Point of no return

Subject: Point of no return
Author: anamia
Posted on: 2010-01-06 19:17:00 UTC

Mkay, so I was recently asked to beta a story. Filled with good intentions, I sgreed, and have been reading through it.

And it's Gods-awfully bad. The writing is bad. The author seems not to have realized that you need end punctuation within quotation marks or at the end of questions or after dialogue tags. I suppose I should be grateful that she puts them at the end of her exposition. She also uses no contractions. While in exposition that's perfectly fine, it doesn't work in dialogue. They all sound stilted and flat.

Now, this I could deal with. After all, she's not a native English speaker, and this is what betas are for: to catch such things and correct them. However, the actual story itself is... well, allow me to summarize:

In chapter one, Harry spends his time moping and crying. He is then almost killed by Vernon, who talks almost exclusively IN CAPS WITH NO EXCLAMATION MARKS. He (Harry) blacks out after falling down the stairs (and wearing a bandage around a broken arm that he ties with his feet...) and Petunia sends Vernon and Dudley out of the house and sends a note to Dumbledore.

Dumbledore recieves the note, cries about it, and brings the four heads of house plus madam pomphrey to find and rescue Harry. They find that Vernon had also been hitting Petunia and Dudley, and they're taken to a safe house while Harry is sent to the Infirmary at Hogwarts.

Now, up until now, I could cope with this. It's cliché, but not Gods-awful. But when Harry wakes up in Hogwarts, he is informed that the Heads of House will be teaching him uber-advanced magic which Dumbledore expects him to master in a week. (Is it just me, or is Harry not actually all that brilliant in the books?) He and Snape have a reconciliation which ends with SNAPE CRYING (gag) and Harry telling him that it's okay.

Then, Harry recieves a note from the ghost of Godric Gryffindor and goes to see him, finding out (big surprise) that he's the heir of Gryffindor. He spends the night with the ghost learning uber-advanced Transfigurations and DADA (as it's called throughout the entire fic). He emerges in the morning as one of the most powerful wizards alive and merges his wand with Godric's. Then, he is offered the post of DADA teacher for the next year (keep in mind: he's sixteen. It takes place right after OOTP).

If all that wasn't bad enough, the next night he finds out that he's also the Heir of Hufflepuff. I haven't gotten any farther, but I'm willing to bet all the galleons I wish I owned that he is also Heir to Slytherin and Ravenclaw. And that he will become uber-powerful Harry who Defeats Evil With A Single Stroke and then angsts about it in his room. (He's barely stopped crying yet. It's getting excessive. And pathetic.)

So, basically, if any of you were asked to beta this, would you even try to save it? I feel bad telling the author to kill it dead, but that's what I want to do to the stupid thing. I want to send it the agents who have not yet been aproved (and who probably won't work in DMS anyway) and have them kill it. Multiple times. -sigh- Is it bad of me to not think this can be salvaged?

Sorry to ramble on. I just needed to complain a bit.
--anamia

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Point of no return by anamia on 2010-01-06 19:17:00 UTC

I tried to read some of the sequel. by Cinnia Aine on 2010-01-08 12:00:00 UTC Reply

It did not go well. It seems slightly better than the first, but only by a little bit, which would probably be the fact that there's no reason for Harry to get more powerful because there seems to be no evil. As one of the reviews pointed out in the first one, the story is like a marshmallow. Or a giant bag of frosted marshmallows. When the story opened up by having Petunia and Harry have a heart-to-heart, loving conversation, I winced and stopped reading. (Just to clarify, I did not read the first one. I decided not to risk my canon-loving brain.) This person seems to me as if she wants a happy ending to the series, but is greatly misguided.

Nothing wrong with happy endings, but... by anamia on 2010-01-08 16:47:00 UTC Reply

It helps if they're in the context of the canon. I can actually see a reconciliation between Harry and Petunia, but it would take some doing. It would be interesting and I've seen it done very well, but not instant bonding. -sigh-

You missed very little by not reading the first except possibly the opportunity to drink rather too much bleepka. I read through chapter 7 and needed rather a lot. And I don't drink.

Ooh, that's a good description of it. Marshmallows. I'll have to remember that. It sounds like a fairly decent charge as well. 'Turning the story into a marshmallow.'

I too like to write happy endings, and I like to read them. But there's a difference between happy and gag-inducing.

--anamia

Yikes. by Neshomeh on 2010-01-06 19:58:00 UTC Reply

Um... I guess the first thing to ask yourself is, is this person a friend of yours?

If so, you might want to be diplomatic about it so as not to hurt the friendship. Point out all the stuff you just said here, but nicely. If possible.

If this person is NOT a friend of yours, then tell it like it is. It is your opinion as a reader--one whose opinions the writer deliberately solicited--that this is not a story you would want to read, and here's why. Come back when you know better.

If the writer posts it anyway, then if/when you get Permission, feel free to PPC the heck out of it. {= P

~Neshomeh

Never met her by anamia on 2010-01-06 20:17:00 UTC Reply

Yikes is right. And it only gets worse. Harry is now in posession of 2450 million galleons. He gave 10kk away to each of his friends (who took it, even though Ron doesn't take charity), and Minerva is overjoyed at knowing such a wonderful person.

