Title: Charmed
Author: NominalBeast
Rating: T
Genre: Romance/Mystery
DLP Category: Slashfic
Pairing: Hermione/Fleur
Status: WIP
Summary: A lonesome Hermione meets Fleur one sleepy London morning after the War. Their lives would never be the same from then on.
Link: Here.

I wonder if there's a rule against asking for your own reviews (If so, don't hurt me D: ). I'm 10 chapters into in and I'm just really curious for DLP's input. Never made an account here before 'cause I'm a gigantic lurker. I have a general idea for where I want this to end up, but so far the plot really is all over the place. And I seem to be lacking heavily in smut, much to many people's dismay. And it's femslash, so that seems to be a problem with some people.

 

:awesome Hahaha, oh wow.

 

That bad? :/

In before this ends up in the recycling bin. >_>

 

There isn't a Slashfic category on DLP and there never, ever will be. You'll need Romance.

If you want reviews for your work, you need the Work By Author Forum.

Maybe we should change to name of the "For Review" Forum to something else (Library Submission?). It seems to confuse people.

That said, I quickly read through the first two chapters. It's better than I expected. A rather vanilla romance story. The main possibilities for conflict, gender and their history, seem to be handwaved away pretty quickly. There's too much telling without showing on Hermione's part. And I'm not a fan of the prominence of the Muggle world. While Hermione might still be connected enough to it to live there without troubles, Fleur wouldn't be. Canon showed us pretty clearly that wizards barely know how to dress in the Muggle world, never mind function. It's not necessary either. Placing it in the Muggle world doesn't add anything to the story and there are enough wizarding areas to create if you want to keep it out of Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade.

Your characterization of Fleur seems well done though, a surprisingly rare feat. Hermione's character falls a little flat, as she seems more like a piece to narrate the story through than an actual person. The swearing didn't fit either.

Writing and grammar are fine. The pairing itself could be interesting. They are some of the strongest, most outspoken characters in canon, which can both attract and create conflict. You haven't made much use of that though. Which is a pity, because the story really needs a hook besides the pairing itself.

Go put it in the WBA Forum if you want reviews and (harsh) criticism. If you meant for it to go in the Library, it's fine here. But I doubt it'll get far at the moment.

 

Thanks for replying. Also, uh... My mind tends to do the whole slashfic/romance switcharoo a lot. Too much /u/, I'm guessing.

I was actually expecting a hellfire-scale of burns by posting this, but I guess that's what WBA is for. I really need to lurk moar.

I have thought of conflicts and exploration of sexuality (ie Hermione's), but I never seem to find the right time for it and kept pushing back chapter by chapter. That was a bad move on my part.

I think why Hermione's character feels so flat is because I've been focusing the narrative on Hermione's perception of Fleur and not so much vice versa. I haven't established Hermione on a more solid ground. Thinking back, it would probably be more in-character of her to tell people off sternly than to swear or, god forbid, use “Merlin's pants” or any variation thereof. I never intend for her to be any less than an actual three-dimensional character. This needs to be remedied.

I think there's so much of Muggle world in this fic because 1) The idea of creating a wizarding neighborhood escaped me completely, and 2) there's no Hogwarts to use as a setting, since Hermione has already graduated in this fic. I guess I will have to either decrease the presence of the Muggle-world in this fic or at least explore Fleur's inability to adapt to it properly.

I'm glad that the writing is fine. I tend to switch up homonyms often and I'm insecure about my usage of prepositions (Dyslexia and ESL. How's that for a double whammy? Now that I'm talking about this, please excuse any grammatical errors this post may contain. I tried. I ran this through OpenOffice and everything). To insert all the conflicts into their proper places would take a nice, thorough round of revision. I'll get to it once I'm done with my final exams and THEN post this in the WBA to act as cannon fodder.

Again, thank you for replying. I was pretty lost about where to go next for this fic, which was why I posted it here. Now I've got my direction. Then again, final exam comes first. Ugh.