Spoiler

This is very snippy, with actions lasting far too long, and with dialogue being overly wordy. I suppose the snippiness is the product of the present tense, but it really doesn't work here IMO. Harry's actions, amplified with present tense, are not really doing much for the story. I'd even argue that a little telly approach would have been better if only to make the whole thing a touch more smooth.

Funny, I guess. Decent.

 

Spoiler

You've got bits of something that would make a good story and I think they were slammed haphazardly into a story-like shape. It's a shame.

Hermione pushing Harry to wallow and even handing him Scandinavian giant beer feels weird, and she generally seems out of character in general. If you hadn't said that she was Hermione I would not have recognized her.

Each part of the story just doesn't quite tie into the others and not even particularly well into themselves. Perhaps it's because I've had a long day, but besides him being constantly obliviated and wanting to commit suicide I wasn't particularly clear on what Colin's deal was, or on how either of those things tie together. He keeps forgetting things could be better? I guess? I'm not sure and I'd have preferred to have known, even if it had to be stated. Partially as a result, his death feels rather muted and odd.

In general, things just don't really seem to fit. I can tell you had an idea and, probably, that it was a good one; I can't tell what that idea actually was, like a big wet blotch landed in the middle of a page.

2/5.

 

Spoiler

I'm not sure how to feel about this one. Harry talks to Sirius/the Veil and stops a suicide. Colin came a bit out of the left field. I believe this would have worked out better if Colin were someone we knew already. That would have made a bit more impact. The majority of the talk between Harry and Colin we don't hear, so we cannot bond with the character and cannot appreciate the impact his death has on Harry. I didn't really feel anything when we learned about his suicide. And did it have an impact on Harry? He goes back to doing what he did at the start of the story, talking to Sirius. In general, this was a bit underwhelming. 2.5/5

 

Spoiler

I’m not sure if this is supposed to be funny or grim, or both, but it’s stuck in some weird medium where the tone of the story is all over the place. This is either some sort of commentary on the human condition or a weird attempt at a comedy. It’s just too confused.

2/5

 

Spoiler

Very nice story. The central idea of Harry drinking with Sirius through the veil is quite original. 4/5

 

Spoiler

Hermione felt a bit off, but almost every story I have read with her as Minister has struggled to portray her (or at least in the way I imagine she would be).

I know its a small part, but the timeline threw me, I imagine this Colin was named after the one we knew? So this story must be at least 25-30 years later? It somehow didn't feel that way.

I enjoyed it and what you were doing with it.

3.5/5

 

Spoiler

It's a shame this has been disqualified, as there's some good stuff in it. I like his tradition with the Veil, and the little touches like the animated bottle labels, and the references to a frosty relationship with the goblins. The subplot with Colin...less so. It's not a bad idea, but it needs more room to breathe, especially in the aftermath. For a competition with this strict a word count, it might have been better to trim that out almost entirely and focus on the meat of it.

 

Spoiler

I love this story and am very sad it's disqualified. Oh well.

It isn't the easiest one to read, but I really enjoy your writing style. It's obviously so distinct that it won't pass for canon, but at the same time it has plenty of canon feel in the world-building details and in the characterization, so I mean it as a compliment.

The venomous tentacla curls, the dignity of Unspeakable mystique prevails, he's had an ok childhood and unpleasant teenagehood, emotion, something to be felt not seen, so much good stuff. Loved the ending.

As a sort-of Scandi, (and feel free to disregard this if you were going for the Scandi language of Giants, which of course follows your rules and your rules alone) I feel I should say that we have no words that start with 'hr' (I think Icelandic might, but we can't count them as Scandinavian, can we, not when we have this other wonderful group known as Nordic). I love the 'ngn' combo you have in the beer name, that can occasionally be correct spelling, mostly it's just 'gn', but we will happily pronounce all the letters in 'ngn', and both Am and British friends of mine have found this combo hilarious and impossible to pronounce, so I can see why you've gone with it.

