I don't really see the problem with it to be honest. It's not like his core is a Dementor's heart or something. It's just a dragon heartstring. And on pottermore it stated that Dragon Heartstring wands channel more power.

But still, I always say basic is better and if you need more expand on the basics. So, I think I'll stick with 'particularly fierce'.

 

If you want to give him a new wand, wait a few years.

I can't remember where it was, but I read a fic recently where Harry threatens Vernon, and then has his wand snapped. This sends Harry into shock, because the wand is bonded to his magical core.

Try and avoid the magical core trope, but do something similar, and it can set up a more drastic change. Make it more like losing a limb, as opposed to shattering your magic.

For example, the wand DOES bond with a wizard, bringing in the semi-sentience thing, but for most wizards this isn't a big deal, as they use the same wand forever. Friends CAN use each others wands, but they tend to have be borrowed with permission, and won't cast against their actual owner. It could also explain the Deathstick - it's an egotistical thing, and believes it should only belong to the most powerful wizard around.

But Harry's wand breaking could, if written right, give you a nice springing board for altering his personality more, without anyone crying foul. A bit of foreshadowing with a fight in a corridor, and everyone is amazed at Harry's audacity when he plucks Malfoy's wand out of his hand and then threatens Malfoy with it, have Seamus comment "I guess you'll be needing a wheelbarrow, for carrying your bollocks around, if you're gonna be shooting a wizard with his own wand".

Then when Harry's breaks, he is determined to never feel the terror he does again. He is determined to become strong, or good enough to make the bodycount staggering when he does get taken down. His new attitude is reflected in his wand selection, and Dumbledore expresses mild concern to his long term friend, Alastor Moody, over such a thing.

 

Hmmm. How well is Dual-casting received? Like using two wands. I think it would be rather interesting if one well myself. And, am tempted to include it in this fic.

 

To be honest, I don't see why this needed its own thread.

Normally you request feedback on ideas for fanfics in the Plot Bunny Thread, or write something of appreciable length and post it in the WbA. But that's precisely the problem here, you don't actually have a fully-baked idea; you know nothing about the fic you mean to write aside from a change in Harry's personality and a (bad) point of divergence. Instead you come to us with the broadest query of all, "how to write HP fanfiction".

The kind of problem you face now can be solved in the following way: you lurk, read, find some stories that are without a doubt good, read them closely and carefully and notice all the paragraph- and sentence-level writing techniques they employ, you compare and contrast the good stories between themselves and with the bad ones, understand the amount of original thought and effort that good writers put into their stories; in short, become a discerning reader. Become the sort of person that can answer, rather than ask, the question "what makes a story good", and by extension, the sort of person who understands that there isn't a recipe. Then you develop and refine your own ideas for fics, wait for awesome plot bunnies to spring into your head, imagine a rough outline for your story. Finally, you sit down and write the whole thing. Then we can talk.

Right now? You can't even fill three chapters with what you know about your fic so far. Or if you do they would be uninspired and dragged-out. There are a lot of steps in between finding something you don't like about canon, and writing your own fic. You say you want to avoid cliches, yet you cannot create a story out of its "negative space", out of the things you choose not to include. If its main selling point, the best thing you can say about your story is that at least it doesn't make use of cliches, well... Also, the fact that you know what Harry's wand is made of, but not what happens throughout the first book and the degree to which it resembles canon, is a warning sign.

Finally, your specific ideas. One, a story featuring an asshole protagonist is like an athlete with a handicap competing with able-bodied people; you have to be twice as good as it is normally demanded of you to pull it off. It is much harder to garner sympathy for your protagonist from the readers when your POV character isn't even trying, and an unskilled writer is prone to unwittingly make the audience cheer for the antagonist. Two, Snape's old Potions textbook is for sixth years. Canon Harry wasn't even able to answer Snape's questions in their first class which apparently could have been easily answered if he'd bothered to skim the textbook beforehand. That's an awful lot of disbelief you're asking us to suspend. Three, it would be absurd for an eleven year old to focus exclusively on combat magic as if they're knowingly readying for some big, challenging conflict. Right now the targets of his hatred are the Dursleys and not Voldemort. It doesn't take much magic to scare a Muggle witless or even hurt them; remember the Death Eaters in GoF shocking everybody by merely levitating a bunch of Muggles. They levitated them. Not a single scratch caused. And everybody basically regarded it as torture. Even a simple Hovering Charm can reduce a Muggle to a wizard's plaything, give him a taste of how much more powerful the wizard is. The point is, neglecting non-combat spells and magical knowledge is a serious liability. Either your Harry is a sadistic little shit with all of Bellatrix's desire to cause pain but none of her imagination, or you're doing something wrong. Hint: you're doing something wrong either way.

From me you get the advice I would give all the hundreds of writers that did the same thing before you: you think you have a premise but you don't, so wait until you develop more of a premise.

 

Present mostly in bad indy!Harry fics. Never seen it done well.

We just established what a special bond you have with your wand, now you have two? And since no two wands are identical, you already have some compatibility problems there.

Also, it just doesn't work in practice. What would dual-casting actually do? Shoot the same spell from both wands, so it's like double effect? If it'd actually work, everybody would be doing it.

I don't recommend going this route.

