Spoiler

It is ironic that the dialogue is the best part of this one, as it takes about 5% of the entry. :/ I think the beginning, even though well written, is too heavy for such a short story. Because of that, a dialogue was just a hint of fresh wind on a particularly hot day. Enough to make me happy for a moment, but not nearly enough to satisfy me.

Luna is Luna, that's good, but you should've told us more through their interaction. The weird idea though.

 

Spoiler

I like your premise: "Luna organizes a rather elaborate plan to hook up with Harry Potter." I felt like it could've been a lot more interesting though, and it didn't really feel like a story, at least to me.

The sex wasn't surprising, which speaks to the chemistry that you built (so good on you, for that), but it also meant that the bulk of the story didn't really surprise me. You had an interesting set up, and quite the inciting incident, but ultimately "guy happens upon naked girl, sex ensues" isn't really a piece of fiction that will stay with me. Especially since Harry and Luna didn't connect over anything other than the novelty of the moment.

I think it would've been nice to make it a little clearer that Harry's life had lately become a little boring and mundane, and then: enter Luna Lovegood. I think she ultimately could've brought a spark to his life in some additional way (maybe a Luna-esque insight that that's both offhand and striking) to make the moment a little more meaningful.

But is the prose and dialogue strong? Yes. Is this a sweet story? Yes.

3/5

 

Spoiler

I quite like the idea of this entry - unfortunately a little more than I like the entry itself.

Harry is bored and paunchy and growing older; Luna enters to make life interesting again. Classic manic pixie dream girl setup.

I think the prose is sometimes a little distracting, though.

This is too much, I think. While extolling the virtues of practical Minerva the wording is rather unpractical itself. It is admittedly a pretty bit of wording but, I think, its prettiness results in the reader stopping for a moment to admire the effect and stumbling over their own feet rather badly as a result.

So yeah. Good premise, decent dialogue, enjoyable Luna, but the prose a touch too purple: 3.5/5.

 

Spoiler

The beginning is a bit clunky. Too much tell and not enough show. Also, in the first sentence we find out that we'll meet Luna again, so Harry stumbling upon naked Luna isn't as much of a surprise as it could have been. The good part about this story is undeniably the dialogue. Luna is as crazy as she always is and that's what carries the story. Unfortunately, I feel that it is not enough. The premise "Harry stumbles upon Luna being Luna and they have sex" is not all that interesting. The grammar is good, though. So... a 2 out of 5.

 

Spoiler

This felt really weird.

Maybe it’s the fault of the format, or maybe it’s just what the story is about, but I don’t feel as if it really established anything meaningful – it’s just some bizarre setup for sex that doesn’t substantially touch on anything beyond it. It’s not cute in the way something of this nature should be. The premise is weirdly set up, the descriptions seem to be focusing on the wrong things, and the exact point of the story is unclear.

1.5/5

 

Spoiler

Interesting idea, it does feel Luna-ish kinda. I think she is by far the hardest character to write, almost no one gets her oddness down.

But I think less is more, this story would of been sharper if it were a couple hundred words shorter. In spots it almost seemed as if you had gone back and added in prose rather than cutting stuff out, which is what good editing often is.

As it stands, 2.2/5, with a sharp edit and polish it would be a strong 3.

 

Spoiler

I think my main gripe is you should cut back on that prose. Lots of not weird persay, but unusual descriptions i.e "rough as iron" that made me enjoy the story a lot less.

Some pros include your dialogue (clearly the strongest part of the whole story) and the fact that your characters have surprisingly good chemistry for a flash fiction story and feel fleshed out (Luna has that Luna vibe that many authors fail to capture, and Harry feels like Harry to me).

Decent writing overall. Unfortunately the concept doesn't appeal to me, so I would give this a 2.5/5.

 

Spoiler

The premise is pretty fun, and definitely one I hadn't seen before. Luna's voice is one of the more difficult ones to nail down, and she was the highlight of the story.

The prose, however, bothered me. The story is competently written, but the occasional odd wording, and descriptions that felt superfluous, distracted me from fully enjoying the fun interactions. 3/5

 

15 entries. Phwoar. That's grand, that's sensational.

I regret that we only have so few days to review them. 15 flash entries is going to be almost harder, in fairness, than a dozen full sized entries. A dozen full-sized entries would discriminate themselves in a host of different ways, with a range of different technical, structural, and characterising strengths, or deficits.

Fifteen flash entries is fifteen emotions. Fifteen flavours, fifteen meanings. In an ice cream parlour, I wouldn't lick fifteen flavours one after another and expect the last flavour (vanilla) to be the taste of the most successful flavour in the world. My context, my ability to really appreciate flavour fifteen is going to be affected and altered in a very real way by the fourteen flavours that have come before. I'll try and go as slow as I can before August 5th. I'll try to not skim read these short stories.

Still, I suspect, if there's no troll entry -- if there's no one out maliciously to thumb their nose at DLP -- not one of these fifteen stories will be bad in any true sense of the word. With such a broad prompt, really, this is going to be a fantastic collection of what keeps us all in HP, what it relates to us, what it means to us even if we haven't read it in five or ten years. Ultimately, this is what I'm going to be thinking about in my critique. I don't think my critique is going to be something that looks at what you got wrong, for any of the fifteen. Instead, I'm going to look for how what you loved, and what's right and good, can be brought to the fore. How it can be less hidden. I don't want to change any of these fifteen stories. I want to make them a more essential version of themselves, if I can see any way to do it.

