Welcome to the 2024 Q3 Bitesize Competition - Week 3 & 4

Topic(s): Duel

Word count: Under 2500 words (recommended 1500)
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Bitesize writing competitions will differ from our typical writing competitions. When we do bitesize writing competitions, each small prompt will have around five days for everyone to write a scene (or even just a sentence). During the weekend, we will compare and review each others entries. None of these prompts should take more than 2500 words to write. If you have no interest in even wanting to write, don't vote.

Deadline: Saturday, October 12th at 11:59pm (23:59) PST​

Discussion: Sunday, October 13th ​

Send your scenes/sentences to @Lindsey once you're done. You can have up to TWO entries. On the day they are due, I will post all the entries in a single post. During the weekend, we can discuss each others entries and how to improve them.

Voting Rules
We will not have official voting like normal competitions. Instead we will have a discussion on how to improve the scenes. If you wish, you can pick your favorite entry.

Got an idea for a future prompt? Put it in this thread!

 

General thoughts:

Three one-on-one duels: two where Harry fights a Black and one where Lily is in an urban combat situation. The first (mine) is set in a room meant for the purpose and is relatively bare of description and things to be described, the other two make more use of the environment to bring the scene to life. Personal foible, I think - could have probably done a more interesting entry set somewhere that wasn't a largely blank room.

With thrice the usual wordcount, we had the freedom to give our scenes a lot more content. The first largely doesn't, using most of its wordcount on a fight scene that ends in a single "move". The second does so on showing the chaos as the Death Eaters raid a train station (metro station?) before Voldemort walks in and starts showing off. In the third, I honestly think it kind of whiffs as Bellatrix fights Harry for seemingly little reason and then leaves for equally little reason.

Second thought: secondary objectives in a fight. In fiction people sometimes fight for the hell of it, but we see instead that the fights usually happen for a reason. Whether that's training, a terrorist attack, or... something else that's not entirely clear to me. I think that's good to focus on when you're writing fight scenes: don't lose sight of the objective each of the parties is aiming for, even if that's "just" to put the others down permanently.

Third thought: the first entry is the only one in which transfiguration is even attempted. Battle scenes can thrive on creativity and inspired use of magic, so it's a bit of a shame that there's little use of indirect attacks, traps, enchantments, etc. Lily, in the second entry, doesn't fight that differently from how Harry did in the first or third: hurling spells, ducking behind shields. I think fighting should have a lot more personal touches, because a fight scene can be excellently used to convey a personality, but I suppose that's not easy in the limited wordcount. Or in general.

Entry One:

My entry. Fight scenes aren't a problem for me usually, or I should say: writing them isn't a problem for me. I've heard other people complain that they're hard to write or don't come out that well, but for me they just kinda flow. I suppose that might the result of my general writing style, though, with being low on description and all that. Critiquing myself is, as per usual, kind of difficult and feels more than a little masturbatory, but to continue that particular metaphor, I'll give it a shake.

I've got three main worries about this piece. Since no one else has reviewed (lazy fucks) I'll lay them out here and maybe they can be used as a jumping-off point.

The first worry: I bashed this out in the last two days, in two sprints of half an hour each, and then fixed it a little here and there. I've started to wonder if maybe the sprinting has led me to a writing style that allows me to get out a lot of words in the allotted time and maybe if that detracts from actually thinking deeper about the words I'm using or the content I'm putting down.

The second worry: The idea for this piece started with thinking about the idea of "spellchains". You see them often in fanfics about duelling, where one spell leads directly into another via wand movements. Often that, together with some transfiguration and some elaborate shielding, dodging, ducking and diving, is the end-all-be-all of duelling. What makes someone a better duelist? More spellchains known, more agility shown, to put it reductively.

In this thing I kind of wanted to go against that. To that end, my idea was to show that the spellchain methodology works but the best wizards are capable of more than that - capable of more than just treating their wands like laser guns that are fire-and-forget-and-(trans)figure. I'm just not sure, though, that I managed that. I leave what the "trick" is too open, maybe. It makes sense to me but it'd also make sense that it wouldn't make sense to anyone who isn't looking at the piece with my frame of mind available.

