Opening and ending your piece with dialogue feels odd. I think you'd have been better off adding in descriptions, honestly.

I mean, Harry is apparently immortal. What does he look like? The same as when he won the Battle of Hogwarts, or has he aged slightly since? What does he wear? There's a lot of characterization you could've put in with just a few descriptions of how the characters look and move.

The story itself is... kinda meh. The dialogue isn't anything special. We don't get any info about why the world has apparently gone to shit or who went wrong, just that it is. The action scene is short and unsatisfying; a full legion of not-Aurors (then what are they named now, if not that?) throws spells at Harry but miss or get blocked. Then he fires back, never once being in danger or remotely threatened, even when the all-but-evilly-cackling warden returns with a hostage he has no way of knowing he'll actually need. The interruption with Granger and his wife wasn't necessary, we can basically infer that they fucked up and got kidnapped once the warden shows up with them in tow.

In the final dialogue you mention Harry having "destroyed" Azkaban, which sounds really cool. Why not actually show us that? Show him flexing that immortal magical muscle or whatever.

Also, magically enhanced muggle weapons? Looking down on wands? Meh.

I'd rate this about 2/5.

 

In our brief discussion of all the entries, @Typhon said that this reads like dialogue cut from a 2008 Indy Harry fic, and I can't say that I disagree.

I'm going to engage with this in earnest, despite being semi-convinced that this is a troll entry because I'd hate to ignore it and have an earnest author miss out.

Summary:

This is bad. It reads pretty half-assed, but I'm not sure whole-assing this one was going to bring it back from the brink. It's bad on the level that sort of defies coherent analysis. Nonetheless, I will boldly make an attempt:

1) Your characters are cliches of the strongest variety.
2) Your dialogue is stilted and poorly written.
3) What prose exists is at best, confused, and at worst, impenetrable.
4) The plot is thin to the point of incoherence.
5) There's no conflict, dramatic tension, or even a dramatic question being asked.
6) You ended your story with finito.

If this was a piece written in earnest, I have to wonder what exactly it sought to accomplish. It feels like an experiment in writing style, but to what end, I'm unclear.

Developmental

I talked a bit about this when responding to entry 1, but I'm actually going to go into more depth here. IMO, a short story should do one of two things to succeed:

1) Portray a series of noteworthy events. A good example of a story in this regard would be something like the Sherlock Holmes stories. The characters are thin, often to the point of caricatures, but the events within them are (generally) interesting, unusual, or novel. The point of these stories are the events they narrate.

2) Demonstrate the cause and process of a significant change in the character of the protagonist. A good example of this would be something like the Circular Ruins by Jorge Luis Borges, or Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, the purpose of these stories is an exploration of the character, and the way that they're affected by the events of the story.

That said, a good story often will have points from both, and even more occasionally you'll find one that is all of both, but I think generally it's one or the other.

I say this to explain that your story does neither, but rather seems to be primarily an experimental piece about the tone, and the unusual choices made with regards to form and prose. This might be interesting for you to write, but with no pay-off for the reader in either plot or character, it's not at all interesting from the other side of the table. Even as a writer myself, it's not all that interesting to me. The prose isn't good, or novel enough to inspire any sympathetic reaction, and the whole piece just brings to mind the old adage about running before you can walk.

Stylistic

Here's my first concession: the opening and closing dialogue, along with the repetition, isn't an intrinsically bad idea. The problem is that it's executed in a rather unsophisticated manner. There's far too much filler and exposition in the opening section, which means that it overstays its welcome and becomes tiresome, while the latter doesn't honestly make an awful lot of sense and feels as though it's been shoe-horned in purely for literary effect.

Your prose occasionally stumbles into something interesting but feels that it was written more to gratify yourself as an author, rather than to convey something to the reader. There are a number of instances (most notably the word 'ambient') where it feels like you've picked a word because it sounds good, rather than because it accurately reflects the concept you're trying to describe.

In general, the technical quality of your writing is pretty poor. Your punctuation (in particular your capitalisation) is all over the place. You often use two contradictory methods of noting the same thing (double hyphens and ellipsis are the most common offender here).

Finally, the elephant in the room is your dialogue. Because if you're going to try and carry a piece of writing on the strength of it, it has to be excellent, and this, to Bill and Ted's dismay, is not. It's wordy, it's lifeless, it's cliche.