Spoiler: Primum

This is a good example of a few things you'll want to look out for in your works going forward:

1) Conjuctions. Throughout this story, you've no fear of starting a sentence with a conjuction 'and, but, with', etc. I'm not a prude. I won't clutch my pearls if I see it, generally speaking. However, in the future, when you see this in your works when you're reading through: try and recognise it. Think 'is there anyway I could make this a complete sentence, not a sentence that technically should be following from on as the second half of a different sentence'. It's a very rare sentence where you can't make it better by removing the opening conjuction and writing something more powerful and active.

2) Editorial language; commonly called 'telling'. There's a time and a place for 'telling'. Generally in summarising and skipping the uninteresting, and in maintaining your pace. In this story, and throughout, we have these examples where your prose isn't helping you and isn't letting us come inside. It's very hands off. Instead of being a lawyer sort of modern author who is presenting the evidence, what can be sensed and seen, and arranging it in such a way as to lead our noticing mind from A to B to C to D to 'JIM IS THE MURDERER', you say 'Luna's self-assured conviction' or 'a sense of inevitability'. You the author aren't telling us what's happening, instead, you're telling the reader what you think of what's happening. Telling vs showing is mentioned a lot in writing, but it's not very helpful, I think, because it's rare for anyone to really share the crux of it, that the problem is telling readers what to think rather than telling them what happened so that they can think/judge/conclude it themselves.

3) Voice. Harry just doesn't sound like Harry. As a product of Harry being quite distant (due to the telling [it's limited POV but not that limited, in some hard to elucidate way closer to the omniscient side of the gradient]) and you telling us your judgments, it just doesn't have that HP flavour in the narrative, despite the familiar name and the magical scenes. It's important to think about lexicon and verb choice when you're trying to conform to a story.

Ignoring the technical, and moving to my subjective impression: I was a bit shocked when he and Luna started bonking and rubbing uglies, if I'm honest. I like that they found what they need. I like that you had a clear idea of this semi-surreal scene. It reads like an audio-description of a romantic scene of two characters we know have previously met meeting again without the chemistry having died. There's pain that we're told about. There's chemistry that we're told about.

I don't get a great sense of their environment, but the little dialogue that we get is actually really explosive. With very few lines you overcome your narrative voice and make it very lively. A facility for dialogue like you have is hard to come by. Well done.

I'm not actually quite clear what this 'to himself again' means, despite the following clause on identity. I think it's semantically challenged.

 

Spoiler

Funny story, but the ending was a tad lacking. Something funny like a centaur suddenly popping up and saying "mind if I join in" or something would have been quite funny. 3.5/5

 

Spoiler

I love the atmosphere you create in the beginning, it's a bit quirky and fairy-tale like and feels like HP but with a distinct author's voice and not a copy of JKR. I like a lot of your word choices, knitting needles and kaleidoscope, I like the centaur stuff and the way you describe the owls returning, that was good.

Less fond of the actual Harry meeting Luna part. It feels too long and to me it doesn't read like an adult Harry meeting an attractive naked lady who is dtf, but more like a teenager. This might have more to do with my own smut-preferences, but yeah it doesn't do much for me. Luna feels mostly in character, Harry less so. Personally I also wouldn't have shaved their heads, I'm not sure what that does for the story. If you were going for humour, then maybe one eyebrow shaved off as a canon reference?

 

Spoiler

It's an initially intriguing premise that ends up skirting a fine line between creepy and cute. Somewhat out of shape Harry investigating why the centaurs are acting strange is something I'd read more of; the ultimate reveal, while not bad, was maybe a little disappointing in that regard? (Although obviously not a surprise, given the first line). I thought the 'ritual' was quite sensitively done, and Luna seemed, if not quite in character, then a believable stone's throw from it.

 

Spoiler

I liked the start to this story. Centaurs picking up new sports was a really nice touch. The story went downhill after Harry found Luna naked. You had several opportunities to push the story along several other plot directions, but it devolved to porn in the end. I'd give this a 2/5, mostly for the promising start

 

Spoiler

This entry is competently written, if nothing else. However there isn't much else to go on, strength of story-wise. What at first seemed a decent attempt at setting up a mystery for an adventure-starved Harry dissolves into a contrived set up for sexy times. Harry lacks any sort of distinct personality, an short coming made even more noticeable by the fact that he is our viewpoint character, and goes through the motions of the plot like an automaton. Luna shines bit more here, but doesn't lean out of the boilerplate type of characterization we often see people attempt for her. Not a terrible short, but pretty far from memorable either.

3/5

 

Spoiler

I didn’t think I’d like this, but by the end I found it decent enough for a one shot. I agree that the dialogue was the best part and the first part, as Harry goes into the forest, is the worst. It was sort of overwrought imo.

Overall, it’s alright but a little boring. I think there’s more you could’ve added to it to make it more interesting. Some cleaning up of clunky sentences and this is a 3/5 as is though.

 

Spoiler: spoiler

I'm not much for the romance or ship stuff in my fics, so this isn't really my cup of tea. But I do think you nailed luna pretty well, so kudos for that. If you liked luna/harry relationships i think you'd enjoy this.