The third worry: my intent here was to convey that Sirius is dominating Harry easily until Harry manages to contain Sirius' spell and cause something like a Priori Incantatem but more violent and deliberate. I tried to have that come across by having Sirius mainly throw out spells and easily block off Harry's attempts to do anything, whereas Harry has to pay attention to everything that Sirius throws at him. Is that what the reader gets out of the piece, as well? I hope so.

Beyond those the usual waffling I do about my own writing and the issues with it that you're all familiar with from previous weeks, I'm sure.

Entry Two:

What most stands out to me here is the general sense of chaos. People are fighting, the reader has a few clues as to who's where, people are dying and then there's Voldemort who explodes the train but then moves away right after.

In that sense (and I realize this is hypocritical) I feel like we're missing something of an emotional component. Chaos can be a lot of things - it can be exciting and thrilling, but it can also be terrifying. Lily sees people die, her friends are fighting for their lives, her husband or boyfriend are out there possibly dead already, but the emotional impact is muted and it doesn't really feel like that's on purpose. Also, the physical impact of her hand's skin being flayed is possibly even more muted.

Basically I think a couple of stabs at "she tried not to think about -" or "she couldn't let herself think about" might have been a good call. In the same vein of "how I would have done it", I've been told that shorter sentences and paragraphs make for punchier pacing, and I agree with that. Your sentences are placed together into long paragraphs that make the action described in each of the sentences feel smaller to me. You also connect sentences together with "but" or "and" or just a comma that I would've separated into multiple sentences.

The "Merlin's unwashed petticoat" feels like a line from something where Lily didn't just see a couple of dead bodies and a train is about to get blown to bits. The tone is off, and the little speech she gives a few paragraphs later doesn't quite feel right, either.

So yeah. Action itself is planned out well and the movements made by each of the characters are sound (except maybe Voldemort would've used Fiendfyre, unless that's implied to be what he's using). I just think some of the writing choices turn this from a knockout blow into a jab.

Also I honestly guffawed at the phrasing near the start about the curves of Lily's shield charm. That exact phraseology is usually used about a woman's "curves", FYI.

Entry Three:

I dunno why, and I don't mean this to be insulting, but it doesn't quite read like English is your first language. There's a certain flow here that sticks in my mental craw, dozens of little choices that come together like a bit of fish stuck between your teeth.

For instance: "The Dark Lord has told me all about it." or "You would not like it when I am angry." I read those and I think: no, not quite. Almost, unfortunately.

It's perfectly good English, grammatically. Nonetheless, it doesn't quite "scan". It feels awkward, which disrupts me wanting to read on. Other bits that I thought "oh" about: "Damn her all", the bit where you call Bellatrix Voldemort or refer to her with male pronouns, and the "Rendering" Curse. Rendering is what a graphics card does, you mean "rending".

I think it might be interesting to compare this to Bellatrix's canon duel with Harry. She taunts him much more there, using baby talk to call him a little bitch who can't do shit, and she's more or less right. She manages to drive Harry so insane with rage and loss that he hits her with an Unforgiveable and even then she shrugs it off. The only thing that makes her panic or lose her flippancy is when she discovers the prophecy was shattered, because that's the mission she got from Voldemort.

You have the same here but unlike Rowling you don't quite sell it. Bellatrix isn't quite as taunting despite dominating Harry just as easily, you manage to imbue her with far less of that "love to hate her" energy that makes the reader really cheer for Harry. She beats Harry's ass with absurd ease and then... walks off? Narcissa stands there the entire duel doing nothing. Nothing's more important to Bella than Voldemort, so why's she not doing even a token attempt at bringing Potter in for capture and present him bound and gagged to her Lord?

So yeah. The duel's technically well-plotted, but your writing's not quite up to par.