Conclusion

I'm actually quite torn on the score I'm going to give this. I gave Entry #1 a 2/5, and it's miles ahead of what you've written here. But equally, I don't know that this is worthy of a 1/5. I will deliberate again over it once I've read all of the entries, and maybe revise my scores, but for now, I'm going to have to give this a 1. If this makes my podium then something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

With each story in this competition, I'm going to give two pieces of advice that an author can actualise upon, and immediately improve their story. So here are yours:

1) Back to the drawing board, I think. It feels like you didn't really know what you were trying to achieve, and this is the leading cause of death amongst short stories. You need some form of a dramatic question, a thesis, or dramatic tension to hang this piece on. As it is, it just falls flat.

2) Focus on developing your dialogue. It needs to be sharper, to say more and use fewer words. Joe Abercrombie is excellent at this, and Joss Whedon's TV shows tend to have crisp dialogue which translates pretty well to the page. I'm sure there are some good resources out there too, but honestly, a good rule of thumb is that unless each sentence of your dialogue isn't working double time, i.e. advancing the plot and demonstrating character, or providing exposition and demonstrating character, it's probably a candidate for removal.

 

I have to agree with the above. It feels like you wrote this in an afternoon/ couple of afternoons, and without a thought for a plot more complicated than 'master of death Harry is jaded but not jaded enough for one last hurrah'. Not even that, really.

I won't comment much on the style, because I'm not really qualified to do so. I will say that some description to set the scene at the begining would really have been appreciated, and whilst I didnt find the dialogue to be bad, per se, it's not stellar, and it kind of needs to be when it is pretty much all that there is. Also;

Starting your story with cliched dialogue? You are a braver man than I.

Conclusion:

Not a troll, imo, but maybe I'm not as cynical as I should be. Doesn't really deserve a 1/5, a bit too barebones for a 3. Guess it's a 2?

 

It's awfully... Starfoxy with the fighting against oppression or whatever and the magical guns. It's just a bit too excessive in my opinion.

I'm sure the background of the story could have been a bit more emphasised, because the reader doesn't have any clue why Harry seems so world-weary as he is and what exactly it is that went to shit that brought about the situation framing the story. He's a disillusioned immortal and the world has gone to shit, and there's no real explanation of it rather than the fact that it just is, and that's a bit frustrating. Why is the world such a terrible place? What exactly happened that made Harry feel as he does?

I guess the writing was supposed to be action-packed and tense or something, but the story just doesn't feel very exciting. The tension just doesn't seem to be there. The action seem to be missing, because I feel like in the end, the story could have stood on its own with that.

I'll give it a 2/5 because the foundations for something that works are there, but in this state, it just feels a bit rushed and incomplete. A bit more elaboration on the background and a bit more description of the happenings could probably go a long way.

 

..So, first off, the story starting with just dialogue is off putting without any details about the surroundings, this could be a bar or an alley or whatever as long as you actually mention it. Harry feels OC but that would’ve been okay seeing as this is master of death, jaded, old Harry but only if you had given him more character, why not show his emotions, tells, an etc. For instance when Damian says his last name you could have a scene more like this-

It would have made sense if while Harry was at first a grizzly vet who didnt care to help, then he got guilted into it by the thought of his old friend’s family being in trouble. And he either could have straight up told Damien it was because of Hermione being his friend or old classmate or not have said anything at all (like why would he mention his immortality to anyone who asks?)but still do it because of his guilt. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter though as long as you show his emotions when Damian mentions his long dead best friend!

This fic’s problem is that you constantly tell the story without actually showing any of it. You have potential though, for one thing because this premise is actually pretty cool.

1/5

 

(I'll just be offering my general opinion first, but I hope to come back to make more detailed points about the language and such. As always, I haven't read the other reviews until I post this)

General opinion:

Well, what an interesting experiment. I respect what you've done here, and I think the competition and a very short story is the right place to experiment with something so radical. Certainly it felt like you went in dry, a relatively cold open straight into dialogue, completely unsupported by anything other than itself. I did warm to it. I think the story is self contained and complete, I think it conveyed reasonable personalities and antagonism and hinted at a lot more than it said which is always good.

I'm in two minds. I think this is going to split opinion massively. I don't think I could read this style for anything longer, and I think having the first part so unique but being more orthodox in the ending scene would have been better, but... Yeah. On a first pass I liked it well enough.

