KenderCleric's Challenge #16 - A Macabre Mystery

Summary:

The works of Edgar Allan Poe have provided inspiration for countless authors, playwrites, and script writers for years. His tales are well known for their macabre nature and their tendancy to focus on the darker elements of human emotion. Each of his short stories or poems were designed to look under the polished surface people present and examine what we as people hide beneath.

This challenge invites the author to bring elements from Poe's most well known works into a short story using Harry Potter's characters and settings.


The Challenge:

Write a short story that combines elements of the works from Edgar Allan Poe and rules listed below. Note that the titles of Poe's works listed below are linked to the wikipedia entries for each.

• The Cask of Amontillado
• The Tell-Tale Heart
• The Masque of the Red Death
• The Fall of the House of Usher
• The Murders in the Rue Morgue

The Rules:

• Harry Potter must be your main character.
• Max of 3 chapters and/or 40k words.
• The setting of the story must be one of the following:
  • Hogwarts
  • Riddle Manor
  • Malfoy Manor
  • The Burrow
• No direct quotes from Poe's stories may be used
• The story should be a mystery-fic.
• This does not have to be a Dark!Harry fic, but the theme of the story obviously should be.

 

Where the hell did this strike you at? Were you looking at those people trashing Shakespeare on another thread? I'm still not sure how anyone can say Shakespeare is an awful poet and writer, but that's besides the point.

I like the idea, but I'm not sure how interesting it would be. It's just placing Harry Potter characters into an Edgar A. Poe short-story or poem which sounds like destroying the Harry Potter characters to me. You might be able to change this around a bit, but EAP's works are darker in nature and this will just seem angsty and OOC, unless some amazing author takes it up.

 

Please note than angst =/= dark. Anyone who does that to this challenge will be assaulted by various woodland animals with sharp, pointy, teeth....and possibly sharp, pointy, sticks.

 

He's not awful in that he's bad, per se: no one can dispute Shakespeare's technical brilliance. Iambic pentameter and all that jazz.

No, he's awful in that his works are utterly uninteresting, and that despite his technical brilliance - maybe even because of it - they are a chore to read.

Much like Lightning on the Wave's fics really. Technically speaking, they're probably the highest quality pieces of fanfiction ever written, as well as the most ambitious project. But they're also a chore and a struggle to read, and getting through them is a slog.

 

Hmm, someone on The Dark Arts did this, although it became a bit of a parody fic towards the end I'll have to go look it up.

 

I guess I can agree that it is a chore to read his works, but that's more because of archaic writing then anything else. The plot is well made and I enjoy a good Shakespeare work from time to time.

On the LotW point, are any of his stories not slash? I'd like to read one and see how it is if I don't have to get through large amounts of H/S butt secks.

 

She's written 8 stories, but all in the same series, so no, all slash. I got to 10 chapters into the 6th one before giving up, which I feel was a stellar accomplishment on my part lol.

I can see why she wouldn't want to write anything more, seeing as she wrote about 1.5 million words in about a year (wish JKR had her update time), but I hope she does, as it would be likely to be non-slash, and so perhaps a bit easier to read.

 

This is a brilliant idea, I'd love to see Masque of the Red Death taking place in Hogwarts. The Tell Tale Heart would work wonderfully with Mad-Eye. Murders In the Rue Morgue, could the killer actually be...a house elf?!

This is a fantastic challenge, grats.

 

Luna as the Angel of the Odd.

 

Wow... I'm more than interested.

But I don't really see how the

could work.

Because I can't really see how you could combine the different works into one. A story by chapter seems better even if it certainly weakened the challenge.

And I certainly can't see a possible story with "The Fall of the House of Usher". Or maybe one with Ariana and the Dumbledore Brothers'... yes it could work.

Hmm...

 

The chapter/word limit was mostly to keep to the spirit of Poe's short story format. As I've said before, however, the rules are made to be broken. If an author has a good fic going then limiting themselves to a specific chapter or word length is just stupid. I just try to provide a basic guide in my challenges.

If you have an idea or inspiration that builds on what I provide, but goes in a different direction that what I envisioned then run with it. I'm certainly not the end-all-be-all of plot ideas or rules.

 

I may actually write a one-shot about based around "The Cask of Amontillado" based around Hogwarts and either Snape or Malfoy being sealed in the Dungeons.

I'll edit later if I think of an idea for any of the others.

EDIT: Tell Tale Heart, Masque of Red Death and The Fall of House of the House of Usher I all have plans for.

Tell Tale Heart should be easy (Harry killing Snape at Malfoy Manor) and so should The Fall of The House of Usher (Ron and Ginny at The Burrow) but The Masque of Red death will be hard as I can't see a way to incorparate Harry into it. I may have that focused around Voldemort if you don't mind much.

I also have an idea for The Black Cat whch you didn't link. Having the Cat replaced by Hedwig, and altering it ever so slighty.

I have to admit, it's hard imitating Poe's style so I've gave up.