think that this helped.

I apologize for misunderstanding what this thread is about...

I'm going to keep practicing, and who knows? Maybe in a year or two, I'll knock your socks off, eh?

 

A textbook example of how to deal with DLP's criticism. Best of luck to you, keep at it c:

 

and post what you come up with on WbA. It's a great tool for aspiring and learning authors to really get their writing together and fix grammatical, spelling, etc, mistakes.

I, personally, would never post a story on FFN without posting it on WbA first. Get a good beta, they're very necessary.

Good luck writing, and keep at it.

 

I agree with the others, post in WbA first. I've posted a couple stories that have been torn apart. It's brutal, probably as brutal as this thread, but worth it.

Write a chapter for a new fic and drop it in the WbA, then put on your bigboy pants and get ready. It's a real learning experience, but like I said, it's well worth it.

 

I'm surprise you haven't been ripped apart more brutally. I've seen three-star stories with harsher comments. Perhaps it's because you're a newb...

Anyway, I didn't want to waste too much of my time, so I basically skimmed through Chapter one.

Plot: from your summary, I gathered that it had no interesting/original twists whatsoever, and is using many hated pairings (H/G fics is a no-no on DLP, and HG/DM needs spetacular writing to be even considered).

Writing: average for FFN, bad/horrible for DLP. Your style is annoying, and your format screams amateur (only normal and italics should appear in actual writing, just look at all published books).

Grammar: I saw (from a previous post) that you mixed up 'your' and 'you're'. That says it all, I should think; I couldn't be bothered to actually read the wording.

I won't rate this, mostly because I doubt it will make too much a difference to give you a one, since no one in their right minds would even consider this for the Recycling Bin. That it's a self promo makes the only thing that I don't scorn you for. You've got guts.

 

I'm surprised after these two comments you felt the need to make this statement. There is literally nothing more that needed to be said after that point. If you have a comment on the story, please do, but the kid has already proven herself far better than the majority of DLP's stock.

 

Depending on how dedicated you are, your creativity and how much free time you have; it's entirely possible to right quality stories in a lot less than that. It's common for new authors to write complete garbage in the WbA and drastically improve within a few months.

Read as much as you can, I'll be the first of DLP to recommend The Dresden Files.

 

I'd also recommend anything Joe, Roarian, or Inert writes.