I liked this one a lot.

Weirdly the only thing I wasn't wild about was the ending. I actually thought the story was even more amazing when I tought this was Mrs. Norris 'interpretation'. If that makes sense. I think finding out its not "cat interpretation" but Flich actually is a badass weirdly took something away from the story. Because I was loving the idea/premise that this was Canon but just Mrs. Norris' viewpoint of canon.

Mind thats a complaint on the 'premise' so not sure how relevant it is. That may just be my personal preferences showing. So I suppose it depends on what your intent with the story was. But there could be some strength in not having Filch be a bad-ass werewolf hunter type... and he's still the cranky caretaker squib... but his cat loves him anyway? Dunno.

Like... I thought this premise (where I thought the story was going)

I thought that a much stronger and more interesting premise then that they were *actually* hunting monsters and werewolves and the like.

Again may just be preference. Maybe you intended the werewolf thing as a "surprise reveal." But I felt it came out of left field and didnt... fit? If you wanted to keep that (and hey again I liked it better without) I might lay the ground work a bit better so my reaction isnt "Uhh...what?" But that really is a minor nitpick.

That aside, I loved this! A ton. You did a great job of showing how a cat might 'think.' I loved that Mrs. Norris stayed true to 'herself' in that she still hates the students. likes to catch trouble makers, etc. And yet we *sympathize* with her. That in my mind is the greatest strength of the story (other then capturing a 'cat like' feel). This doesnt feel like an AU Mrs. Norris perse, so much as it is her life from a different pov.

I liked imagining her as the 'heroine' of her own story. Her and her human patrolling the halls keeping the ungrateful brats safe and Hogwarts running.

I said it before but it is worth saying again, you blew me away with how well you wrote a cat pov. It *felt* like a cat. Not a human inside a cat. Not something cliche. You nailed it.

You also are a very skilled writer. I got immersed in the story despite it being so short. I'm not sure how to describe it, but some stories when I read it... i'm reading a story. And *some* stories when I read them, I forget im reading a story and i'm in the world. Yours did the latter, and that to my eyes is the highest compliment I can give.

There were a couple of very minor splices I saw in the text. Very minor. I think I only noticed actually because of how smoothly the rest flowed so it jarred me out. I made the mistake of not noting them as I read, so ill have to reread to see if I can spot them again and stick them in here for you.

But this was great and I strongly hope you decide to publish and share this with everyone when this competition is done.

 

Spoiler

Listen up, pal. Don't do this C for Cendetta shit, or at least not where I have to see it. Alliteration works because the mind likes patterns but overuse it and you're just a cunt. It's a scalpel, not a hammer.

Maybe this is something that "cat people" would be into, but I'm a dog bloke myself. Yes, Mrs. Norris is a smug little cunt. I get it, okay? This is like the HP fanfic version of Cats (2019) except with less characters and less suicide.

The interesting part of this is Argus Filch as a veteran monster-hunter who apparently once got bitten by a werewolf but cured himself. Why wasn't that the main thing? Fuck me, I feel blueballed.

In short, it's up its own ass as far as technical writing goes, the story bored me, and the interesting bit was an afterthought. 1.5/5.

 

Spoiler

Spoiler: Notes

This whole thing is a bit overdone. You repeat a few words, and you chose some words that don't exactly fit for the purpose of fitting the alliteration. Potentially a good tool to grab attention, but I'd tone it down a bit. Moderation is key.

Repeating a word close together.

This is a looooooong sentence. Break it up a bit.

This was confusing. Where exactly is she? I'm the corridor or the seventh floor hallway? I'm assuming near the RoR but the sequence of events here didn't make sense.

RoR confirmed, but how does Norris know about the door?

You've already told us the castle respects her, don't repeat yourself.

Her haunches

Sunk her claws. Also, can you sink claws into metal?

How many times are you going to tell us she's clever?

Led her here

Under her claws

Reaching towards her written twice, don't repeat

Wise teacher?

You said 'silly' twice in this paragraph

Sank her fangs

Hiw does them using magic to track her benefit her?

Show, don't tell. You do this a few times.

As he gave her a good

Fools, not fool's

Okay! Notes above with some recommended changes for grammar or structure or stylistic changes. Overall, I think this was an interesting premise. It fleshed out and provided a different view/backstory for a somewhat underused character, so kudos!

That said, this felt like a first draft, second draft at best. It needs some heavy editing and a couple content reviews to make it all flow better. It could be a cute little piece once it gets polished up.

Outside of the editing that needs to happen, the plot is simple to follow along with and the beginning is an interesting enough set up to draw interest.

