I am sorry if this has posted and discussed, i looked and searched for similar topic.


At the end of book 5 and some claimed before then, Fanfiction that continued on from the books that made it far enough to finish all end at the same point, Harry standing over Voldemort.

Now with the Horcruxi, and the prophesy, Book 7 FF is largely the same. Harry goes searching for Horcux, eventually killing Voldemort. How he got there varies but in the end it's all the same.

Now, each of us have read our share of pretty good FF regarding this, and from judging from the Potter Laws, pretty much any plot bunny is now cliche.

Has this stunted book 6 and 7 FF? I mean from the end of book 4 you could go anywhere with it. but as Rowling laid the books on us, we lost characters, and plot ideas. I haven't read a truly original story in a long time.


This of course ignores AU and other non-linear forms of HPFF.

 

Actually, IMO book 5 was the best starting point for fanfiction EVER. The prophecy had given us an important plot tool for bringing Tom & Harry against each other, while leaving the path to that confrontation completely open.

The last few chapters of HBP, on the other hand, completely ruined any chance of an active post-HBP fandom. Everything is way too pre-set for creativity to blossom.

Contrary to what JKR thinks (and I have a hunch she did this on purpose), this won't help her either, when her precious 7th book turns out just the same as dozens of scavanger hunt fanfictions that had come out in the past year.

 

Actually yeah on retrospect book five did set it up pretty good, you had new charaters and settings, as well as something that meant that Harry and Voldemort had to meet up. I Guess FF just exploded after book five.

 

This is why I've almost completely given up on looking for canon-following HP fics. Why waste tons of time looking for those when I can just type "crossover" in the search box and get several pages of original fics? (I'll admit that there's also a lot of crap, but IMO it's less than in normal fanfiction)

 

As a writer, I simply decline to acknowledge HBP. Any fic I ever (never) wrote would be post-OotP or earlier.

 

OOTP was a great jumping point due to finally having something concrete to split Harry off from being Dumble's bitch.

HBP however, regressed his personality to that of a retarded newt, blindly following orders and ignoring the impending doom that only he can stop.

 

Midknight, I couldn't agree more.

If he knew that he was the only one that could stop Voldemort and the war, why did he spend the next year acting like a complete dumbass and chasing after the stupid bleach headed Slytherin?

I choose to write post HBP only because it allows me to try to mature his character in a believable period of time. Other then that, it was the shittiest and most disappointing book that I have ever read.

It offers originality only if you have him go back in time or something...

 

Book 7 may not shaft FF as bad as we all think. It provides a good starting point (provided Harry survives) for post-Hogwarts stories.

 

I'd agree with you, except for one thing...

ALL fanfics that are post-Book 7, unless they're AU, will be summarized like this:

Ginny had died, claimed by cancer. Driven to madness by his grief, Harry Potter had snapped. He turned dark, and killed things, and was generally a really, really, really mean guy. He did bad things, and was rude to people. Oh, and his pretty eyes became red, which isn't pretty at all. So basically, he wasn't nice, and this story shows you just how mean he can be.

 

Not all, there will be some where Ginny dies and Harry is all depressed but then he finds his real true love in snape/draco even though they are ex-deatheaters.
Yadda Yadda Yadda fan girl crap.

 

The end of PoA is the best starting point, IMO. Harry's powerful, he has a Godfather on the run, Hermione has a time turner, the prophecy about Voldemort rising again more powerful then ever, etc. Tons of interesting ways to go from there. Too bad there are so little good Post-PoA fics.

 

Well, the end of PoA does seem interesting now that you know what happens to various characters. But, I believe, at the end of PoA, with no other books out, trying to create a story could easily turn to shit.

We had no idea that Voldemort was going to be given some body.

We had no idea that Volemort was really alive after Book one, although most probably knew he was.

Sirius could easily turn into another anoyying character that we all hate.

There would be no good reason to get rid of the annoying weasleys or Hermione.(Although I do like Ron)

So yes, knowing what we know now, it would seem like a good place to start an A/U story. But making it realistic, with what we know now is almost impossible.

 

We already know Voldemort will be back "More terrible then before" thanks to Trewalney's prophecy. Harry could go on the run with Sirius, that would get rid of Hermione and the Weasley's. It was the first time we really saw how corrupt and fucked up the Ministry was, (Hagrid in Harry's second year also though, I guess). There are tons of ways to go.

That makes no sense. The same could be said of basically every Post-OotP fics now that HBP has come out.

