Title: Revolution's Eve
Author: zephros
Rating: M
Genre: Adventure/Fantasy
DLP Category: The Alternates
Pairing: Harry/Alicia
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,542
Published: June 07, 2009
Updated: June 30, 2010
Status: Abandoned
Summary: One thousand years ago the would-be founders of Hogwarts became conquerors instead. Now, around the turn of the second millennium, Harry Potter emerges into a feudal system recovering from the Dark War, but the evil of that war is again on the rise.
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4934863/1/Revolutions_Eve
Link: PatronusCharm

I'll start by saying this is my own work and I feel slightly pretentious posting it here for review, but e1 has spurred me to promote my fiction. I was torn on whether to post it in WBA or here, but decided that since it is posted up to six chapters I would post it here.

To be honest if this makes it to the Library I'd be pretty honored and amazed.

But that aside I'm truly looking for honest critique in how I can improve. Grammar is something that is important and I'm rereading the past chapters to catch the small things I missed. If you do choose to read it please let me know where I can get better. In other words, tell me where I am lacking and where I am wrong. Spare not my feelings because only the brutal truth can shove my ego up my ass.

EDIT: Someone showed interest because of the pairing. I'll expound on this by saying he goes through several women. The other two eventually being Daphne and Luna.


Checked by Minion, January 7, 2013
The story is no longer available on fanfiction.net

 

Just finished reading the first chapter, I think I'll continue reading.

The premise is interesting, especially seeing how wizards ruling has stagnated society into the medieval stage. There's some insight into why wizards live hidden from muggles in canon there.

A complaint I have is that you implant the canon characters in improbably significant roles in your AU. At least in enembee's Skitterleap he used the more compelling characters, Fleur, Diggory, Krum, etc. You place the Dursleys and Weasleys in the role of nobles. Argue against it or not, it plummets the interest value.

I would think replacing outright original characters would be preferable. Have them be close to Lily so they're willing to shelter Harry. Since they all

Spoiler

suffer a gruesome death within the first chapter so it's not worth losing readers so early in the story. Having OCs would serve the roles of the obligatory slain family without having the ridiculousness of aristocratic Dursleys.

Also, try to drop the dead weight from the story. Anything like Harry eating the cheese, but discovering it needed water to swallow. Then he eats bread and a tomato and saves the cheese for later. That's not details, that's micromanagement.

 

I am, as you might have guessed, a huge fan of the AU. But this really didn't light my fire, float my boat or grease my wheel. The writing feels as though it stems from perhaps a hundred years ago, it's stiff and informal but attempts to be descriptive in the same sentence, as though you've read one too many Arthur Conan Doyle stories and made a poor attempt to emulate. I understand it in the dialogue, although, I'm of the opinion that even nobles were fairly base in the middle ages. The constant formality of the language is a major barrier and just painful to read at times.

There's also a whole bunch of errors in the writing that a cursory glance over could have caught. Misplaced quotation marks, uncapitalised words and a furious fascination with the ellipse that managed to drive me up the wall with JKR's work. The inability to distinguish the difference between your and you're is another particularly annoying feature.

Spoiler

…potter…

They gave each other a quick glance before moving. Dudley kicked his horse into movement while Harry followed close behind.

As the two made their way from the sea they caught glimpses of dark shapes fluttering about in the night. Dudley shouted to Harry over the sounds of the wind and his horse that they looked to be crows. Harry nodded in agreement, a tension entering his shoulders. He watched for a time until the crows seemed to disappear. Then he relaxed, realizing he had been overreacting. A couple hours later the two arrived at Dursley Keep, intent on seeking their beds and giving into sleep.

These few lines sum up all of my issues with the writing.

The pacing annoys me slightly too; three thousand words in and all I've garnered is that Harry and Dudley are closer than in canon. Petunia and Vernon are protecting Harry from someone who'd want to do him harm and that you have strange obsession with the way people eat cheese and bread. You stated all of these facts but the latter in the first one thousand.

As far as I've read, I'm not terribly impressed. You've gone to all of the trouble to invent an entirely new world in your head and appeared to have just transplanted a slightly warped canon on top of it.

I'm going to give you a hesitant 4/5 because I think it's probably Library worthy. I'm not a fan of what I've read, but I enjoy seeing fandom pushed to it's furthest edges and I think this is a good example of that.

