Title:Tom Riddle and the Hard Times
Author: poultanzas
Rating: K+
Genre: Gritty realism
Status: WIP
Library Category: The Alternates
Pairings: none
Summary: A little experiment with a non-psychopathic Riddle.
Link:https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8897631/1/Tom-Riddle-and-the-Hard-Times

I've been working on this for a little while, with the intention of putting it up here once it got to a decent enough length for you guys to actually see where I'm going with things.

It's an attempt to stick as close to canon as possible while making the Death Eaters the good guys - that consists of two threads, the first, covering Tom's childhood, and the second, starting just after The Goblet of Fire.

 

Just a quick note: The WBA (Work by Authors) is for authors who are looking for advice or criticism on their work. Since that seems to be what you're looking for, you should post on the WBA. You can even do so before you have 20k words!

The review board is supposed to be a the place where fics get rated and accordingly placed in the library or shipped back, a sort of doorway to DLPs archive.

Now to actually read your piece ...

 

Starting the fic with a torture/murder scene probably isn't the best way to go about this. At this point the best you can hope for is showing the Order/Ministry/Dumbledore as evil as well. And evil!Dumbledore is very difficult to pull off.

Having them do it without magic is also also very strange.

Incidentally, you've spelled "Bellatrix" incorrectly in the first line of the fic. And a couple of paragraphs later, Lucius says "Whose next?". "Whose" is the possessive ("Whose bag is that?"). You want "who's", the contraction of "who is". And there should be a line break between different characters speaking.

Also, "gritty realism" is not a genre.

 

>someone

Never noticed that board before. Wish I'd posted it there, now, as I seem to have a typo habit.

>Taure

I too dislike evil Dumbledore stories, so I was going for a sort of 'man of his time' Dumbledore. For instance, Churchill, while not an evil man, was enough of a man of his time to organize concentration camps in South Africa. That way, I can combine a twinkling-eyed grandfather with villain, I think.

 

I should start off by saying that I do not write much and English is my second language. Therefore I don't typically give much advice since other people tend to say what I am trying to say much better due to better knowledge of English and better writing skills.

That being said, I think certain sections of your story use a very large amount of dialogue. In fact certain sections are almost entirely dialogue. For example, this continuous block in chapter 2:

Another example:

Usually when I see a lot of dialogue like this it gets kind of boring or I lose track of who is saying what. The fact that you seem jump around a lot in the story adds to my confusion.

Additionally, the rapid succession of short lines seems a little abrupt or quick. (I may be using the wrong word here.) When I see a lot of dialogue usually the story "picks up pace" or "speeds up." In the scenes where you put a lot of dialogue they tend to be calmer scenes. This is particularly noticeable since the scenes with battles tend to use less dialogue and therefore seem "slower."

Instead of using this much dialogue maybe put more scene descriptors to show what is going on. For example, some description of Tom's impatience or frustration that they can't see what he sees or his worry about what the flash could be.

Incidentally, see should be sea. You refer to "another flash" but I don't see any original flash that Tom saw.

 

Story with this amount of typos is below Library Quality. I will not rate it as I dropped it after reaching "Belatrix". Here is list of blatantly obvious typos appearing in this story (list in form of [current word -> correct word (where it appeared)]):

Belatrix => Bellatrix (in chapter 1 "about these things" said Belatrix, as she brought the claw-hammer")
supressed => suppressed (in chapter 1 "of blood adhered to his palm. He supressed a slight shudder at the sight of")
supress => suppress (in chapter 1 "ago, now, but Tom still had to supress a shudder of rage.")
disapeared => disappeared (in chapter 4 "and the flap of grey fabric disapeared from view.")
accademic => academic (in chapter 4 "You're the accademic. I'm just the guy who gets bitten")
spoonfulls => spoonfuls (in chapter 5 "eating indiscriminately, spoonfulls of lard, handfuls of bread. He")
ommitted => omitted (in chapter 5 "a matter Mrs. Cole wouldn't have ommitted to mention - the man would be")
bizzare => bizarre (in chapters 5 "of magic - he had got this…this bizzare invitation to a blatantly", 6 "entering shops that contained the bizzare and the extraordinary. Going into")
ficticious => fictitious (in chapter 5 "bizzare invitation to a blatantly ficticious magic school. It came to his mind")
appologies => apologies (in chapter 5 "them to their owners with your appologies," said the man, "I shall know")
beggining => beginning (in chapter 5 "Cauldron' of all things. Tom was beggining to believe he had a leaky")
preceeded => preceded (in chapter 6 "While the books in the orphanage preceeded from one page to another in dull,")
emminently => eminently (in chapter 6 "off in extremely readable and emminently sensible discussions (which were,")
aroud => around (in chapter 6 "reaction - finding books centered aroud spellwork and theory")
recieved => received (in chapter 6 "ommissions - although, not having recieved much formal schooling in 'muggle'")
comittee => committee (in chapter 6 "further for references to this comittee, Tom found it had been formed in")
foreward => foreword (in chapter 6 "the train" said Amy, shoving him foreward. She didn't like goodbyes.)
appology => apology (in chapter 7 "Tom shrugged an appology, and ducked back out. He")
embarassed => embarrassed (in chapter 8 "after that, they must have been embarassed to change their line. Or thought")
embarassment => embarrassment (in chapter 8 "Hogwarts robes with a twinge of embarassment.")
seperated => separated (in chapter 8 "remember what good was, and what seperated it from bad, but he didn't feel")
satelite => satellite (in chapter 8 "Bring a satelite down on her. That'd end the")
colateral => collateral (in chapter 8 "Too much colateral," said Bella, "Bones lives in the")
exagerated => exaggerated (in chapter 9 "treated this one with a rather exagerated care.")

 

What code is this?

 

Ops, I thought that it would be obvious. It is list of obvious misspellings in this story, in following form:

current word => correct word (where this word appeared)

EDIT: I added explanation

 

From the story I imagined this story being some slash fangirls attempt at being witty and making erection jokes before launching into poorly written smut.

I think this story is almost as bad.

 

Totally thought the full title was going to be "Tom Riddle and the Hard Times at Hogwarts High"

Was disappointed that it wasn't.