The good:

You were able to pack the dialogue with what usually would be outside of it. Location, mood, world building info, the actions of the character. This could have fallen utterly flat if even one sentence had not been descriptive enough, but also not worked as a spoken sentence. It worked because you could always tell the difference between the two. The Granger-man had a unique manner of speaking in comparison to a more generic Harry.

The story made sense, man needs to save his wife, man seeks Harry Potter to do it, man saves his wife but fails at the last hurdle. Man thanks Potter. Potter has a modicum of a reason to do it. We have a modicum of an explanation as to why the man and his wife in Azkaban. I'm ok with that. In a story this short, I'm fine not having the absolute ins and outs of this future society.

The bad:

Well, I did say I was in two minds. This is pretty much the same as the above. Perhaps your experiment extended too far, to have it for a unique opening is one thing. Perhaps you could have changed it for the ending to show in the style a resolution in the story - a restoration of natural order if you will.

Secondly, the story was quite fluffy. The motivations were there but they weren't compelling. Your radical technique was the most memorable thing about the piece, not the other aspects of the story, like plot or character. Perhaps the most engaging character is the warden, and he's there for half a blink. Part of the reason we don't need to explore Harry's life more is because this immortal whiner isn't that interesting. He's a hackneyed trope, rather than a character, and we wouldn't care to.

There were a number of small errors of punctuation and word choice. I think the most jarring at the start of the penultimate scene, where the narrative language is a bit stilted and tricky to read. But it could be easily fixed.

Ultimately, the fic didn't outstay its welcome and it was very much novel, I hope you enjoyed writing it - I think this is a piece that would be more fun for the author to write than the reader to read, overall.

Edit: just read the other reviews. You did finish it with finito! My eyes swept right over that. Got a laugh out of me. But don't do that.

 

Possibly interesting script for a short film. When you’re making a movie, just having a placeholder for [ACTION HAPPENS HERE] can work. For a short story, it doesn’t work at all.


It is cool how you can drop little hints of the world through their conversation. As an example, we know that there’s been some sort of societal change from the moment the Aurors are referred to as “the old police.” I love that little bit of world building so much better than some expository paragraph.


Ok, but like Halt said there’s such a thing about giving too little. And frankly if you’re going to try to hook someone in on a story that’s exclusively dialog driven, the dialog should be a bit more punchy and interesting than this.


And it is really unsatisfying that we don’t actually get to see Harry and Damian Granger’s attempt on Azkaban. Just reading about people’s reactions after an event is boring.


1/5 , but if I were petty I would give it a 0 because Damian is a edgelord name.

 

I’m normally not a fan of dialogue without any description, but it works in this case. The beginning conversation works better than the ending one. The ending kind of lacks emotional impact, I think.

Generally speaking I sympathized with Damian far more than Harry. Harry seems far too talkative for someone just humoring his counterpart. If he was supposed to appear jaded and tired than you have failed. I actually felt nothing reading his story about how terrible immortality is.

The middle part seems weaker than the beginning and end. The fight with the “aurors” is suitably short, but the warden died far too easily. Apparently Harry is on a level far higher than Voldermort or Dumbledore ever were. I would have liked to see a little more of that.

The conversation between Damian, Alexandra and the warden shows why I dislike this kind of dialogue: The characters have to include what they are doing in their speech otherwise the reader has no idea what is happening.

Case in point:

“And we would have if not for Mister Potter. I can explain later, please, just trust me again for a little while. I’ll never let this happen to you again, I promise. That’s it, just lean on me, I know the way back now, it won’t be much longer until we’re both free.”



“Quiet, boy. There, that’s better. A few bindings to keep you and her so close together for your final minutes should suffice as well. I couldn’t have imagined you would get further than the front gate. From the sounds of it you’ve brought along a few partners to sacrifice for the cause. Oh, and don’t bother with your little muggle toy, it will avail you no better than that pitiful stick three months ago even if you could get your fingers around it. Let’s go meet those who are dying for your cause. Perhaps I’ll be lenient and let you die together.”



These two examples are debatable, but they bothered me when I read them. The longer the conversation the worse it gets, because the reader can’t follow along.

 

I really did not like this.


First of all, the dialogue scenes. For me, they were a chore to read through. I assume the total absence of descriptions or tags is a stylistic choice, I just can’t think of why. It doesn’t add anything to the story. Instead, it stands out like a sore thumb. All three scenes would be so much better for the bare minimum of description. Take the middle scene: What does the mysterious assailant look like? Does Damian have a sense of foreboding? And when I came to the final scene, I felt an urge to roll my eyes, thinking “not this again.”


