I know, right? There's no love for flobberworm pus cores. Even the uglies deserve a chance.

Not to mention all the other Fantastic Beasts that you can google for ridiculous wand cores. No need to use pokemon, OP.

 

That's because their is actually legends of dragons pretty much everywhere, their aren't any legends of the Phoenix and unicorns out of Europe and maybe the Mediterranean. I don't want to make wands overpowered, Wanda made from temperamental creatures are harder to control and some are weaker. It just seems to make since in some cases, like the vela hair wand in the cannon

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Basically, I use the cores to describe things or just as it being from the aria. Does that make since? Why wouldn't an old Egyptian family use sphinx whisker? Obviously it would be more pondering, slow to cast, and and more suited for precise long work.

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Pokemon is silly, of course, but I think that using things from specific arias and describing their weaknesses and strengths can be interesting.

 

It's areas, not arias.

I'm sorry, I had to

 

Aria: a piece of solo music within a larger work, often opera.
Area: a location.

Just so you know.

As for wand woods and cores, go for it. But unless you're writing a story where wand lore is important, for some reason, I can't really see why it would be a big thing.

 

No. Unless the wand is an important plot point or serves to foreshadow something with extreme subtlety. It's highly unlikely that any readers will notice a character wielding a wand of silver lime and jump to the immediate conclusion that they have some ability with legilimency, for example.

The problem with giving a character a non canon core or wood is that any meaning attached to the wand becomes much less obvious. We know the the properties of a large number of woods and just a few cores but I wouldn't have said that those properties were self-explanatory to anyone. They have some tenuous links to some common mythology for the creatures but it is by no means obvious. That means that the wand then becomes, in effect, dead detail. It serves only to pad out background and gives the reader no insight into the character or world.

Unless you choose to explain the qualities of the core within your story, in which case you have the opposite problem as all subtlety is discarded completely.

The only value in this is if you use it solely to better inform your own character choices, and never intend for it to be important to the reader. Even to the point of deciding on a wand, but never revealing it in text. When you create a new wood or core for the wand the meaning only exists for you alone, that's very important to remember.

The existing woods are very broad and complete and I see no reason to venture beyond them. Any wand using some 'special' wood (like the wood of yggdrasil or such) is going to suffer from special snowflake disease. Sure, Fanfiction.net will just love it, but it won't improve the story at all because it has no meaning beyond 'look at teh awesome!'

Choosing a more mundane wood is simply pointless because of the point about using the wand to communicate meaning. For example giving someone an Olive-wood wand might seem like a nice idea, but it's essentially meaningless as there is no context for it, it adds no value unless you also specify exactly what it means which is simply heavy handed.

So for woods I'd definitely stick to what is known.

Cores are rather more limited though. Where wood makes a comment on the personality of the wielder, the core only really defines the personality of the wand itself. For this reason I think giving certain people an unusual core might have value. Fleur's Veela hair wand aids her characterization and has value, Original Character's Nundu Fang wand doesn't.

However, if a Fijian character has the feather of a Ngani-Vatu in his wand then perhaps value can be found in the detail.

TL;DR: If details of the wand can add value or depth to the story then think about adding them. If they are just incidental details, it may still be worth adding them, but don't invest significant effort in coming up with something amazing and new, because new hasn't had time to develop meaning, and meaning is the currency an author peddles.

 

Here are my responses to that statement as I found it hard to gather my thoughts until now.

The thing is I doubt people will even notice the wands, and yet I go through the trouble every time. I think that every little detail in the wand should be looked at for at least a minute before being finalized, and since it's a list of like... five phrases it really shouldn't be too hard. Making the wand be perfectly attuned to the character isn't all that important, but I just think it's interesting to explore posibilities beyond the normal.

Its obvious that their are many things that could be put into a factor, location and history of the individual not being low among them. I would shy way from a high profile wand or something extremely unusual, because I doubt a wand-maker would really be willing to give out things that are untested or don't act to precise standards. I have decided, however, to analyse all wandlore, as many interpretations as I can come up with, and do my best to create some sort of thing that only I will realy care about. Thank you ^-^.

 

>.> NO! BAD! *hits over the head with a newspaper.*

 

If you're writing a story which revolves around wandlore, it can be interesting and I would definitely be interested. Perhaps a story centered around Ollivander.

I just had a minor plot-bunny where aurors have a forensics division which investigates the spells cast during a crime including having to deduce what kind of wand cast those spells.

 

I've never written a HP fanfic, but when I do (hopefully) I'd feel the cliche with supercool wands made with dark matter or the Nth metal or w/e would stop me from writing too much about a wand's uniqueness. Though I'm not really a fan of wands in general so that may be it.

 

HOW DID YOU DO THAT O_O also, yes, bad.

 

Ok.... What?

 

He's on your side.

#learn2English

 

Oh my.

Given how you write, this really shouldn't surprise me. And yet it did.

So do you actively craft a theme and try to invoke it in small details like colours and the fabric of the curtains? Do you create symbolic objects? Do you actually expect readers to pick up on it? Does anyone ever pick up on it? I'd be interested in seeing some examples.

How long do you spend thinking up details like this? Would you be willing to show us perhaps a page of notes on a character?

...I'm not trying to dissect your brain, honest.

 

Speaking about wands wasn't there a thread or post that listed the meanings behind them? I've seen it once on here but I can't seem to find it again. The only other place is the HP wiki and my tabs are full enough as it is.

 

https://www.pottermore.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/wand-woods