I have read your workshops, and saved them onto my computer, so I can access them whenever.

In particular, the first two about agent building and speech I found greatly useful. The Challenge at the bottom helped me get a lot of scenarios in with Doom/Gloom, and workout some details I did not think of at first with her.

The mission writing one you made, as well as the on HG posted I am utilizing right now, actually. Me and Miah have a perfect fic picked out (for DBSing, anyway) and are taking that approach.

While I am not sure my older methods for ficbits (3 yearsish ago), and such, my current style is copying the fic to google Docs, then leaving a comment over every line that sticks out for any reason to highlight the important bits. After that I think on why it sticks out, and write in what I want to comment on it, and which agent would be best to point out the uncanon bit, or how bad something is. After that I try the wisecracks, and looking for those fun, FUN lines that cause silly things to appear via literalness.

A bit late to reply to all of them, but thank you either way for them! I'll be sure to save the list for the next mission, if you would like to see it, and also so I can refer to it for the next fic, and so on.

...the third one actually helped me create an agent. I think I might have already had a bit of an idea for her, but your workshop helped me develop her a lot more, to the point where I have many character notes, a bit of a character study, and most of the set-up for a short mission. Apart from that, they're just plain interesting; I read 4A, and will probably test out the techniques you mentioned at some point.

Also, no, you don't sound arrogant. You tend to bring up things I haven't considered, actually, and that's definitely interesting. So yeah, thanks. I'm going to have a look at the first two now.

You can do what you like, of course, but I'm pretty sure I've benefited from the two workshops I've read. I just...don't always have time to comment before, say, the thread drops off the front page. No apathy here.

~DF

PoorCynic, I'm aware that this is still not what you expect. I post it here before this thread falls off the page again, so that somebody may learn from it. I hope I can finish this and post Part 3 within some more days.(Note: if this weren't for the workshop, my notes would be much shorter and probably incomprehensible for anybody but me.)

I skimmed through some of the stories on the unclaimed badfic list for reasons.

Selecting a fic just for its shortness may not be the best idea, but I cannot drag this out over months, so here is my pre-writing process for Rose’s Visit.

Caution! I will try to keep this family friendly, but the source is rated M, and we may need to talk about trivialization of sex, violence, murder and child abuse.

When I skimmed it, I noticed (from the top of my head)
- Harmonian theory, which shouldn’t infuriate me when it’s based on canon evidence
- Time travel
- Character bashing
- A wrong birth-date for Rose Weasley, which may be something to work with, and is the reason why this fic, that looks quite unmissionable on first glance, went onto the list of four fics I decided to explore further.

The first real read through (no notes taken) confirmed all my suspicions and revealed some additional problems. Short look on the questions for reading as a reader:
- What works? As far as I remember: nothing.
- What doesn’t? Everything, but specifically basing Harmony on blatant lies about canon and throwing Ron and Hermione out of character to "proof" how bad their marriage will be. Also, unexplained time travel.
- Are there any scenes that boggle your mind with how bad they are? Possibly Hermione "explaining" to Harry what love is, making him realize that he loves her. But the rest is so bad as well that it doesn’t really stick out.
- How are the original characters, if there are any? Technically, there aren’t any, but I’m sure that Rose is a Replacement. And she certainly sounds more like a whiny Harmonian still mourning her defeat in the shipping wars and complaining about everything that sucks in the sixth and seventh book than like what she is supposed to be in the fic.

Now going to read it again, taking notes.

Outlines and Notes, first draft

(Since there are no chapters, I’m breaking this up by paragraphs or blocks of paragraphs.)

(1)
After the battle of Hogwarts, mourning in the Great Hall. Half-sentence flashback to Hermione kissing Ron, then scene shift to Harry lying on his bed.
- I’m not sure how much this will throw the agents around until they realize that this just establishes Harry’s POV and we have seen his thoughts about the situation. If it cannot be played for laughs, they may prefer to enter the fic at the second paragraph.

(2 – 5)
Harry and Hermione had left the Great Hall and went to their respective dormitories, but they cannot sleep, so Hermione visits Harry and occupies Ron’s bed. They chat for a while. Just before they doze off, an old woman appears in a bright silver light.
- Hermione should be in the Great Hall with the Weasleys. [Check DH, but I’m quite sure.]
- H. and H. cannot see the agents arriving, but since "Rose" is a Sue, the agents should hide before she appears. Under a bed across the room from Harry and Ron’s beds? Dean’s bed, identified by the Westham United poster?

