Title: The Horror at Raven Creek
Author: red_jaguar a.k.a. jaguarweasley
Rating: R
Genre: Mystery, Horror, Action/Adventure
DLP category: Dark Arts (will feature heavily in final chapters)
Pairing: None
Status: Work-in-progress
Summary:In the middle of the English countryside, isolated from the rest of the world by a depressing maze of grey and crooked trees, lies the small town of Raven Creek. However, away from being a cosy and calm place to live in, Raven Creek holds a terrible secret: for generations, children from Raven Creek and nearby towns have disappeared to never be seen again. Join Auror trainee Teddy Lupin in his first mission ever, as he and his mentor try to unravel the dark secrets surrounding this haunted place.
Link:http://www.patronuscharm.net/s/253/1/

Greetings:

This is my most recent work of fanfiction, right now is a work-in-progress, and after I got some very helpful advice on another fic of mine, I decided to submit this to your judging in the hopes of improving what needs to be improved to give the remaining chapters a better overall quality.

A few facts from this fic:
1.- Follows canon completely, except by two facts: Ron has lost half of his right arm by the time of DH epilogue; and Harry became Chief Auror after 20 years on the force, instead of ten. The latter is simply because I found out about the true fact a bit too late.
2.- It's a post-Hogwarts fic.
3.- It will run from 12 to 15 chapters, five are already published and the sixth one is the oven.
4.- Sorry, but it's not Harry-centric; the main character is Teddy Lupin.
5.- It features an OC as a major character, with the main canon characters and few others OC's serving supporting roles and cameos.

With that aside, enjoy and let me know your opinion.

-The Jaguar.

 

You're assuming that if someone is willing to read a non-Harry-centric story, they want to story exclusively about original characters, and you have done your best to oblige.

The first chapter is brutal. Some random OCs, Ted and Victoire (little more than OCs themselves), and when Harry actually does get a token scene to himself, it is spent reminiscing after Ted, so his appearance does nothing to appease.

The Auror test was your opportunity to make a tour-de-force of creativity.

From canon, only Tracking and Stealth from canon are named, but doubtlessly a creative author could have fleshed the rest of the training out.

A final test intuitively should force the prospective Aurors to show their mastery of all aspects of their training. Like how every course in high school to college culminates in a cumulative exam.

You just took Combat and Survival.

Which, while suitable, for a midterm, is lacking for the finale.

I recommend removing the blue hair altogether. Even though you meant it as a joke, it offers no humor value, and Ted changes it anyway. It is pointless, and you risk losing readers before the end of the first sentence. At least the Japanese anime characters are cheerfully at peace with their raging homosexuality.

Anyway, not engaging enough for me to continue past the first chapter so I will refrain from rating. Your writing style is fine, but it seems as if you aren't interested in attracting readers.

 

1 star.

My problem with this story is your appalling misuse of geography and places.

As far as I know, the term "creek" in the UK is normally reserved for tidal bodies. Your use is more of an American term, which doesn't work here. You should have used a more British word such as stream, or maybe even pill, which would have changed the name to Ravenstream or Ravenspill.

Sentinel Mountains in the UK??? They're an Antarctic chain. Why not the Pennines? Besides which, you specifically mention Aylesbury in relationship to the mountains, and it's located in Buckinghamshire and is not far from London-- which is not located near the Pennines much less the Sentinels.

I can deal with people who are out of character, but not stories with no sense of place or in this case, a badly manufactured place.

If you're going to use geographical terminology in your story, my advice to you is to first learn about British geography before writing.

 

Greetings:

Once again, I appreciate the comments, as I said before, my intention is to improve my overall writing, maybe it's too late for this fic, but hopefully the critiques are useful so I won't become the Ed Wood of fan fiction.

I can'r excuse myself from Andromalius justified dislike of the abundace of OC's in the story. I thought that, since we were setting in a new genetration, with a new hero (at least for the fic) we needed a few new elements. Maybe I over did it, sorry.

As for the Auror evaluation, maybe I forgot to make it clear, but my intention of what would be the steps into becoming a true Auror are not just passing through the tests. There is no final test, which covers all the possible aspects of an Auror's career, because the last stage of learning is done in 'real life situations' under a qualified Auror as personal mentor. So, the fic is, in itself, Teddy's actual final test.

Now, answering to knothead. I acknowledge the misuse of the word creek, I usually keep a strong watch from any americansm from passing by, but I guess I never suspected about this one.

As for the geography issues, well, I never thought of this to be an issue. I always considered the core setting for this story as a 'fictional setting'. I know there are no Sentinel Mountains in England, I know there are several towns named Aylesbury and none fits the location given here. I already knew that. I thought it really didn't matter if I created a small 'fictional corner' for the story to happen.

- The Jaguar.

 

You thought wrong.

1/5 for OC's, piss poor geography, and the fact that I just don't like it.

 

This is offtopic for the story, but if you're looking for a resource to accurately map out physical locations for your stories, Google Earth does wonders for me.

For my Chuck/BtVS xover, I've printed out satellite images with street maps overlaid of the Los Angeles region, West Africa and Brazil. Visuals do help.

Edit: To clarify, I know that LA, West Africa and Brazil are not equivalent in area nor importance. Those are just the scales of the maps I printed.

 

Red Jaguar-- Please read what Sesc has written. I agree with him to the point where I don't believe I need to include additional examples or thoughts of my own regarding this subject.

 

Greetings:

Alright, point taken, you don't like the OC's in this one, neither me messing up with the geography of England at my own free will. I see you reasons and they are valid.

In my defence, I usually do investigate the geography of places I write about, I only overlooked that in this particular work because I inteded a fictional setting since the beginning.

Now, I understand the following statements might gain me some stones thrown at me but I will say it. It is especially adressed to sesc's final statement on his/her post.

By no means I intend to compare myself to the Great Master of the Macabre from Providence, but H.P. Lovecraft just wouldn't be the same if he had settled for Providence, instead of providing us with Arkham. What would the Cthulhu Mythos be today without Innsmouth or Dunwich?

If someone doesn't know what I am talking about, you don't have to do anything too complicated, only type HP Lovecraft in wikipedia and that's a good start. Then, read some of his works, and after that you can come and say to my face there is absolutely no point in creating a town as the setting for a story.

- The Jaguar.

 

Don't worry, you won't become the Ed Wood of fan fiction. Ed Wood's movies are actually good in a train wreck sort of way. Plan 9 from Outer Space for example is so bad that it is amazing....You don't have that skill.

Also, 1/5 for reasons already listed above.

 

Here is the difference: A lot of Lovecraft Country is obviously a fictional setting or is also obviously thinly veiled. Harry Potter takes place in a setting expected by readers to be mostly real (with exceptions made for Godric's Hollow, for example) unless specifically stated/understood to be magical, which you've not done with "Raven Creek."

Now that you mention Lovecraft, I begin to wonder if you've borrowed Aylesbury from him. If so, you'd have been better off choosing or even contriving another name for the town. After all, Lovecraft made sure not to use real names of cities in the same area as fictional cities.

I think what you're trying to do is to have a pseudo-Lovecraft story with characters from Harry Potter. The problem is though that the characters (even your OCs) are strongly associated with England-- both magical and real-- so much so that this story is not a believable crossover between the Harry Potter universe and your fictional pseudo-Lovecraftian creation.