Title: Feathers, Fangs and Flames
Author: Nauro
Rating: T
Genre: Romance, Hurt/Comfort, with a dash of Action in places
Chapters: 49
Words: 203,112
Updated: July 11, 2013
Published: October 17, 2011
Status: WIP
Library Category: General
Pairings: Harry/Cho and Harry/Ginny
Summary: Harry gets bitten by Lupin in third year. Now he questions himself and his life and struggles against his inner wolf. It's Harry finding support from either Cho or Ginny, questioning if anything good can happen for him.
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7471751/1/Feathers_Fangs_and_Flames

It has been quite silent in the Review Board recently, and I haven't completed my stupid quota for today yet - so there. This is something I have been spending quite a while on, trying to write a longer story, as well as something I intend to finish. I'd estimate it's about 35% complete, having passed the 100k word mark.

I'm posting this here, because I am very curious to hear DLP's opinion as well as being interested in possible avenues for improvement, which, honestly, anyone could use.

Things I'd like to mention:

• The story itself is focusing on werewolf Harry and the problems that brings, and, I'd like to believe that it hasn't got the usual bad kind of angst, that many hurt/comfort fics tend to have.
  
  
• I'm aiming to create a Dumbledore that is smart, yet makes some mistakes, but, most importantly, tries to correct them.
  
  
• The story is slowly but steadily moving away from canon story line. I'd like to hear if it isn't too much canon rehashing. The coming summer is something I'd classify as AU, though.
  
  
• I'm trying to make the romance believable, slow, and rated T. It starts with a main focus on Cho, with some Ginny scenes on the sidelines. (For those of you who hate Ginny and/or Cho, I believe there are many white spots for both of the girls left by Rowling that one can fill.)
  
  
• The update rate is mostly steady so far, holding at a 4k chapter every two weeks. I can't believe I have managed to hold it without major divergences till now, hopefully I'll keep it that way till the end.

Yes, this was the author being a crazy narcissist and recommending himself as his 200th post. ;D

p.s. I hate the ff.net image system. Still trying out different variants, looking for less shitty looking ones.



Checked by Minion, July 28, 2013

 

I've seen this fic multiple times while browsing fanfic.net. I've never once clicked on it simply because of the genres you selected on the website and the summary itself. Your summary basically promised zero action/suspense/mystery etc. What your summary does promise is loads of teenage angst and romance. Hell, I wouldn't have even guessed the author for a DLPer until you posted your own story.

I'll give a shot though, to see if something that is advertised outside my norm is any good.


Edit: I got 5 chapters in. Its exactly how I pictured it. Teenage Werewolf Angst, some romance sub-plots and generally following canon. Not something I'd read and I can't rate this because I just generally don't like what plot you have. Sorry.

 

I've read two chapters so far, which I don't feel justifies a rating just yet, but I have a few concerns:

The narrative as a whole feels, well, not rushed, per se, but the scene transitions feel rather abrupt, especially in that first chapter. I'm guessing that that's a function of the first chapter being basically canon recap plus one (altered) scene, so I'll let that slide for the moment.

There's also some mechanical/word choice issues, like 'mach' instead of 'match' near the beginning, and 'contend' instead of 'content' in chapter two. Sure, this is nitpicking, and because I haven't seen many new fics in a while I'm going to forgive this as well, so long as I don't see a repeat of Lupin referring to Harry as 'the cub'. Scandalous.

Like I said, I'm not rating this just yet, as it doesn't feel like it's really gotten rolling yet. I'll read some more and post a full review once I think I've gotten the full measure of the story.

 

First - it's fun. For teenage angst, I'm only reading what I would consider a normal cannon!Harry reaction to suddenly finding his body hijacked. And I like that he fails - and fails again to control it. That's interesting, and makes me want to read more.

There is one issue however, that is glaring. The detentions with Snape.

Snape loathes werewolves, and wouldn't be alone in a room with one - especially not Harry flippin Potter - and he only seems to realize that it's not such a good idea to piss off a hormonal, angsty teenwolf!Potter at the end of Chapter 12.

Which, if I was Teenwolf!Potter, I would have thrashed Snape and Malfoy the first day, turned puppy dog eyes on the headmaster and said "oooops. I am so, so sorry."

 

You would also miss the game winning shot and be left a loser nobody, just like you really are. Cause you'll always be a loser, Howar... Potter. D:

 

Fair enough.
On following canon quite closely, in hindsight, I probably should have started killing important characters sooner. ;D, as saying "read twenty chapters for bigger changes from canon" doesn't work that well. The smaller changes are there, though, and they are growing in number and have consequences, for most of the time.

That word is used twice, ever, and only once in an endearing manner. Also, Harry is a new werewolf by that point.

On mistakes, these seem to be popping up, even when I try to weed them out as much as possible. I am trying, though.

I kind of believe that Snape would manage putting a Harry Potter in his place if it ever came to direct physical confrontation.

 

Alright, I'm at chapter 21. It's excellent. I'm curious what will happen, the pace has picked up, and the plot has thickened. The teenage angst is not really present - and I find the fact that Harry struggles and fails and grows to be well-written. Excellent job, save for some grammar/spelling/awkward phrasing. 4/5, well worth reading past the first 5 chapters, for anyone else perusing this thread.