(6 – 9)
The Sue identifies as 143 years old Rose Weasley and claims that she used Hermione’s "notes to get back" in time because she wanted to talk to her parents.
- No idea what this means. Did Hermione leave her daughter notes about time travel?

(10 – 16)
Rose-Sue begins with the Weasley-bashing and claims that Harry is her father. She talks in breathless run-on sentences, and this spills over to the narrative.
- [Reread check: was the narrative this way from the start?]
- How does this affect the agents?
- Also, a misspelled Horcrux’s (meant to be plural) may give them something to do while they hide under the bed.

(17 – 18) I have to quote this:
Harry and Hermione turned to look at each other; nodded and then turned back to listen to what Rose had to say.

"Can you please keep in mind what you just did, that talking with out words..."
- Does she imply that Harry and Hermione did this in canon all the time, and that this is a sign of their true love? I thought I know my canon, but I don’t remember a single incident where this happened. (I do remember a scene in the third book where it happened with Harry and Ginny!) Unfortunately the Sue doesn’t quote canon lines I could argue with. Must I now reread the entire seven books to see whether she may have a point somewhere, or can I just charge her with blatantly lying about canon and be right because she doesn’t defend her position?

(18 – 19)
Rose-Sue claims that Harry, after seeing Hermione kissing Ron, was so devastated that he intended to commit suicide by Voldemort, because "he had no more reason to fight", and somehow she holds the Dursleys responsible for this, because Hermione of all people was too stupid and too un-empathic to understand how badly living with the Dursleys had affected Harry.
- Canon check: Harry’s thought’s while he walked to his sacrifice. Agent Hieronymus would love to quote them at the Sue, if he finds the time to do it.
- Is this the place to joke about this version of Hermione having the emotional range of a tea spoon? [check exact quote]

(20 – 21)
Rose-Sue claims that Harry doesn’t know how to show love, and that what he feels for Hermione is love, and that he couldn’t stand being touched by people, except Hermione, whose hand he hold every night while she was petrified.
- This didn’t happen in CS, so she is blatantly lying about canon. [Canon check: Did Harry touch petrified Hermione once, when he took the piece of parchment out of her hand, or was this Ron?]

(22)
Rose-Sue is foretelling the future now. "In the not to distant future" Rose will be conceived when Hermione and Harry will realise their "real true love" and promptly have sex. Hermione wrote about it in her journals, but she didn’t reveal what caused the big realisation. Harry asked Hermione to marry him. Also, Harry never asked Ginny, somehow she just pushed him into marriage.
- Canon check: how old is Rose in the epilogue. I’m sure she should be conceived several years after the battle of Hogwarts. Since this doesn’t qualify as not too distant future, Rose-Sue certainly isn’t the canonical Rose.
- Obviously Stupid!Hermione didn’t consider that Ron might read her journal and find out that she slept with Harry. But aren’t you supposed to put your thoughts into your diary, not just a plain description of the day’s events? Why didn’t she say anything about how she and Harry realised their "real true love"? (Because Rose-Sue has no imagination and just wanted it to happen, but that’s beside the point.)
- Since we already established that Rose-Sue lies, I suppose that Hermione’s journals say actually nothing about the big realisation, because it will not happen. But since Rose-Sue exists, something must have happened, so the secret that Hermione doesn’t reveal in her journal is probably that she and Harry had sex and Harry asked her to marry him just because a time traveller had told them that this had to happen because it had already happened.
- Also, I have some problems with tenses in these notes. We may need a Time-Lord to sort this out.

(23)
Further foretelling the future, Hermione, following a misguided sense of loyalty and obligation, will disregard her newly discovered "real true love" and marry Ron anyway, because she already promised and doesn’t want to hurt the Weasleys’ feelings.
- Being a Gryffindor, Hermione should actually be guided by honour (she’s a sort of knight, right?), and her sense of honour might misguide her in a Victorian way. But I can’t blame her for being stupid here. A time traveller told her that she will marry Ron because it already happened in the future, and Hermione is not as stupid as to temper with history. (Time-Lords, help me!)