The other scenes are… readable. They further the plot, but again, it’s all very barebones. Harry, unmatched in skill, tramples all over the future elite of Britain’s magical law enforcement. Nothing is particularly exciting about that, there is no sense of tension. At all. Of course Harry is going to destroy the pitiful antagonist. Of course Damian gets the girl. Of course Harry releases every prisoner with nary a thought to what’s going to happen afterwards. It’s utterly predictable.


And finally, characters. First up, Damian Granger. The idea behind a descendant of Hermione having inherited her rebellious spark is an interesting one. Him falling in love with a muggle is an interesting callback to the Granger family’s original background. And unfortunately, that’s about it. In the end, him and his wife are happy, they have a child, neat-o. We’re told his rebellious days lie behind him, which is nice, I guess.


As for Harry… where is he? Nothing about the character you happen to have named ‘Harry Potter’ is even remotely recognizable. He’s Merlin, Dumbledore and Voldemort rolled into one, immortal, and I couldn’t care less. We don’t even get a physical description!


All in all, I am sorry to say that I found this entry quite bad. 1.5/5, rounded up to 2/5 because it’s technically readable.

 

Spoiler: Standard Note

Since I'm a bit of a shit who has waited until the final moments of the review period to get around to, y'know, reviewing, this will be a somewhat abbreviated review. I've also not read much of the other feedback, and none of it in the last week. You have my apologies for both. To the former, if you want to discuss your story further after this is all said and done, respond and I'll look at it some more; to the latter, I guess you can take it as an extra voice to the chorus if I don't have anything unique to offer.

I may or may not actually finish these by Ched's deadline, but vote or no vote on my part I will finish them. You guys wrote something, so you'll get something out of me.

Full disclosure, I did actually reread the review from @enembee on this one because I could recall him having quoted me. And while I would have, ahh, put it somewhat more delicately here than I did in our conversation, I stand by what I said before as well.

For lack of a better option, I'll give you the three legs of storytelling spiel with some very brief advice at the end:

1. The quality of the writing - this, for me, is primarily about style and clever word choice, but high quality writing is also, of course, minimally technically sound.
2. The quality of the characters - obviously this is much to large a topic to summarize in a sentence, but some questions for guidance might go something like this: Does a given character feel like a real person? In other words, can the reader get in the character's head to see what drives them and why? Do they have depth, or do they serve only to make the plot work? On a different but no less important note, is the character interesting? Mileage will vary on that point, I'm sure, but if your characters are bland you had better be bringing some prose that'll make Rothfuss sit up and a plot that Palahnuk wants to crib from because otherwise people are going to dump you story half read out of sheer ennui.
3. The quality of the plot - much like characters, plot is tricky to define. Some questions for plot might go something like this: Is this an interesting story; that is, do the readers care about what's happening? Is my plot very clever? Heartwarming? Poignant? Why am I writing this? This last question is a biggie, so I feel it bears repeating. Why are you writing this?

Like a stool, a story stands the strongest with three sturdy legs. Also like anyone who has ever owned a stool can tell you, three strong legs can be hard to come by at times. That's fine. You're writing for a fanfiction short story competition, no one is here to rip you a new asshole for not being literally Hemingway (tm). You do need at least two reasonably sturdy legs, though, or else one hell of a leg and a keen sense of authorial poise.

The writing isn't great, but honestly writing quality is the least important leg. The characters, though - the characters are a problem, mostly in that they're cutouts. This is what I meant by saying this is composed of cut lines from an 2008 Indy!Harry story. We have a character that is literal!death!HP, a guy conveying to him there's a damsel to save, said damsel, and the "big bad". That sentence describes the full depth of the characters. No plot could save that, I'm afraid.

So that's the problem to look into, I think. Unless you elevate your character writing, you're going to have a tough time telling a compelling story full stop.

Enembee's advice is all really good, and I'm not really sure what else to say if I'm honest, so I'll let this stand.

 

Stylistically I had difficulty reading this. I do like the picture you paint, and it's an idea I haven't seen, or at least not often, in terms of the farther future. I didn't feel a real sense of urgency here either- it didn't feel like any of the protagonists were ever in any real danger. Not much of a hook either, so I'm not sure that I really will be taking much away from this one.