 

I only read the first chapter, and the direction seems to be decent, but there's something to be said about your format. It seems amateur to bold things in text instead of putting them in italics, and there's a reason FFnet has normal scene break lines. Also, your writing style is a bit... diferent. It's not bad, but it's certainly strange. But then again, it might just be me. I edit when I read more of it.

Edit: Read more. Found more typos and grammatical errors. It started to seem boring by the end of chapter two. By the beginning of chapter three, it seemed to be basicly character developpement, and I couldn't stand it. Nothing against your story though, just not my type of reading material.

 

The dialogue in the first chapter is really stiff and awful, but either it improved rapidly or I stopped noticing it.

The general lack of divergence from canon isn't a huge issue. It's mostly character driven so the plot isn't the focus of or really the point of the story, and it doesn't feel like it's forced into following canon... until when it started to diverge, ironically enough.

Spoiler

Having Harry respond to Sirius's death by trying and mostly failing to Crucio the killer felt incredibly lazy and uncreative. If the story up to that point had been highly original, it could have worked as a deliberate parallel to canon, but instead it left me with the feeling that you simply didn't have any other ideas.

The romance with Cho is pretty boring for the first 15 chapters or so. She simply doesn't have much of a personality at first, and it takes a while for there to be anything to their relationship beyond a simple crush. I suppose it's realistic, but it isn't interesting to read.

Overall the story so far did not leave me regretting the time I spent reading it, but it's nothing amazing.

 

Its not too bad. Easy reading, for the most part well written. You have a slight issue with the dialogue sounding really unnatural at times, but other than that technically its fine.

Plot wise, its a good concept. However there are a couple of things I'd point out. You're being, in my opinion, a bit over mysterious about what this unique/semi-unique thing thats happening to Harry is. Its not really managing to raise any sort of suspense or intrigue, its just a bit irritating.

And secondly, I don't feel as though you're making as much of the potential the plot has as you could. Everything is very linear, very much 'the plot is going this way, that is all that's happening, nothing else will be included'.


But I enjoyed enough to read what all's there, so I'm going to give it 4/5.

 

I don't really know if I like this story too much. No offense. It just feels like...oh, he's a werewolf now and everything else is the same. I was kind of expecting something...a little darker. Like having it explained that he no longer can vote, or is kept out hogwarts for a few weeks for Dumbledore to adjust the school wards to allow him inside because he is a dark creature now or even having him register and then lupin being hauled out and killed. Another suggestion, having draco cut him with a silver knife after the worldcup while in the forest? That would be interesting.

I know none of what I just gave is really dark (excepting for lupin) but nothing really jumps out at me in story and say's this is badass read more. I'm only on chapter 5, so technically I should read through the entire thing before judging it but I really have no interest in finishing. I really not trying to be rude it's just my thoughts on the matter

Edit: never mind I read to ch.19 it's nice and dark now. @@

 

Alright, I've read up to 24, and I must say that this story has grown on me in a hurry. Things are actually happening now, and I've come to appreciate the character development as well, so it's a win-win. The only issue I've got at this point is that the last chapter or two feel like you're beating around the bush before the Second Task; it doesn't help that both of the last two chapter titles made me think that Harry would get started on that, and yet he still hasn't. Maybe I should sue for false advertising...

Still, even that just goes to show that I'm eager to see where you'll be taking this story next, so call it a 4/5 with the very real possibility of 4.5/5 before too long. Cheers!

 

So, in general, I fail at some points of the dialogue, and have too slow of the start?

And, apparently have to fix all the 'silent' misuses... :/

Really grateful for the feedback.

Two and a half actually.

The problem is that I have an outline and a calendar that I'm following as much as possible, and there were a few things that had to be done before the second task, even though I honestly believed it would take me a chapter instead of two and a half. The chapter names are usually placed when I start writing the chapter and only sometimes changed, but are somewhat meant to tease, but not as much as they do now, probably. ;D

 

I'm not sure why, but this line has always stopped me from opening the story the many many times I've seen it in my various searches. It always comes off as if you aren't sure what the story is even going to be.

Maybe you meant Harry's finding support from both, Cho and Ginny? But to me it sounds like he'll find support from either one of the(you aren't sure yet), so it always turned me off.

However, now that I know it's from a DLP member, I'll give it a read when I feel up to it.

 

"You are lying, are you not? It was Lupin who bit you?"

I've only just started, but if the writing in this line foreshadows how dialogue is written for the rest of the story, I'm dreading it.

 

Damn that cliffhanger to hell. I like how this story is picking up the pace with the latest chapter.

 

There's a couple of things that I wanted to say, that somewhat merit the revival of this selfish thread. First off - the first part of the story, the so called Book I is complete as of 35th chapter.

First, the next part is going to start in a few hours (maybe a day), and I've decided to have chapters for the second part posted slightly in advance on DLP.


In other news, I had some tremendous advice and help from Roarian, in which he demonstrated to me, how a proper version of the first FFF chapter should look.
Roarian's version of the FFF, chapter 1, can be read here, on google docs, like Roarian likes.
A lot of it will be used for the revised first chapter that I'm going to work on in the next few days if not most of it.

In that vein, I'm going to go over the previous chapters, probably at a rather slow rate, and incorporate at least some of the suggestions, giving the story an overall overhaul for style and flow, considering I improved in these fields over this year, too. You may expect some help on Roarin's part, thus turning story into a better one even more easily.

I'd also appreciate some feedback or help from anyone wanting to assist me in the tackling of this task.