Overall, cool idea, execution needs work. 2/5

 

Spoiler

"The corridor echoed with the clattering of claws on cobblestones. The cold was kept carefully away not just by her sleek, clever coat, but by the cozy wrapping of contentment which curled around her, from her claws to her calico ears. She was curious, she was cantankerous, but most of all she was clever. It was her cleverness which had finally come to its culmination for this year, creating the warm, comforting coo which coalesced in her chest as she crept through the castle."
I can't decide if this is clever or obnoxious...but what the hell, it's nearly Christmas, so lets err on the side of generosity shall we?

On a similar note, I can't decide if the ending is genius or terrible. So...Filch is secretly a badass monster hunter? That's wild, and thrown in at precisely the most irritiating place - write us a whole story about that! Or alternatively, stick with the cute cat shenanigans and don't drop massive plot bunnies in at the last minute. I will say, in support of the idea, that when the elves were first mentioned I was...maybe not quite 50/50 on whether it was house-elves or a different kind, given the kind of nonsense that goes on at Hogwarts on a regular basis, but there was definitely a moment or two where I considered that she might actually be hunting an actual 'invader'.

Other than that, it's cute. Like soczab said, you've done a good job of making it feel like we're actually reading from a cat's POV. There's a couple of areas that could do with an(other) editing pass - for example, "She haunches extended as she flew through the air". But overall, an interesting little piece overshadowed by the AU that it throws in at the end.

 

Spoiler

I'm confused. So Filch is a werewolf? Or a Bill Weasley-esque pseudo-werewolf? Or a former werewolf? And he wants to wear a silver cross around his neck, for protection? I had trouble appreciating the end, because I was a little confused.

I'm not sure I would call this an adventure, per se. Mrs. Norris sets out to steal a trinket that a house elf is polishing, she does, and she gives it to Filch. Her obstacles are a door and a brief moment of minor house elf magic. I bet Mrs. Norris has had more interesting days than this.

I thought you did a good job crafting Mrs. Norris's voice — she's clever, petulant, and, well, catty. I 100% agree that she would inevitably have some sort of ongoing feud with the house elves. Your house elf voice was also very good. I don't think your Filch voice is quite right. You nailed the way that he talks to Mrs. Norris, but I don't think he usually talks about students this way:

"I swear" felt off to me, and there's not enough malicious distain for the students here, lol. I also don't think Filch would say "kids."

One last thing — I seldom find satisfaction in so much alliteration at the start, and I'm sorry to say I wasn't a supporter. As folks on DLP have pointed out before, assonance is vastly more entrancing.

 

Spoiler

No title? A mistake I feel, titles are certainly useful to create the appropriate expectation of what your story is about for potential readers, if nothing else. Given your lack of one, and expecting some sort of Hogwarts adventure, I felt utterly confused at the opening until I reached the ‘Mrs. Norris’ part in your second paragraph, and then my confusion turned to annoyance. To be perfectly honest, I just really did not want to read a story centered around a cat. A dog, maybe, if your middle name is Griffith, but a cat is asking too much.

That being said, and having read it all, I can’t say I regretted spending the time to do so (it helps that it only took me a few minutes), but neither can I say much more besides. It barely qualifies as a story, much less an adventure one, and the ending is strange, but it probably accomplishes what you set out to do, which is to write a slightly humorous snippet from Mrs. Norris POV. So good job on that front, but next time write something I can spend more time critiquing, you’re kinda ruining my reputation here.

 

Spoiler

GENERAL REMARKS

Let's ignore the opening. I think it worked out well for you. I'd never have read past that offensive assault of alliteration in any other context, but once I did, I was pleasantly surprised by the cat's perspective at the first part.

This could do with some simple spelling mistakes fixed. He/she misuses. Teach instead of teacher at one point. Other stuff like that.

You could probably do to make the section with the elf a little bit more concise:

This all takes place in the length of the house elf reaching for Mrs. Norris.

The ending was a squib, (maybe you're being meta). Filch's voice wasn't right, even though I appreciate you were trying to show us a different facet of him from the perspective of a POV that loves him. It just didn't quite get it right, didn't show us the him we know, with more sympathy for his motivations. The werewolf/scars stuff didn't seem like a 1:1 link, and it didn't really do much. It was a bit of sympathy, and gave a reason (which we didn't need beyond her capriciousness, which you worked hard to set up at the start of the story) that she stole the silver locket. Still, it didn't feel like a natural conclusion to her story, because the focus all ended up on him, and then it just ... stopped.