 

Like I said, at the beginning his mindset is merely to be the top dog. He's not going to train for combat and all that shit. He's looking for some good spells, that he can use to cause people damage if they come at him.

The way he grew up hardens him. And, he refused to bow down to Dudley and his gang so why would he bow down to a bunch of wizards he's supposedly the savior of? He'll be pretty good in a scrap, coming mostly from fighting with Dudley's gang for a few years and being outnumbered every time.

Sure, at the start of first year he could probably get by not knowing much magic. Because the likes of Malfoy won't know it either. Then he can just physically belt the little twerps face in.

But then, what if the older years come at him aswell? And that's what Harry's mindset is all about. He wants to be top dog, so he can defend himself and not worry about being bullied around or getting a beating ever again.

He's likely to ask what kind of combat oriented spells they learn at Hogwarts. And, will then know the older years know some of this shit. So in his first lesson when he's learning how to turn a matchstick into a needle.

His thoughts will generally be along the lines of, 'Fuck that shit!'

And it's not just spells for combat he'll want to learn. If he finds any interesting spells, he's gonna attempt to learn them aswell.

That's what any realistic person would do in his situation, anyway.

And anyway I'm pretty sure there is only one potions lab. He could find the book in their easily enough by mistake.

He'd pluck that sucker clean of the spells and then toss it like yesterdays garbage.

But still this is only his 11 year old mindset. By the time he hits 12, puberty will have kicked in and testosterone city will be built. That's when his personality will start to branch out.

As for posting in the wrong place. Sorry, I thought this was the right place my bad. Any tips on how I would get it transferred to the proper place?

And while I was thinking on my plot. I did ask specific questions earlier on how I should go about writing a good Hp fanfiction.

---------- Post automerged at 07:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:24 PM ----------

That's a good point. But, I was only thinking along the lines of using it in his weak hand for simple spells that do not require complex wand motions. For isntance, shielding with that wand while attacking with his true wand.

Bu, you're right. It would be pretty hard to write well, and I'm not quite that good. :awesome

 

That was my first thought, before I realized how stupid that is. Casting two different spells at the same time through two different wands is like, you better have a serious MPD and a split mind for that to work. And if you cast one spell a time, why need two wands when you can cast everything with one wand?

 

I realized how flawed it was after like 2 seconds of thinking on it. If he was constantly shielding with one wand, then how could he attack with the other while keeping that shield up?

Felt like a right retard when I noticed it.

 

Another common cliche. Rude, irreverent Harry whose attitude resembles what the author would want Harry to have adopting the lingo of a brash 17 year old high school kid. Not that he can't have that attitude (especially a few years later), but its expression shouldn't be so...Muggle.

If you want him to have that attitude, show it through his actions and non-verbal expression, not overt dialog.

The HBP potions book was 6th Year NEWT level potions. Most of its unique contents were handwritten notes on better potion making, which was what attracted Harry to the notes in the magins in the first place. 1st year Harry would not find that worth investigating.

If you want Harry to happen upon a cache of offensive spells, I think you need a better excuse. And having Harry find the HBP's first year book won't really be any better, at that time there's no reason for Snape to have developed any such spells, or even the ability to do so. If 1st year Snape could make them up, why not just have 1st year Harry do it?

My opinion: If you don't have a clear writing goal in mind, don't start writing a multi-year HP fic. That's why 99% of what's on ff.net sucks. Someone has an idea of writing about "Awesome Harry" or "Dark Harry" or "Loverboy Harry" but no actual story to write him in, and it shows.

Before you even start, think of an adventure or an interesting moment in time that you want to focus your story around. Go read the Plot Bunny thread and skim it for an idea that you like and that you can finish in a short time. DON'T TRY TO WRITE A BOOK SERIES. Don't even try to write a book. Write a short story that is just as long as it needs to be for you to write out the idea you have in mind.

If you can successfully write two stories of around 6000 words or so with a coherent plot and decent characterization, then maybe consider going for a novel length story. But only if you have a concept that would take that much space to write.

There's nothing wrong with using dual wands, but nothing particularly special about it, either. Sounds like a gimmick done to appear cool to little kids. There can be a justification for it, though:

1. Harry has a dual nature--his own Harry magic, and horcrux influenced dark magic. Harry finds it easier to cast his own magic with one wand and the Voldemort infused magic with another.

2. Harry finds two wands that are both well suited to him, but each has a specialization. One is good for charms, another for transfiguration (or some such).

If you do include this, there should be a plot reason for it, not just for the "cool" factor.

 

It looks to me that you are doing a rehash of the books. What I find annoying and frankly boring at this point in time is that many stories change Harry, but never really alter the plot to compensate.

A good story is about conflict. Harry wanting to be powerful and scouring the library is boring. He wants to be powerful, that is his goal, and fears showing weakness (sounds like a slytherin harry to me). Now to make it compelling you need to put this in conflict. Give Harry set backs where he has to overcome his fear to achieve his goal. This will build character and not make the plot boring as shit. It will add some flavor to your plot and hopefully won't be harry 2.0 going through the motions of PoS.

Then in the next book you will need to come up with another fear, maybe he did something he fears Dumbledore will discover and he will be expelled. I dunno, the point is, if you are going to rehash the books, make it interesting.