To continue with scandi stuff, we have a saying about being able to follow the red thread in coversations or stories, like say you have these slightly disjointed bits of writing, vignettes, but they clearly belong together because you can see this same red thread in the background of each. Means you can follow the story without losing your bearings, or wondering if you've missed something 'round the middle. If I had one complaint about this story it would probably be about the red thread, I feel like I occasionally lose sight of it, even if it's just for a second or two.

 

Spoiler

Your writing is descriptive. I liked the characterization as well. Harry and Colin placing their issues behind and moving on made a nice read. You did strike a fatalistic note at the end by having Harry go back to sharing bottles with the Veil. You've stayed faithful to the themes of death and love in Harry Potter as well. A good story even if it's been disqualified. I'd rate it at 4/5

 

Spoiler: Qualifying disqualified excess

I suppose there's not much point in this for this disqualified entry but might as well get this out now while I've looked, then crack on with actually trying to figure out who to vote for in each bracket over the next X many days.

Spoiler: multimedia

I kinda think this is what your story is. I'm not being trite. Really. Honestly. I think this old song is another way to look at the same theme as this story, with the same tonal problem that everyone else has commented on.

This super famous song is really happy sounding, but the words just don't fit, its message isn't happy even if it's maybe erm ... optimistic? It's about someone in a position of perspective trying to tell someone younger or more naive that perspective. That things aren't so bad as they seem. "Ooh, Child, things are going to get easier, ooh, child, things are going to get brighter .... some day when your head is much lighter." I've heard this song most of my life, and it's always been quite a jolly song. I just heard it again, on an advert, a moment ago and the similarity just hit me.

Probably it's the best feedback I can leave on the piece, as an objective, uninvested reader. Certainly, it's all I can say without us going one layer deeper. Probably don't click the below if you've yet to read this/write your own review or whatever.

Spoiler: (Open wide) Daddy made you some content.

I try and always aim these reviews at the writer, not just the specific writer but whoever might look, cus then it might be useful to others. Mostly it's useful to me, to try and think about how to write, to try and explain to myself the things I forget a lot, and hope they stick. Further, one of the things I love on DLP, and on anywhere I can find it really, is hearing people talk about their writing processes. I really do enjoy seeing how other people do it, what they focus on, where they start what words and sentences they look at, how they prepare to start or not, etc. etc. What I'm saying is, I hope this isn't too narcissistic.

With that said I might as well, as a disqualified entrant, just do a legitimate retrospective. I'll address the two big elephants really, and then I'll just whizz through my process of writing this, the literal blow by blow. It might be quite different to how you do it, in an interesting way. I chat a lot of shit about writing, and obviously this hasn't been fantastically successful (particularly when disqualified), so I'll say what I was trying to write, and the process of how I tried to write it, and maybe it'll help you and me figure out ways this failed so we don't have to do it again.

So, first, the headlines:

1) Disqualified - So I'm just retarded is the quick version. I knew it was 1500, and I was at 1780ish at the end of the first draft. I got to 1700, cut, cut, cut (knew I still needed to go the shops, and I had work at half seven am), it was about eleven pm, and I watched the 60 become 50 become 20, got it to around 1604 or something which if you ignore the section markings and stuff like that and became blind to the third number, you could trick yourself into saying 'bingo', forgetting the 6 was supposed to be a 5. When I realised, I didn't retract the submission. Didn't expect 15 entries, and thought, 'well, a disqualified entry is better than no entry at all'. Perhaps.