 

We know what will happen. We know about the tournament in fourth year. We know about the Department of Ministry in 5th, and we know about the half baked plot in sixth. What I am saying is, in order to make a complete A/U, you will need to disregard these events, which is hard to do for almost any author. Making up unique things in every year that will keep the reading interesting will be challenging, and would take months of planning. Pulling this things off realistically would be almost impossible.

About the Post-OoTP: Thats no neccesarily true. Many people have chosen to disregard HBP because it was boring and uninteresting, and made the chance for unique thinking with the story line minimal. The book was boring, and creating a storyline that makes it more interesting without bringing back the main events in the book is not hard, because frankly, nothing happened in the book. except for giving Harry more traits that made me hope that he does die in the end. After OoTP came out, there were hardly any Post-GoF books, because OoTP was interesting, and you had a lot to work with.

In my opinion, HBP was the only book that I disliked greatly. I enjoyed the other books. Enjoyed how Harry grew up, and enjoyed the plotline that JK rowling gave us. Post-PoA would need to disregard all of this for something else, something better. JK rowling is an excellent author, and creating a story that is more entertraining and believable than the one who created the magical world, is unbelievable.

I hope that explains my self a little more.

 

I liked the time after GoF, and the months preceeding OotP, where we had these trilogy novels come to light, my favourite was the Psyhic-Serpent one.

This is my point, at the end of HBP, we knew that a) harry had to do something with horcruxes, and b) something to do with Voldemort.

But at the end of OotP, we had a prophesy that basically said that harry either lives or dies, but he picks up a power on the way and eventually kills Voldemort and lives happily ever after, or something.

I just feel that HBP was Rowling saying(if she did write that piece of shit) that "this is my story, bitches, now back off and start writing my next book for me"

 

OoTP is probably the most popular starting point for fanfiction for a lot of reasons.

1. The Prophecy (also gives him a reason to rebel against Dumbledore).
2. Sirius dies, which (along with the prophecy) gives him a reason to finally get the training that Albus has neglected to give him (and provides the oh so useful, if a bit cliched, inheritance and emancipation). Not to mention that his death is the catalyst for at least half the Harry/BlackSister fics out there.
3. He's just old enough to start getting away with living on his own without the ministry dragging him back into some adult's custody (oh yeah, and sex).
4. Things like the revelation of the prophecy give fence-sitters like Hermione and wildcards like Ron a reason to have to choose between Dumbledore and Harry, creating more tension (I like Hermione. HBP!Hermione isn't canon!).
5. The culmination of all this shit happening at once at the end of OoTP is a prime reason for Harry to go Insane, Dark, Indie or Evil and I know how much you like that.
6. It gives you so much manipulative!Dumbledore, dark!evil!ambitious!Dumbledore material it's not even funny. Harry vs Dumbledore as a genre would barely exist without book 5.
7. Tonks, Tonks, Tonks.

GoF isn't too bad a starting point but Order really hands you some good stuff to work with and the possibilities that an older Harry gives you.

I think what really pisses me off are the people that abandoned their fics when HBP came out because the story they were working on didn't match up with HBP's canon anymore. Who the hell cares? If all fanfiction HAD TO follow canon, we'd just be trading scans of the actual books. And people abandon half-finished work because of this? I could almost see the logic of doing that for book 5, for all the reasons I list above; it's drama (lord help me) makes for better fic in a lot of cases. But shit-canning your work in order to comply with a turd like HBP? The mind boggles...

HBP shall be ignored in it's entirety. Really, what D&D player didn't think of making Voldemort a lich with a phylactery/horcrux, only without retard!pussy!Harry, crazybitch!Hermione, manwhore!Ron, marysue!Ginny and all those half-baked relationships? Did Harry do anything but whine and look at Jon Madden's instant pensieve replay coverage during that book? I'd have told Dumbledore to quit being a pussy, wasting time and costing people their lives, and just mind-rape the info out of Slughorn's memories. This is war, not 'which one of you ate the last cookie'. FFS! Enough with the kid gloves. The twinkling old son of a bitch will stick Harry with an abusive family just so fame doesn't swell his head but he can't bring himself to interrogate that fat-arse starfucker, Slughorn? Come on!

Anyway... In my opinion, HBP shouldn't limit fanfiction writers because they can ignore it completely if they don't like it. What's really limiting writers an apparent inability or lack of desire to break free of the cliches we've seen a million times (I use them too, on occasion. It can be hard to resist becaise so many of them make perfect sense and open doors for Harry.) and come up with something no one has seen before. It's like they say; 'There's nothing new under the sun.' And there has been A LOT of HP fanfiction written already. HBP didn't spark my imagination so much as my ire but still, we've probably limited ourselves more than JKR has.

(Am I the only person whose brain says 'Crown of Swords' when it sees the abbreviation CoS?)