 

Entry 1

I love the scene, love the different spells we're treated to, love Sirius and mostly Harry. (One comment on Harry that has nothing to do with duelling is I wonder if he wouldn't show more anger and frustration, rather than lack of belief in his abilities. I think that's how he usually reacts when he feels he can't do something. His worry for Sirius is spot on at the end though.) Good use of expelliarmus. I think you've skillfully avoided the biggest hurdle in scenes like this, which is keepingt it clear what's going on and who's doing it.

Please take the following with a pinch of salt because when I tried to find a duel scene to submit for this I couldn't find a single one with a one vs one fight and I don't know what problems a theoretical one by me would suffer from. However, my critique would be that you're using too many words to describe what's happening. Usually fight scenes are (according to me) both too long and too difficult to understand, this one was clear as day but not snappy enough. You've got some of the usual suspects for all genres like just and quite and slightly and I'd argue that a duel in particular is the last scene you want to use filler words in, it makes the actions less immediate and cushions the blows the reader too should be feeling.

There's a few sentences with unneccessary verbs or adjectives/adverbs that do the same as the verb you're using (abort abruptly, but maybe you're going for alliteration? I do like art in my literature.). This advice might be wrong, I'm not sure how English usually does it, but I'd maybe add passive tense into some of the sentences? I'm finding it difficult to express properly but there's inevitably a lot of verbs because of duelling is all actions, but when Harry feels things or when spells have certain effects, some of those are ones I'd express in passive to avoid there being too many verbs and too many things Harry does, like I'd make him the object rather than the one performing everything. Does that make sense at all? :/ Might just be me.

Something I would do in an edit is scan for "moment". Harry is having too many moments for one scene

Oh an nice balancing of action and dialogue and adding their personalities into their styles and into how you wrote it. All in all liked it a lot.

Entry 2

Mine, surprise surprise. It's cut from a longer scene and decently old by now, over five years. I edited it a little to add context to what tube staton they're in, also this:

This is genuiely something I thought would be funny last week, and I was completely sober when editing. not sure what that says about me. But moving on.

This is part of a novel length fic I'm rewriting and was the next chapter I was going to begin working on. It has issues but at the same time it wasn't that bad a chapter. I remember spending a lot of time on it originally, not just researching what TFL used to be called in the 70s or what tube wagon are called but like actually spending a lot of time trying to make the fighting good. But yeah, needs work. BTT has all good points except maybe the emotional bit which comes in the scene after the fight is over. My Lily is good at keeping it together until the fight is over.

Fully agree with this and it's the type of advice I want to incorporate.

Entry 3

Is this part of a longer story too? You've got lots of cool new spells here, I'm assuming some of them get a bit of background earlier in the story. It's also a bit confusing when Narcissa and Voldemort are mentioned to be there with them. Like why would Voldemort not be the one dueling Harry if he's there? But I'm asuming it's all explained and not what I should be focusing on.

I think all three of our entries could be a bit tighter, there are too many words in this one as well but not filler words which makes it different. There's something about the structure of your sentences in some places that's a little bit off, I think maybe that's why it doen't feel fast paced enough. I'd also spend more time on making the dialogue feel real.

I like the throwback to the occlumency lessons with Snape when Harry enters his memories and is flung backwards into the wall when Snape throws him out of his head.

I like your plentiful use of shield charms, they're a very natural part of most duels I'd imagine.

There's something odd about where they are or do I miss them moving somewhere? I'm sure you mention alleyway first but there's a wooden floor towards the end?

The painful memories thing is great and needs expanded on, ending's a good cliffhanger.

 

I was looking through old discord messages earlier today and it made me a bit nostalgic (InquisitorialSquad4life), so I thought I would make an extra effort for this one. I also saw Lindsey mention that she missed me, and though I appreciate it, the following may remind her that I, at heart, remain a grouch.