2) The red thread - there's problems with the fic, for sure. At the same time, I think I'd be being a lying liar who lies if I didn't pretend I hadn't not noticed the numbers, those of you who use numbers, given to earlier entries, and the things you said which were confused, but are explicit in the story. Would this story's tone have done a little better, and been less confusing in some parts if it was entry #2, rather than entry #12? I think it's fair to say yes. Because while the problems aren't changed, the magnitude of these problems seems to be different when I compare those of the readers who were leading the pack and had 11 other Harry stories in their head and a few more to go compared to those are who progressing more gradually? Is it as simple as fatigue? Maybe not, I think this is a problem I've had before. In this and in other stories, if I've said something once, or twice, in a little line without much emphasis on it, but it's been said, I think it'll be noticed even though time has taught me I need to be more transparent again and again. Despite the fact that I read fanfiction the exactly the same way, cus it's not a book, and the words come fast. You can't expect things to be digested in the way a paper book is, and you can't expect one little reference to come through. But here's what I mean specifically (By the way, I'm really worried this paragraph will sound bitter, but it's not, it's a real point. It's writing for medium, I guess, and the way the medium is consumed?)

Spoiler: Story synopsis, got long

There's no two ways around it, essentially, I have failed to tell the story in the most fundamental way possible. If I had more words, would I have taken the cheap and effective option (though not in keeping with this Ao3 style of writing maybe) and just put the dates and locations at the top? I really don't think I correctly estimated the subtlety that remained after I cut 'it was the eighteenth, again' and 'he looked at the calendar over Ron's shoulder'. I'm not sure was it clear that it was the anniversary again? That the last scene was a year later?

Anyway. Here's the DVD commentary in brief, so at least you know what I wanted to be telling.

Harry is at work, and Hermione interrupts him after he ought to have finished but is still working because "It was the eighteenth of June, the day that they’d stormed the ministry looking for Sirius over two decades ago." She's saying he shouldn't be late because Luna has to leave early, and they have a little meeting, the six of them and a few other DA people or whatever on the 18th, a non-mainstream war holiday just for them. However, Harry has another ritual for that day too, he goes down to the veil with an odd/unusual drink and he throws one through the veil and drinks the other. Hermione/his friends knows this, and knows he'll probably forget till he leaves work, so she's got an odd beer for him, just in case, so that he's not even more late having to go out to get something.

He goes down, irritated with celebrity and meets Colin (named for Colin Creevy, which is in the text too [though I cut Creevey and just left Colin in the one sentence that says it, for word economy), and then it turns out he's met a random person on a bridge, and he has to talk them down, and he does. He does all the usual talky stuff (which I didn't go into enough, but I thought less was more in terms of why this specific stranger was specifically suicidal) but he also gets a red herring -> this is the meat of the story. This is the theme and the important bit, and the reason for writing it.

He tells Hermione that this guy thinks he was doing it then because of this memory problem, like he feels he's only got all the information at that moment and obviously that's a travesty and precipitated the suicide attempt. Hermione "Fixes the problem". I'd say this is the key sentence of the whole story, though I really did struggle, and I'd change the second clause of that sentence now.

Of course, poor Harry is wrong. The kid kills himself at a later date anyway, because things run deeper than precipitating events.

And then this is the key bit, that is, I think, the real failure. Cus you all thought it was him coping with this with Sirius some short time later. Colin kills himself in July. Then we go to a few days before the June Solstice, it's the eighteenth again, Harry's too busy and caught in his work and late again. Ron turns up this time with the three beers Harry forgot at home (and as per fond-glass: Ginny is thinking about him right now, she's not forgotten that this year is a little different to last year's eighteenth for Harry), and Ron mentions Neville not Luna, because it's the DoM day and it's the DoM people meeting.

Harry goes down to the veil where Colin was going to commit suicide (and I'm assuming still did it there). He has three beers this time, and he throws two through the veil. He explains his and Sirius' system to Colin, though with the ambiguity that Harry experiences of course, because he can't be sure whether things are random or not. He speaks for himself mostly, and you have to decide yourself whether he's hearing answers or not.