(24 – 25)
Only days after Rose-Sue is born, Ron will start to beat his wife. Twenty years in the future, the Weasleys will do nothing to stop Ron when he beats his wife to death, because, as Molly says it, she’s "just a mudblood and therefore [...] must deserve it". Harry will try to rescue Hermione and will be stabbed by Rose’s evil half-brother Hugo. The Weasleys will make up a story about Harry and Hermione killing each other.
- Is Ron’s wife really Hermione? Why doesn’t she hex him to Tibet? Or at least grab her baby and run away? Oh, I forgot, a time traveller told her that she cannot run away, because then the time traveller’s trajeck past will never have happened.
- Isn’t it telling that this starts as soon as the Sue has forced her way into existence, and is now able to warp everybody out of character?

(26)
Ginny plans to inherit all of Harry’s wealth and not share it with her kids, so she will cast a sterility charm on Harry before she sleeps with him, and when he is dead, she will send her children, who aren’t Harrys kids, off to their respective fathers.
- I don’t understand why Ginny even has kids. Why didn’t she cast a sterility charm on herself?
- Maybe she feared that Harry would want a divorce when she couldn’t give birth.
- But these kids will still inherit her wealth when she dies. Doesn’t she fear that they, having grown up in such a terrible family, will become evil and try to inherit early?
- Am I already writing dialogue for my agents?

(27 – 31)
Rose-Sue brags about how she crossed the Weasleys’ evil plans as soon as she was of age. Presenting evidence that she is a Potter, and memories of the murders, she had the Weasleys arrested, got the Potter inheritance plus all other Knuts Ginny possessed, burned down the Burrow, and was probably somehow responsible for Hugo being found dead in his cell. Just as an afterthought in midst of this raging revenge, she remembers that she was abused ever since her mother’s death, starting when she was twelve and a half years old.
- I hope Evil!Ron had read Stupid!Hermione’s journal and knew that the didn't – no, scratch this, I'm not going there.
- Although it’s a good description of the Sue’s hate-full character, I will try to gloss over this section, conveniently ignoring all implications that the Sue was not already of age twenty years in the future, and was actually born about seven years after the Battle of Hogwarts.

(32 – 33)
As soon as Rose-Sue has stopped babbling, Harry asks Hermione how one knows that they are in love. Hermione shortly contemplates "to interrogate him later about his treatment at the Dursleys", and, anticipating to hear about terrible experiences, to pay them a revengeful visit, but then makes Harry answer some other questions.
- Really? This is their reaction to the bloody story they just heard? They show no empathy for their abused child?
- It seems unbelievable that Hermione is so clueless about Harry’s family, but since I don’t remember when exactly in canon Harry told her about his experiences with the Dursleys, he may only have told Ron. [Further research required. Reread at least Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone?]

(34 – 41)
In an awkward dialogue, Hermione makes Harry confess that she is the first person he thinks about in the morning, and the last person he thinks about in the evening, and the person whose happiness is more important than his own, and for whom he would die without hesitation.
- How often were we present when Harry woke up or went to sleep, read his thoughts and didn’t see any of these?

(42)
Actually, Harry believes that he did already show Hermione that he would die for her without any hesitation.
- Now Agent Hieronymus would like to quote Harry's thoughts from DH 34 to him. He didn't die solely for Hermione, and she didn't even take the first place.

(43 – 44)
Then Hermione and Harry begin to make out, and Rose-Sue tells them to "save all the sex stuff until three months today at eight thirty in the evening please".
- So realizing your "real true love" doesn't require immediate sexual activity, and this is all about doing it at the right time so that the Sue will be conceived! She is clearly only there to ensure her own existence by talking Hermione and Harry into having sex at the right time.
- Unconventional assassination method: Just neuralyze Hermione and Harry when this is over. If they don’t remember when they should do it, and that they should do it at all, Rose-Sue will never exist, thus being proactively assassinated.
- But when do we read the charge list? And I'm not sure whether the neuralyzer even works at Hogwarts. (This shouldn't be too easy.)
- Ha! Confirmation that she is conceived three months after the Battle of Hogwarts. Since somebody conceived six years before they were born obviously cannot exit, Agent Hieronymus may be able to talk her out of existence. After all, the sharp sword of reason is his preferred weapon.
- But I intended to gloss over the section that confirms the late birth date.
- I know that we shouldn't interact with canons, but maybe Hermione and Ron can just be talked out of following the time travellers advice by some random people who don't mention the PPC. Is it also possible to convince them that they should never mention this encounter? At least Hermione understands how dangerous timey-wimey stuff is, and Harry will listen to her. Pretend to be Unspeakables from the DOM's time branch?