As for the author, I have no idea who she is. I'm a registered beta on ff.net, so I assume she found me through there.

-sigh- And she has posted it. One of those people who asks for a beta after she's posted. It's called Harry Potter and the Guardian of Hogwarts, and is by Stormy FireDragon on ff.net, if you're interested and/or masocistic.

I would, but my agents want to work in DBS and DIC, and this story is neither. I hereby offer it to anyone who wants to tackle it. Though I do want a link to the mission, if anyone does take it. -grins-

--anamia

Re: Never met her by Pads on 2010-01-06 20:34:00 UTC Reply

Ooo, another one for the DBS? Excellent! We are vastly understaffed.

And yeah, that fic sounds... Well. I suppose it could be rescued, with a lot of work. But if it's already been posted I doubt the author will want to put that much effort in.

I doubt it. by Sedri on 2010-01-06 22:18:00 UTC Reply

The best way to rescue that story would be to shred it, pulp it, and recycle it into scrap paper on which to write notes for the new version. That's just awful.

In any case, anamia, if she's already posted that gives you a fairly good excuse for refusing, but I second Neshomeh in that you should tell her the truth - tactfully, but without saying things like "but it's okay", because it's not (and because I made that mistake once and it only leads to Bad Things).

Re: I doubt it. by Pads on 2010-01-07 01:31:00 UTC Reply

It's a cliche to end all cliches, that story, but look at the best parodies - they take the cliches, run with them, and turn them into something funny. It could still work. Or the author and the beta could sit with it, hour by hour, for weeks, tackling every problem, and by the end there'd be a story, without the cliches. It just wouldn't resemble what there is now. Either way, something would have been rescued. It is possible.

Just... horribly, horribly unlikely.

I wash my hands of the thing by anamia on 2010-01-07 22:53:00 UTC Reply

In the process of composing a tactful but firm note to the author telling her what I think of her masterpiece. It has to be tactful, since she seems to be highly sensitive. (She pulled the whole story down when someone criticized her dialogue. This to me seems irrational, since she clearly didn't edit much else, and if this is better dialogue, I'd hate to see the old version.)

Anyway, thanks for the advice. Pads, while I agree that it could possibly be done, I personally don't have the time to help her rescue the stupid thing, and it's certainly not a parody. If she wants rescuing, she can find someone else.

Oh, and yep, my prospective agents want to be in DBS. Currently working on profiles for them so that I'll have something to post when my month is up. Looking forward to working with you.

--anamia

Good on you :) by Sedri on 2010-01-08 02:26:00 UTC Reply

She'll probably throw a fit when she gets that note regardless, and I suggest you ignore it. That sort of behaviour reminds me of the kind of children who know that screaming and crying will get them attention and make other people do their work for them, so she'll probably try it. Still, good on you :)

well, she answered by anamia on 2010-01-08 16:23:00 UTC Reply

No, she didn't throw a fit. She thanked me for my positive advice and said that no one had done it constructively before. That actually makes me wonder if she really understood what I was saying. Because nothing I said about her story was positive. At all. Tactful, yes. Polite, of course. But positive? No. What I said, and I quote, is: "Concerning Guardian: I've started reading it. I don't know what you're looking for in terms of comments from me, but I'll tell you right away that it's not looking likely that I'll finish. No offense meant, but it's not the kind of story I like. You've written Harry into a fairly catastrophic Mary Sue, and I can't see a good way to fix that without drastically and completely changing the entire story around. It could be done, but I'm not sure either of us have the time it would take to give it such a complete makeover. I know that I, unfortunately, don't."

This to me does not sound especially positive. It's a rejection letter, or so I thought...

Of course, I did go on to give her tips as to how to improve her writing, so maybe that's what she meant. But teaching someone about the uses of punctuation within quotation marks is hardly positive. (Apparently no one else has mentioned the lack. That makes me wince. Something like, "Where in the name of all that's holy are we" Harry asked, should not be ignored. -sigh-) And then I taught her my slash writing techniques, since she'd asked for them.

Oh well. I'll probably keep corresponding with her since it's the polite thing to do, but I'm not going to bother reading any of her stuff anymore. Though, I suppose I should be grateful, since her fic has been very entertaining. It gave my WriYe friends and I endless entertainment as we ripped it to shreds yesterday. -grins-

--anamia

WriYe? by Neshomeh on 2010-01-09 18:18:00 UTC Reply

Is that like a year-long version of NaNoWriMo or something? Do tell.

~Neshomeh, who has dreams of writing novels, but needs a kick in the pants in lieu of actual ambition and drive.

exactly by anamia on 2010-01-10 03:08:00 UTC Reply

WriYe is indeed a year long version of nanowrimo. You should come check it out. We're all very nice and have much fun.

Homepage: http://wriye.co.nr/
Forums: http://wriye.proboards.com/

We also have an AIM chatroom called 'wriyebuddies.'

--anamia, who is much the same and is delighted to find more people to recruit.

Well, that's good, at least. by Sedri on 2010-01-08 22:28:00 UTC Reply

It's never nice to leave a Potential Mortal Enemy seething at an insult ;) Even if she was just trying to be polite herself, it show more maturity on her part than I would have expected. Ah, well. At least you had fun with your friends. :)