Personally, I'd have liked to see you post this to the WbA first, partly because I think the critical advice provided by DLP could have easily polished this into something incredible and partly because of the way the Library works.

I really really hope this gets voted into the Library, because I love to see canon twisted so. In the same breath I can't give it my full backing because it's just a nightmare to read.

TLDR; 4/5

 

Cheers for the post, byl. Although, you probably should've posted this on the WbA thread first - like nmb said, polishing it up a bit would have guaranteed you a spot in teh DLP's good bookz.

Fair warning, this is your first and final shot at getting this into the library. So, if perchance, you don't manage to acquire the minimum rating (unlikely, given the quality of this piece), you won't ever get in [no reposts at a later date].

Onwards, to my review. I'll keep this brief, seeing how the others have already pointed out much of what I had to say.

TEH GOOD

AU = instant win in my books. Call it a guilty pleasure.
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Well plotted and planned out - not some half-baked plot bunny that bit you in the ass one dreary night and convinced you to write an epic.
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Doesn't follow the archetype fanfic structure - a whole lot is going on and not everything is centred on Harry.
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You've done a nice job moulding the major canonic elements to fit your universe. Kinda gives you the impression that everything has changed, yet nothing seems to have changed. The Dursleys, however, pose an anomaly (as Andro pointed out).
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POV changes normally annoy the fuck out of me, but the transitions you made in your fic were smooth. Didn't notice them until after I finished reading 'em.

TEH NITPICKS

Dialogue needs work

Sounds archaic. Plus, your use of a contraction in the same sentence negates the 'formal' effect -

- and in some cases, you twist it to the point where it sounds grammatically incorrect.

Bro? Seriously?
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In all honesty, it's a chore to read. Grammatical errors and typos litter the whole thing. The writing lacks finesse - some of your stylistic devices end up doing more harm than good. And bits of the story are just plain booooring [eg. Harry's neverending trip to Matterdon].

However, it gets a whole lot better as you proceed to the later chapters. Once you get acclimatised to the AUness of the fic, you're in for a pleasant, albeit a bumpy, ride. A job well done, bylfolx.

4/5

 

I read this a few weeks ago and thought about entering it into the library but ended up deciding to wait.

As enembee pointed out above, it only has one chance to make it into the library. The main reason for this was that, while you already had something around fifty-thousand words, it didn't really feel like the plot was very far ahead.

The main thing that really started to annoy me was that you used the word 'lad' so many times in the first chapter, although it got better after that.

Plot wise it's very interesting and I'm definitely looking forward to more.

4/5

 

Hmm.

I am torn now.

I've never been big on retro-editing(editing after posting on ffn). I realize this is a problem and need to correct it. Thus, I took e1's advice and posted it here. Whether or not this makes it into the Library is a side thing, for I posted it to get just what you guys gave me. Critique.

The pace does pick-up dramatically after Harry gets settled. I took my time with the first few chapters testing out a new style of writing where it was more detail based. This shifted to me experimenting with a character driven plot, thus the shifts to Bill and others and explaining the long conversation.

I learned I HATED writing character driven stories. I've again shifted it to a plot-driven in the recent chapters I have written. The next should be ready by next friday.

So...I am at an impasse. Should I just leave this thread here and let people speak on it? Or should I post the first chapter in WBA for critique? Followed by the second and third...and so forth?

As I said I'm really just interested in becoming a better writer.

In defense for the plot, I wanted to change a few things from Canon but leave some the same. I chose the Weasley's for a minor house because of their enmity with the Malfoy's. Plus, I wanted to use the noble houses from Canon as the Houses in the fic. For the Dursleys...everybody writes them hating and neglecting Harry. I just wanted to add a little twist. And what happened at the end of chap 1 is the fuel that drives Harry for awhile.

People say I am not using compelling characters? I know ENB used some very good ones from the start, but I've got the ones I want to use introduced later-on.

This is going to be a pretty big story with a lot changing in their world. If any here have fears of me abandoning it, I won't. I could be blowing smoke out my ass, but I have a track-record. I've one prior to this, a Zelda fic, do not read for you shall not get pass the grammatical errors in the first chapters. I began it in October of 2007 and ended it in December of 2008. I updated a 4k words almost every week. There were some missed. I started this one in February and have updated roughtly 11k every three weeks.

