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Reviews For Stormcaller
So for the sake of time, I'll touch upon only the mechanical aspects of this chapter. First of all, the beginning of this chapter is a major info-dump. There is way too much dialogue being thrown at us. The first 7-8 paragraphs are all dialogue and it just goes on and on. Harry is talking all about the horrible abuse he suffered. The Dursleys were disgusting, terrible abusers. Christmas is a painful time and the poor kid is scarred for life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We get it. But we don't need his life story. Look at this scene and ask yourself: Do I really need to make sure my readers know all of this? Right now? Can the story just not go on without it? Please read the following link: http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1128563-Dump-the-Information-Dump To be honest, most the readers probably skim that part anyhow, because every other story on this website deal with the same subject matter. Consider sprinkling tidbits of Harry's past throughout the story. Save the info dump for the sequel: "Stormcaller: My Life Story by Harry Potter" Moving on. The following section is very redundant: "Here. Lily, drink this," Severus said, handing her a Calming Draft. She took the vial and asked, "What is it? Something to knock me out?" "No. Something to help you deal with all those runaway emotions. It's a Calming Draft." Yes. We know it's a calming draft. Why? Because you already told us. It would be better worded by saying he handed her a bottle or vial and letting the conversation play out from there. Now, remember how I mentioned POV to you? In your response, you defended your right to do so. Yes, you can, but you are doing it in a completely wrong way. Clearly, head hopping is a major issue for you and one that I'm guessing you don't quite understand. But many other novice writers make the same mistake, and if you understand the error better, you should be able to break this bad habit. Please check out this link. Hopefully it'll make things clearer for you: http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/headhop.shtml Lastly, I highly recommend you look into getting in an experienced beta reader. The aid of a proper beta reader can be a powerful tool, and I think you would reap many benefits from using one. Good luck! :-) Author's Response: Hi, You might think that the beginningof this chapter is not necessary, however I was told by a very good creative writing teache rin college that YOU NEVER ASSUME your readers know anything about your characters or their lives until you tell them about it. Now, I do know that there are many abused Harry stories here, and people read a lot of them, but what if somebody comes into this story and universe cold--never read anything about HP OR my particular take on it. They would have no clue just how bad the abuse was or how much Harry had suffered. Yes, i could break it up, as you say, but think about who Harry is talking to--his mother, and he wants to share what happened to him. It's like a psychology session where you spill your guts to your counselor, you suddenly start talking and everything spills out of you all at once, because you've been hiding it and keeping it in for so long that it's a huge relief to just get it all out in the open. He doesn't want to have to revisit over and over and reveal things a little at a time, he wants it all out in the open so it's done and over with. That's why I wrote the scene the way I did. And I've seen plenty of published authors use this device to have a certain character tell a story or something from their own viewpoint. I want people to see inside Harry's head and see how this affected him, because readers don't always know what a character thinks or feels and they need to get that perspective. If readers have already read this stort of story before and feel like skimming it, fine. They can do so. But it's there so other readers, maybe who aren't familiar with abused Harry and have never read or even experinced this sort of abuse can understand it. Without a detailed description, how could that be possible? If I just said, oh they threw him in the cupboard, it's not the same as describing how awful the cupboard was, it doesn't give you the same feeling of horror, of fear, and that's what I want people to feel. The Calming Draft, yes, I could alter that, but Severus was speaking to Lily and telling her what it was, sometimes things are repeated not for the reader's sake, but the character's sake. A lot of times I've seen other authors do this, especially when writing mystery novels. Very often the reader knows before the character in the story what happened to whoever, but they still need to follow the character as they figure it out and sometimes it can be a little repetitive. Is it really that big a deal? I will look at the link you mentioned. I have had several beta readers and they have looked over my chapters before and said that they were fine, minus a few grammatical errors and typos. Once again, I will ask, are you reading this story just to edit it, or for fun? Because I would hope that you're getting some kind of enjoyment out of it. So far you've yet to mention anything positive about the plot, the characters or anything that you thought was good or that you found interesting or enjoyable. Is there anything that you LIKE about this story? Because all you've been doing is pointing out flaws. It might be more helpful if you also said a few things that were positive as well. When I review others work, I try and mix pointing out mistakes with some positive comments, so the author feels that they did some things well and some things they need to work on. If you would like to help, as you say, then try telling me what I did that was good as well as not good.
Thanks for the update. V.
Author's Response: Thank you! If you'll read the next chapter, you'll see what happens
Author's Response: Okay! I have just posted another chapter for you!
Author's Response: Thanks so much! I really appreciate that. Here's more for you to read as I've posted another chapter!
Let's hope the Ministry leaves them alone so they can go to Snape's place. |
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