And the whole final bit is trying to call back to what Harry actually said, that we saw, to try and convince Colin. About what Harry had gained since the Forest, and what Sirius lost. Why he goes with odd beers, to try and give a dead man a taste of life and the things he missed out on, even though he can't and it's impossible. And Harry still believes it, and he's doing this to keep trying, to kind of in some small hopeful way, to keep trying to 'save' Sirius and Colin. To help with what they've missed. But yeah. Sirius isn't the key part. It's still Colin. It's still about Harry saying that life is precious, and there could've been highs, and new joys. And that's what the story's about.
-
Oh also Hrungnir is a norse giant? I wish I was clever enough with language to have come up with the name myself for the way it confounded English speakers.

Anyway, here's how I wrote it, for interest:

I like these competitions, all of them, though the Flash are the best.

I was really committed to writing something no matter how shit for this one, after Ched and Fitz's inspirational examples. Which sounds backhanded, now I read it again, but I'd never be backhanded about Ched.

Deadline approached, it was five o clock and I sat down and copied the Q3 thread criteria into a gdoc, had been putting it off all day (I was off that day) and thought, even for a flash, there's nothing I can do here. I don't have an idea, all I had thought a week before was I'd quite like to write an Older Harry post Hogwarts having some sort of lesson/with his son. Mostly because fuck Cursed Child. I closed it. Thought I'd just review this time. Then a little later, I think I caught wind that my sworn enemy had stumped up and she was entering. So I opened it at eight pm and it took till 10pm to write. It was an interesting experience because the key idea was just an idea that occurred to me, but the rest of it was all process, but done quick enough that I could see exactly what I've internalised deeply, when I don't have time to really think about it for long.

Step one:
I want to write about a kid who completes a suicide that Harry talks down off a bridge, except at the very end, later, he succeeds anyway cus some things aren't fixable even if you really try. I also like to try and do something technically new in every HP comp that I'll get feedback on that I know no one would look at if I experimented in my own uninteresting fanfiction: so this time Ao3 writing (it was going to be way more told, like YseultNot and that RFP style of YA writing), which is present tense.

So yeah, theme and writing practice decided.

The next thing I did in my head was think challenges:
- 1) People hate present tense, you can't win with a present tense story if you're not enembee. Fine, ok, 'low it.
- 2) A 'but he died anyway' isn't going to work on its own. People will feel like it is pulling the rug. Ok, I need to make sure it's not the end. That the acceptance comes after, not before.
- 3) Post canon/post kids Harry / Ginny can be quite far from canon locations, nods, believability. Ok, I can book end the ending after the end by using Ron and Hermione, and have it feel more like HP, despite the present tense.

My second step after brainstorming/theme/what is the story about is always 'audience challenges' what about this exciting idea is possibly going to cause me problems with people who read it/how do I pretend it's intentional or better yet can I do anything about it by thinking of it before hand.

After that I went to my fundamental story steps in me-terms rather than exactly word for word Truby, McKee, Snyder or whoever. I can actually just copy and paste it. This was my brainstorming of the story events:

And then yeah. Basically that was it. The only other consideration was trying to make sure there was a value change which I do for any scene, most characters, and the story as a whole. If you story starts happy the end of the scene should be sad. It's just choosing the key part of the scene, and the key agenda of the impact character for whichever scene you're in (then on a big level the story as a whole), and making sure that the value you choose is one way at the left and has changed by the other side. If strong, end weak. If good, end bad. If stupid, end smart.

Then it was tapping, and trying to avoid going too mad for alliteration and hendiadys, to avoid my weakness for merisms and hyperbatons and old fashioned out of keeping speech, and just living in hope that this time, finally, this time, please God, let me use assonance on purpose. I wrote the final scene with Ron, the Veil and the three beers first. Then I wrote the beginning with Hermione. Then I wrote in order.

Certainly, Hermione was the biggest victim of cutting. She could be better, but she's not one of my strong characters. There are people who are easier to write and people who are harder. I find her quite difficult on the best of days, its definitely something to work on if I redraft this.