(45 – 49)
Since the Weasleys and the Dursleys weren't enough, Rose-Sue now bashes Dumbledore and Snape and the names of Harry's sons. Then she realizes that she is at "the turning point", implies that Hermione didn't get her parents back from Australia, and vanishes.
- Now I understand Harry and Hermione's non-reaction to Rose-Sue's story. It's the Suefluence. She is on a strict schedule and had to rush this to make all her points before her time is over and she returns to the future.
- If the agents didn't read ahead, they will be taken by surprise, and above-mentioned unconventional assassination methods may become necessary.
- Would portaling the Sue to some other place in the last possible moment break the temporal connection, so that she doesn't return to the future and there is time to charge and kill her? Since we don't know anything about her method of time travel, I cannot think of any techno-babble that would make this sound plausible.

(50 – 63)
Hermione confesses that all her answers to the questions she asked Harry would be him, Harry proposes, Hermione agrees to marry him, but insists that their children will not be named Albus or Severus. They decide to tell Ron later and go to sleep in one bed, but certainly not indulge into any sexual activities. Next morning, they break up with Ron and leave for Australia, "where they would make sure Rose was concieved again."
- I don't understand why they expect to stay in Australia for at least three months, but this may be convenient.
- I don't like to introduce semi-canonical sources, but I'm sure that Harry doesn't have the time to accompany Hermione to Australia and stay there so long. There are still Death-Eaters to be rounded up, the Auror bureau needs every experienced and trustworthy fighter, and Harry, Ron and Neville will certainly not shirk the duty. So this thing doesn't even need to be PPCed, because it wouldn't work anyway, and Rose-Sue will never exist.

Tasks for second draft:

Find something to do for the agents. They cannot just lie under the bed, not even daring to MST, because the Sue might hear them, until they jump out to charge and kill.

Decide on time and method for assassination.

Pre-mission premise and post-mission closure.

HG

But I really don't have a huge amount of spare time at the moment, so I'm not really able to reply or do the challenges at the moment. That said, when I'm more free I was planning on using the workshops to help me get over the blocks I have and get out at least a couple of missions over the summer.

You uploaded this one in the middle of a fairly bad cold during the busiest month of my job. I was literally just working, eating and sleeping (almost let my checking account bottom out from automatic payments, too), and I literally had no energy for anything. Also, my next three major PPC stories are all locked in, and I didn't want to commit to yet another story until I have a chance to write and publish the upcoming ones.

But I love your workshops! I've done all the past ones, and some of the stories I did for them are canon in my spin-off now. I'm sorry I couldn't participate this time, but I plan to in the future.

I've read through your workshops, but I'm not a huge fan and I think your tone is, Iunno, off somehow. It comes across (to me at least) less as "this is a good way to do a mission" and more "this is how to write a mission; deviate from my teachings at your bloody peril, foolish mortal". It can feel rather patronising in places. Then again, my sole extant mission is pretty bloody terrible, by all accounts, so I'm in no position to judge. =]

Even though I'm too lazy to do the exercises (except for 4A!). In fact, I have them bookmarked!

Pretty much what the other guys said. I read them, and they're helpful, but I haven't had a lot of time to do (non-school related) writing, so I haven't put much of it into practice.

I'm reading them, and comparing how you write to how I write. I have not done any of the exercises yet, but I do intend to. Except the most recent one, as I already know how to find good badfic for the fandom I'm covering. On the whole, this series is very helpful for anyone writing missions.

Don't be discouraged over the lack of response to this last one. It's not a very tasty topic, while important. I assure you, many more people read it then you think.

I'm reading them. Even if I'm too lazy to do the challenges, they contain useful advice.

I did find your last workshop interesting, but you seem to use more of a 'plan it out to the last detail' approach while I like to plan as I write. I do like seeing how other people write though, if that counts for anything.