MECHANICS

Did the title do X, Y, Z?
No title

Was there a hook, how was it?
The hook was in the behaviour and early scenes of the cat being cat like. You were definitley subsuming the story in the device, and it was an interesting perspective. I feel like you did run on a little bit, and if you'd just honed in and shortened it, really set out Mrs. Norris' target and made it a bit more active and a little bit less verbose it'd have been much stronger. A cat doesn't have a long attention span, I think you should've made it a little quicker paced. I'm thinking of 'Threadbare' as the example here, which is a story about a Teddy Bear that comes to life, and similarly is a non-human, small creature, trying to figure out dangers and human-sized challenges. It didn't linger so much as you did here, and it worked really well for it.

Did it come too late? Maybe the hook should have been the first line but was 4 paragraphs in?
Your opening sentence, was not the hook. It was the barrier to entry. So yes.

Were the sentences easy to read?
Some proof reading issues, but yes, you can tell there's some competent writing underlying this experimental and bizarre effort. So yeah, even though there were typos I didn't find it hard to read after the first part.

There were a few bits where you overjustified Mrs. Norris' movements, which sapped the pace. But I went in on that in entry 1, and it's not egregious here. Just something you need to try and catch and cut more. It suits not being particularly sensory in its perspective, and I think that the was a reasonable amount of description in it, but that it didn't wholly detract from the alien cat thought processes and understanding of the world.

SETTING

Where does the story take place? Was the setting clear? Could you visualize it, or was it over-described?
You established what was going on, the level of the stakes. And I think the contrast between our judgement of what was going on, and the high-seriousness and drama with with Mrs. Norris was treating stalking the house-elf and reaching it worked well. I could see it well.

Did the setting affect the story? If so, how?
It did. I think it should've been single scene though. Confined to this one obstacle course, threat and escape. A single event in a cat's life, and then the ending could've been improved by being one clear sequence of events, need/desire, plan, obstace, conflict, resolution and change in the character's circumstances.

Was the setting portrayed accurately through the characters? Did the southern belle have an English accent? Anything that made it seem unrealistic?
Filch, again. He lacked the edge that should've been apparent when discussing the students, rather than the cats. I don't object to him being charitable to Quirrel, where no one can see it apart from Norris, but his introduction and his place in the story just felt off.

HEART

The heart of the story is basically its message. Some stories will have a moral. Some might have a theme or a motif. Some will express an opinion about society or humanity or taxes.
- There's something in here about the greater good really. Did it have heart? It did. Can I say it was anything in particular that I can point out? No, not really. I think it's a function of Filch again. We get the idea that she was relieving his suffering and she was loyal to him, and that could've been warm, but while her motivation became stronger when recontextualised, its benefit and the wound that Filch possesses aren't so well felt by us, and it's about him not Norris. So you lose something. That's why I feel it would've been better to have Filch off-screen for the whol story rather than appear at the end.

PLOT and PACING

What was the goal of the story?
- It was clearly established, and the obstacle very quickly put in place. The desire to attack the house elf was intelligible and fun, for a cat perspective, but I think the efforts to get to the elf, and then the combat suffered for it. They took too long, still maintaining the pace of the set up when you were putting us inside Mrs. Norris' head, when by that point you should've been more on her emotions than her motivations, and the events as they were unfolding.

- Your elf speak was suitably irritating, but that's my personal thing.

- I feel the Elf fight should have been the point of maximum tension, and it never really rose that high (from Norris' perspective). I think it should have, for the cat, while maintaining that reader understanding that how Mrs. Norris sees the reality of her challenges aren't how we see them, and keep that working.

Did the story drag on in places? Move too fast?
Yeah, Filch, as said above, was too quickly covered. He didn't fit the amount of work that he needed, at that late point of appearance in the story. Even in a short story, introducing characters as characters rather than resolutions is often better done in the first half, not the second.

GRAMMAR AND SPELLING

Was the document riddled with errors?
Riddled? Yeah, maybe a little bit. Obvious typos and word substitutions, easily caught if you give this another run through.

CLOSING COMMENTS:

Yeah, it was alright. It didn't stick the landing. It was a little slow for the story it was trying to be, and I think it should've been one scene, two character - really clearly start to finish, tiny story style. But I liked the tone.

 

I'll own up to this! Another one of my strange experiments, which these competitions often give me the opportunity to try and then have fun failing at.

Wrote it a day late after I saw the deadline got submitted and sent in my first and only draft. Got a LOT of great feedback from you all, which I greatly appreciate! I'll likely edit grammatically and for many of the content suggestions you all recommended then submit to WbA to workshop it.

Thanks again to everyone for the wonderful critiques!

 

I really loved this one! Good work!