But yeah that's almost the whole thing. This is egregiously long for a minimal impact, disqualified, tiny story that was at best alright, if quite confusing. I almost deleted the whole bit/saved it in Gdocs for later, but then I wrote the below. I think I just needed to explain what the story meant because it's an important message and I just completely failed. But, maybe it's something that'll be useful one day for you to have been told if you ever find yourself in this sort of situation. Now that it's been said, hopefully, I'll stop being distracted by the thought that everyone thought this was supposed to be about Sirius, and the completed suicide was a really weird aside inside something that was trying to be a comedy, and can focus on other people's entries.

Spoiler: the real skinny, but this is maybe a little too real life. The context of writing it. Don't click if you don't real recognise real. There's not much to learn here, just reflection

They say write what you know, right? Try and make it something 'true'. I didn't have quite an idea for the comp, except, this weekend and the start of the week, I lived this situation in broad non-magical not-neat strokes. After he tried to run on Sunday and I caught him, and I talked to him for an hour, and I learnt all about the situation that had led to his being attacked and why he was where he was, and after I thought maybe I'd finally got him to open up, to share enough of what he was fronting to get mental health to agree to see him, he ran away on Tuesday, and my colleague told me the morning before I wrote this when I asked if he was still doing ok. I really do think he's likely going to die in the next year or two. It's a miracle he's alive right now, that he survived to reach the hospital. This story, the center of it, I think, was me processing that. It's too similar after the fact. Child mental health hits me like little else does, when it's bad. When it's young and pain and there's just so much they weren't offered, so much shittiness that was just against them from the start. Real shit show lives. So yeah. But, this isn't the first 'Colin' and he won't be the last, which is the real theme of the story. The point.

Harry sees someone at their lowest low and he just wants to help them, cus they're a person, even though we don't really know them, only the depths of their situation. And he does what he can. And maybe it works in that moment. But even Harry Potter, even magical fantasy, can't fix a problem like that. I think it fits with HP, the most key parts of HP. The sort of things that the DoM studies behind knife melting doors, the sort of things that Dumbledore is always saying are deeper than magic.

So yeah. I told you not to click this one. But it's why I'm overinvested in such a problematic little flash fiction written in two hours. It's probably the most honest thing I've written.

 

Spoiler

Well don't I feel like an idiot now. I thought you knew someone danish and were taking the piss. Anyway, if it's an old mythological creature it makes sense, because I checked and Icelandic, which famously is a bit stuck in the Viking age linguistically speaking, does retain 'hr' in the beginning of some words.

I was supposed to be productive this morning after spending all of yesterday on these entries, but instead I've read every word of your post. Thanks for writing it. Just for the record, I did catch that Hermione undoes the obliviation and this results in Colin killing himself bit, and I'm hardly the sharpest tool in the shed so I'm sure others reading will have caught that too. I did not get that he threw a beer in for Colin as well as Sirius, although that makes perfect sense now you've spelled it out. Anyway, still love your story!

 

Spoiler

I don't feel qualified to participate in these competitions as a reviewer, since I know very little about the technical side of writing, but I wanted to chime in to acknowledge the fond-glass (as opposed to foe-glass) little Rowlingesque gem. That and the beer labels were the kind of whimsical world building little details that I love about HP. Cheers!

 

Spoiler

It was fun to work out this title, because it was a joy to revisit the phenomenal imagery here. On first glance, I thought it was all eye color, but there’s so much more to draw from in your story. I’m still definitely not sure I got it right, but thinking about the silver light from the veil, the deep brown of the beer, weighing the green of Harry’s eyes to the green bottles….. Anyway, it doesn’t matter if I’m completely off track, because it made me pause for a moment and look back at how this little story was packed with so many vivid images.

This entry hit me surprisingly hard. Lovely, lovely story about loss and how we endure it.