Review proper:

I think a common problem with writing fight scenes, be them magical or otherwise, is a focus on the mechanics, rather than the story or emotional beats conveyed. It is an odd way to look at these types of scenes, given that you wouldn't apply that logic to anything else in a story (imagine a dialogue scene where the focus is on the character's vocalisation of the words, rather than the information, character, or literally anything else about it). If I were prone to divagations, I'd say something about the marvelisation of cinema, and how seeing Captain America performing backflips for ten minutes is already tedious in a visual format, never mind in writing, but I'll cut to the chase by talking about the best dueling scene in Canon: Voldemort v Dumbledore in the Ministry Atrium at the end of book five.

Spoiler: The Aurors are on their way

“What — ?” said Voldemort, staring around. And then he breathed, “Dumbledore!”

Harry looked behind him, his heart pounding. Dumbledore was standing in front of the golden gates.

Voldemort raised his wand and sent another jet of green light at Dumbledore, who turned and was gone in a whirling of his cloak; next second he had reappeared behind Voldemort and waved his wand toward the remnants of the fountain; the other statues sprang to life too. The statue of the witch ran at Bellatrix, who screamed and sent spells streaming uselessly off its chest, before it dived at her, pinning her to the floor. Meanwhile, the goblin and the house- elf scuttled toward the fireplaces set along the wall, and the one-armed centaur galloped at Voldemort, who vanished and reappeared beside the pool.

The headless statue thrust Harry backward, away from the fight, as Dumbledore advanced on Voldemort and the golden centaur cantered around them both.

“It was foolish to come here tonight, Tom,” said Dumbledore calmly. “The Aurors are on their way —”

“By which time I shall be gone, and you dead!” spat Voldemort. He sent another Killing Curse at Dumbledore but missed, instead hitting the security guards desk, which burst into flame.

Dumbledore flicked his own wand. The force of the spell that emanated from it was such that Harry, though shielded by his stone guard, felt his hair stand on end as it passed, and this time Voldemort was forced to conjure a shining silver shield out of
thin air to deflect it. The spell, whatever it was, caused no visible damage to the shield, though a deep, gonglike note reverberated from it, an oddly chilling sound...

“You do not seek to kill me, Dumbledore?” called Voldemort, his scarlet eyes narrowed over the top of the shield. “Above such brutality, are you?”

“We both know that there are other ways of destroying a man, Tom,” Dumbledore said calmly, continuing to walk toward Voldemort as though he had not a fear in the world, as though nothing had happened to interrupt his stroll up the hall. “Merely taking your life would not satisfy me, I admit —”

“There is nothing worse than death, Dumbledore!” snarled Voldemort.

“You are quite wrong,” said Dumbledore, still closing in upon Voldemort and speaking as lightly as though they were discussing the matter over drinks. Harry felt scared to see him walking along, undefended, shieldless. He wanted to cry out a warning, but his headless guard kept shunting him backward toward the wall, blocking his every attempt to get out from behind it. “Indeed, your failure to understand that
there are things much worse than death has always been your greatest weakness —”

Another jet of green light flew from behind the silver shield. This time it was the one-armed centaur, galloping in front of Dumbledore, that took the blast and shattered into a hundred pieces, but before the fragments had even hit the floor, Dumbledore had drawn back his wand and waved it as though brandishing a whip. A long thin flame flew from the tip; it wrapped itself around Voldemort, shield and all.

For a moment, it seemed Dumbledore had won, but then the fiery rope became a serpent, which relinquished its hold upon Voldemort at once and turned, hissing furiously, to face Dumbledore. Voldemort vanished. The snake reared from the floor, ready to strike —

There was a burst of flame in midair above Dumbledore just as Voldemort reappeared, standing on the plinth in the middle of the pool where so recently the five statues had stood.

“Look out!” Harry yelled.

But even as he shouted, one more jet of green light had flown at Dumbledore from Voldemort’s wand and the snake had struck —
Fawkes swooped down in front of Dumbledore, opened his beak wide, and swallowed the jet of green light whole. He burst into flame and fell to the floor, small, wrinkled, and flightless.