Now, I am off to take a very critical look at chapter 1 and apply some of the advice given here.

 

I think you should post it to WbA, even if you never retro-edit your FFnet story. Just because I think with the gentle prodding of some DLP TLC (;D) It'll hit the spot you wanted it to.

 

I've been following this for a few weeks now and I think it's pretty good. I do have a few problems though.

Spoiler

“So everyone who was sworn to Blacks’ Oath Ring had to take orders from Sirius?”

She bobbed her head in the affirmative.

Alright but then I saw this.

Spoiler

In astounding timing many rebellions erupted throughout the Lestrange and Malfoy territories. The results were disrupted supply routes and broken lines of communication. Following these uprisings was the greatest shock of all when the Black forces turned on their allies in the midst of raging battles. The reason? Sirius Black had defeated his father Orion and became Head of House Black.

Fall of Kingdoms, Hermione Granger

Not really a big deal but it kind of threw me off. Well anyways I liked it so over all 4/5

 

4/5

The thing that threw Sesc, and me, off I think is the way several of the characters interacted with each other.

Spoiler

I think you're failing to take into account how a man like Arthur would respond to pressure from Molly when she's clearly against his stance on Percy/Hermoine. The situation would likely be resolved following the scene in the dining hall if your Molly is as strong-willed as Rowling's.

 

That is a very good point, and I believe that yes she is.

Spoiler

I will argue to the point that Molly understands that the knowledge of wand-making must be kept within the Weasley clan and that marriage will guarantee this. If this happens, it will give their family a massive advantage over the Greater House Malfoy. She is against the marriage because she knows it will only bring heartache to both of them. Yet, it was by Hermione's own will that they are still engaged. Molly tried to reconcile her, but Hermione would here none of it; Hermione being a little stubborn on the situation for she fears none of the other brothers would accept her. Thus to her its black and white. Marry Percy and continue her research of have it taken from her mind. I had hoped this was implied more in the text, but I think I may need to clarify elsewhere.

And if any wonder where the knowledge of wand-making went, well. I'll only say its thanks to Salazaar. That backstory will be revealed far later when Harry makes the trek to Hogwarts.

And thx for the catch of Zabini. Will fix that when my retro-editing takes me to that chapter.

 

This is seriously AU, which isn't bad, I like the idea, and what has been listed as the pairing, I'll edit after reading.

Read the first chapter, and I have mixed feelings, I like the writing it is solid, however I just can't get into the story, I've always hated the Durrsleys and this was frustrating, I do think it is library worthy, it's just not for me.
4/5.

 

Spelling for "Salazar" is as written, not Salazaar. Other than several spelling peeves like Salazar and Zabini, quite interesting story, although I keep imagining a Grey Knight sans storm bolter to suddenly appear and destroy shit considering the armour worn in the time frame probably looks quite similar.

Btw, your sig - is that Deleuze&Guattari/Freud philosophy?

 

Huh....How to put this.

I'm really not sure which is could be considered, though I have only read that Freud went into it.

Never even heard of the other two.

The words came out in response to Vash's posting his Oedipus Flower in my introduction. Good read by the way. It was not something based on what those psychological greats wrote, but something I genuinely experienced as a young child.

Take that as you may.

 

I read it earlier today. There are grammar errors but the story has promise. It might be library worthy now, but just in case why not correct the grammar errors?

Oh, at the moment an unofficial 4 stars.

 

I am gradually editing the past chapters and posting them in the WBA for help and small grammar I missed. Trust me, this is my current baby and I am giving it more polish than I have been. So I plan to fix these things as people call them. It's a learning process altogether, but I want to improve. I'm learning that writing a story is more than just hammering out words and then posting it after a few rounds of edits and a beta. It's something that needs to be fine-tuned, even after the updates. Any calls you have, please mention.

 

Um... Not to be a stick in the mud here, but just reading down the list of problems posted by y'all has completely turned me off to this fic. Granted everyone has given it good marks regardless, but frankly it's giving me a -Meh- feeling before even having started it.

-No Read, No Rate-

 

It's not perfect but it is interesting and it has a lot of potential. Much better than most of what is posted here. I like it.

 

I like your chapter lenght, I'll give you a 4.5. I'll read the rest tommorrow.