I’m reading the comp entries out of order (I always do). It’s funny how this one and #4 are so far my favorites, because they’re kind of polar opposites. It’s made me so happy that such a big turnout for this Q has resulted in the full spectrum of fanfic stories. It’s been so much fun to read them all.

I’m trying to separate the prose from the story itself, which is difficult. This slow, melancholy writing left me feeling sad and content (my favorite kind of feeling), so it’s difficult to parse.

I wish that the scene with Colin was a little less confusing, because then I think the story would be 100% solid. It’s the inciting incident, and I had trouble taking it in because I spent the beginning of it going, “Wait, what?”

This paragraph is lovely, but it is also confusing. In the most mysterious room in a magical world, I’m fully on board for Harry to encounter himself, before I just realize you’re just being poetic. Might be better to make it clearer: “Not literally, not in appearance, but in expression. He looks the way Harry looked when he walked …”

You start to build tension here (“There’re no potions near him, and his wand is in his pocket. There’s something not right …”), then things escalate (someone casts the Summoning Spell, but I still don’t know who it is), and then… everything’s fine. Why did someone cast Accio? And why isn’t Harry interpreting this moment as a threat? It felt like you cut the moment where the tension deescalates, and as a result I spend most of the scene on edge before I realize everything is fine.

“Crack” is not the best word to use when you’re trying to deescalate tension.

I was also a little thrown off by your use of he/they pronouns, especially because I was expecting a potential attack (potentially from multiple people) in that moment.

But overall, this was such a pleasure to read. I love my deep sadness mixed with light moments.

Lovely

Lol. Perfect.

Sigh. This was very good. Thank you for writing.

 

Spoiler

Alright, I wasn't planning on reviewing this round, cos I'm a bit busy at the moment and I thought that with at least 15 people reviewing it really wouldn't be neccesary. Still, you-know-who tricked me into reading it and so here I am. I've skimmed over your comment and it just confirms what I thought when I read the story. It's clearly genuine, the situation, the message, the feelings from which it stems, but its also not told in the best way to convey these things to the reader. Now, it's true that only assholes talk about prose, but luckily for you I happen to be one.

What do these four examples have in common? Well first, they're a tad too verbose, which is a bit of an issue when you're on a word budget, so to speak. Most importantly, however, they're not straightforward.

Why are you forcing me to puzzle out the time of day? Why just not say it?

Who's this? Medusa? Or is it Hermione and you're being strangely poetic about her hair being fuzzy (of all things).

Once again, and though this is somewhat fixed by the Unspeakables checking his badge in the following line, you're making us work overtime to figure out what Harry is doing. Given that it is not clear why Hermione has given him to bottles of liquor in the first place it helps us along if it is at least clear where Harry is going with those two bottles.

Fitz said this above. In a world where polyjuice exists, its a horribe idea to begin a line with 'He looks like Harry' when one doesn't actually mean it.

Oh, and by the way:

I know this is also the case outside of your writing, but the curse of knowledge is strong with you. You have to understand it's impossible for the reader to get that this means unless he happens to read it a few times, or has the I.Q of Albert Einstein. And I satisfy those two conditions and I still didn't get it until I read your comment.

I don't mean to shit on you, I stand by what I said; the story feels genuine; only it would have been far stronger if every step of it had been clearer. I get the feeling you dislike your prose being overly simple, or dry, or maybe you enjoy turning it into a series of small puzzles the reader has to figure out, but - and I'd hate to be controversial - a story's prose is just the tool with which you tell a story. It's never, or it shouldn't be, the end goal itself. Not to belabour the point, but this particular story would have benefited massively from a far simpler narrative style and more straightforward prose. Because the heart of this story, the emotions which is meant to convey, has nothing to do with how flowery, how witty, or how creative you're being when you're describing how a character looks, how Harry feels, or how time passes. You didn't fail in telling the story you wanted to tell, you merely made it harder than was, perhaps, neccesary.