At the same moment, Dumbledore brandished his wand in one, long, fluid movement — the snake, which had been an instant
from sinking its fangs into him, flew high into the air and vanished in a wisp of dark smoke; the water in the pool rose up and covered Voldemort like a cocoon of molten glass —

For a few seconds Voldemort was visible only as a dark, rippling, faceless figure, shimmering and indistinct upon the plinth, clearly struggling to throw off the suffocating mass —

Then he was gone, and the water fell with a crash back into its pool, slopping wildly over the sides, drenching the polished floor.

“MASTER!” screamed Bellatrix.

Sure it was over, sure Voldemort had decided to flee, Harry made to run out from behind his statue guard, but Dumbledore bellowed, “Stay where you are, Harry!”

For the first time, Dumbledore sounded frightened.

Now, what makes the scene effective, in my view, is certainly not the prose (it is not beyond anything submitted above - HP is a children's book and doesn't pretend otherwise), it's also not the creativity or the 'special effects' (animating the statues is a nice touch but really nothing too crazy) and it's certainly not the mechanics. I mean, there's zero references to wand movements, or spell incantations, or positioning or dueling strategies, or anything of the sort. Granted, there's plenty of other dueling scenes in the books where this is not the case, but that's part of the reason why this one is the best, and why I chose it for this example.

What makes the scene effective, fundamentally, is that it doesn't lose track of its purpose. The duel itself is not written to convey that indeed, Dumbledore is a Transfiguration's Master, and worthy of being the only wizard Voldemort ever feared, or that Voldemort is truly a menace, in the original meaning of the word, or just to be a spectacle for the reader. All these things are a bonus, and necessary to convey the necessary information in an engaging way. But at heart, this scene advances two fundamental plot points; that Harry is, despite his scar, completely opposite to Voldemort in every way, and, more subtly, that Voldemort is immortal.

The first point is rather obvious. After all, the duel itself is inconclusive; if you recall, the climax of the scene is Voldemort trying and failing to possess Harry. That is the resolution of the conflict of the whole book. Of how, despite their similarities, and despite their connection, Harry is fundamentally a good person and Voldemort is not, and so it literally pains him to try and take control of his body. From this point onwards, Voldemort will never again try to use their connection against him, which is pretty important because that's what allows Dumbledore to bring Harry up to speed; he cannot confide in him before he is sure Voldemort will not just pluck his secrets out of his mind.

The second point is more subtle, but in my opinion its phenomenally executed. Remember that at this point in time, both Harry and the reader are (as of yet) unaware of the true reason Dumbledore is not trying kill Voldemort; and it's not because he's a goody two-shoes, it's because there'd be no point. Voldemort at this point is functionally inmortal because of his Horcruxes, and you need to get rid of those first before you even attempt to kill him. This is a fundamental plot element in the entire series, which the reader does not yet know, and yet it's there, smack center in a scene that's supposed to be this epic duel. It's showing vs telling in the best possible way; a subtle clue that you can only appreciate in a second read.

(Also in a second read, you see the slight dramatic irony in that Voldemort himself does not realize that this is why Dumbledore is not trying to kill him; in his hubris he does not consider the possibility that Dumbledore might know or suspect about his Horcruxes, instead spouting off some nonsense about Dumbledore not being brutal enough, which of course, Dumbledore is wise enough not to dispute.)

In summary; zero mechanics, zero gratuity, and an incredibly effective scene at progressing the story. It is also precisely 796 words long, which is about half the recommended length for this competition, so that's also relevant for the purpose of my review.

Now, with that in mind, let's look at the three entries:

Entry One: Tis unfortunate for me, that the purpose of the scene is the mechanic. I.e. the scene is about learning a new trick that will make Harry a better duelist. In this sense, it is akin to learning a new spell, and so I point once again at Rowling. Throughout the books Harry learns many spells, some of which are pretty important later on at multiple points in the story (Expelliarmus gets the golden star, but the stunner is right up there with it), and seldom does Rowling spend more than a sentence on them. In fact, I believe Harry learns the disarming spell off screen altogether, which means I have to be the guy that asks: why have this scene in your story at all?

