Title: Penance
Author: Rhapsody Belle
Rating: G
Genre: Drama
DLP Category: General
Pairing: None
Status: Oneshot, complete
Summary: Snape's break from the ranks of the Death Eaters came too late to save Lily and James Potter, and his crimes are too great to go without punishment. Oneshot, canon universe.
Link: Fanfiction.net


EDIT: Don't forget there is a posting format for the thread title as well.

 

A solid, meh. I don't really like this characterization of Snape, and the oneshot was pretty short. Not much plot or information, or, well, anything, and, as such, not much to enjoy. My main complaint, however, is how short it was, closely followed by the characterization of Snape.

 

The writing is undeniably solid. Extremely precise and engaging.

Sadly, the plot does not deliver. I understand and appreciate the story, but it wasn't as entertaining as I'd hoped. Perhaps the punishment was more? You could have tied in something from canon and explained it as an extra part of his punishment.

As it is, however, I'll give you 3/5 .

 

Writing is fine, I didn't spot any spelling errors, that's +0.

Plotwise, story is really weak, mainly because nothing happened, but, on the other hand, it wasn't slash and everything seemed pretty logical, even if it was just another rehash of canon. That's -0.

So, overall it's 3/5 from me, because it's rating every fic starts with for me, and this one has no qualities that would change it.

When I read summary I hoped that story would tell about Snape actually being punished for his crimes and Dumbledore failing (maybe spectacularly?) to save him from Azkaban. You can't call what happened in canon/your story a punishment...

In canon universe Sirius Black visited crime scene around time it's happening.

 

Pretty pointless overall, but that's been said. Personally though, copying pretty much everything from canon except for one minor idea isn't worthy of a 3. 2/5 from me.

 

Not good, not bad. As someone else said, semi-pointless. On the other hand. solidly written and well grounded. It could also be considered a possible reason for AD to keep Snape around despite numerous complaints. Someone else mentioned Sirus being there in canon, so there isn't a point in re-hashing that.

3/5

 

I think I may have placed this in the wrong forum. Eep.

This is actually one of my own short pieces. I'm very sorry if I screwed up somewhere; my only excuse is I'm new and still figuring out where everything goes.

 

Not bad writing, just seemed like it didn't leave me with anything new to garner from it. Snape is Snape. And with this he still was Snape.

 

Sure the writing is good, but the oneshot is short and delivers nothing new; it simply trys to look at one scene in a different view. However it is not a great divergence and I really think the story was a bit OOC. Writing isn't bad in general, but I just didn't like it much. 2.5/5

 

I'll echo the cries of "meh" on this one. Perhaps if the character of Snape interested me in the slightest or I was big on Dumbledore as god of the wizarding world, judge, jury and executioner, I might be a fan of the writing.

But even the writing seemed to waver between good and horribly cliched tripe. Lines like "He sighed, because it was either sigh or weep, and if he started weeping, he might never stop." just made me cringe.

Still, points for effort and better than average execution. Rounding up to 3/5 sounds about right.

Don't sweat it. Other than not formatting the thread title right, you did fine. Though posting your own stuff in For Review is to invite negativity.

The way I see it is that the Work By Author section is where authors go to get critical feedback and specific help and criticism. If that's what you want, post your fics there (not links, but fics). The Library and For Review system are for DLP members though, where readers and reviewers will comment for the benefit of other DLP members. More advice on whether its worth reading or what parts succeed/fail.

Of course the lines blur and there is often constructive criticism that benefit the author, but for the most part, WBA is for author's benefit and the Library is for DLP's benefit.

 

His cruel penance is to write an ingredient list, yell at students for no reason, let them sabotage each other's potions and make sure they don't actually learn anything? Nice work if you can get it...

 

It would be a cruel penance for some people. Hell, I'm one of them. To teach children year in and out in a subject that's as complex as Potions? To never be given the job you want unti you're the only one left who wants it? Yeah, that might just be one of the possible hells that I'm headed for. *shudders*