In his many practice sessions with Sirius during the winter holidays, Harry learnt a new dueling technique, which involved momentarily 'catching' your opponent's spell, before sending it back at them. It proved surprisingly effective.

There, two lines. We can move one, cos time is golden.

Ok, so I'm being facetious, but my point is that this scene should be doing far more than just giving Harry a minor obstacle to overcome, which he indeed does, in about a thousand words. There are so many avenues to explore here even within what you present; Sirius' frustration at losing his edge after so many years in Azkaban, his sincere, but clumsy attempts to build a connection with his estranged Godson. Maybe Sirius is taking it easy on Harry because he doesn't want to jeopardize their budding relationship, but Harry being the brooding twat that he is on Book Five gets frustrated at this, and then they have a proper domestic about it, before they reconcile by Sirius teaching him the trick. I don't know, that's one idea. But having anything I can hold on to, that's going to make me engaged in a more emotional level, would be a substantial improvement on what you have here.

I mean, and not to belabor the point, recall that the only spell Harry learns which Rowling spends any modicum of time fleshing out is the Patronus charm. But the scenes in which Harry is learning the Patronus are never only about learning the mechanics of the Patronus; the incantation, the wand movement, what have you. They're scenes that explore Lupin's, and thus Harry's past, the marauders, their shared grief, Harry's similarities to his father, etc. etc. And even then, if you put them altogether, they probably don't amount to more than a few pages.

Conclusion: Nothing wrong with it, other than the fact that it's missing several elements to be a 'full' scene.

Well, I lied, there's another thing:

Sniffing all the paint I keep hitting you with? I presume that's what you mean to write otherwise I have no clue as to the sentiment expressed here.

Entry Two: This one is even more egregious, because the scene doesn't seem to have any purpose whatsoever. It's pure spectacle, pure mechanics. And if I hope something is clear by now, is that I really don't like mechanics. I just can't picture them tbh. To me, actions scenes that aren't crips and clear are just word salads. But maybe that's a me thing.

To be fair to lucky contestant number two, this may be due to the fact that the scene is part of a larger story, and in that context, there may be a hidden purpose to it which I missed. But to be fair to me, unlucky non-contestant number one, I can only judge based on what I can see. I what I can see, I don't see a point for.

There are also a few odd wording choices here or there, but that's not really relevant to my larger point. Again, this is not a dig against your ability as a writer, or your prose. Oddities and purpose aside, the scene is more than fine.

Conclusion: Don't submit a scene straight out of your larger fanfic as a 'standalone' piece, cos it very seldom works (if that's what you indeed did, if not, forgive me for being an ass).

Entry Three: This one is also very mechanics heavy, a lot of curses, a lot of shields, etc. etc, But I am glad that at least, it has a purpose for existing. Now, I'll be a man and say that I have no idea what that purpose is exactly, but it's clear you were going for something here. A bit inelegantly, perhaps, a bit confusingly too, given that Bellatrix becomes Voldemort at one point in the scene (a failure of the find and replace command I'm sure), but it is evident that the scene is trying to further something greater than itself, and that's really all I ask of any scene, be it a duel or otherwise.

Now here, I can add a second layer of analysis only previously touched upon; effectiveness. Having your scene have a purpose is good, but being effective at conveying it, as Rowling does, in as few words as possible, and without having your narrator hit you over the head with it, is another thing. And I'm sorry to say but I don't think this piece is very effective at conveying whatever it was you were trying to convey. The fact that I could sense there was a point to the scene is good, but it's not really good that I was confused as to what that point was, precisely.

Conclusion: Head in the right place, pen needs a bit more practice.

(P.S: I hope this counts as me submitting an entry, it certainly took me enough time, and cigarettes. I promise I'll be good and try to submit for the next one.)