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Categories > Books > Harry Potter > Let's Try That Again, Shall We?

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• Let's Try That Again, Shall We?

  (#) erik 2011-01-15

  A well written and entertaining version of the re-do theme.

  Author's response

  Thank you! I actually just put the phrase "re-do" into the main story summary, which I would have done originally had I thought of it.
  
  (Review marked as "helpful", because it actually was!)

• Let's Try That Again, Shall We?

  (#) mirabilos 2011-01-15

  Well, with an HTTP header like this…
  │Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0
  … it’s no wonder this site needs more heavy caching.
  Changing that, at least for the more-or-less
  static story pages, would most likely be
  beneficial.
  
  I’ve got a question about the story though
  (wow, you post fast, by the way): the
  Trelawny we see, is her timeline linear,
  i.e. the same from the first chapter?
  (If so, the snitches have travelled forward
  while we stayed with her, and we’re now
  “behind” the canon story but “forward”
  from the first chapter, if I read this right.)
  

  Author's response

  Posting quickly: I started with a lot written before posting the first chapter. Then it was just editing and formatting. Right now I'm at a 14k-word buffer (about three unposted chapters), but I am stuck on naming some characters. One of the hazards of trying to write in the periphery of the main social circles of the books is that if you want, say, a conversation at the Slytherin table with non-major characters who were definitely there before Harry was, your original characters are going to need to proliferate rapidly (that's the next chapter to go up). Things will go more slowly in the future, I'm sure.
  
  As to Trelawney, she is the same Trelawney as the first chapter. We are now sideways from the canon story, but forward from the first chapter. Trelawney is the big plot hook -- her having the dreams and going to her friend is supposed to be the AU part. The snitches grabbed the characters from the books' timelines, which would have happened the same way if Trelawney had kept her dreams to herself.
  
  I will eventually get around to writing about what's going on in her head now, and what she's been up to. She isn't in any way important to the main plot of the story I am telling anymore, really, but I hate to waste a character. Focusing on her so much in that second chapter was partly just me staking out the right to put in whatever content I please, so when I threw in darker or more sexual stuff later I wouldn't have people complaining to me.

• Let's Try That Again, Shall We?

  (#) mirabilos 2011-01-15

  Well, with an HTTP header like this…
  │Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0
  … it’s no wonder this site needs more heavy caching.
  Changing that, at least for the more-or-less
  static story pages, would most likely be
  beneficial.
  
  I’ve got a question about the story though
  (wow, you post fast, by the way): the
  Trelawny we see, is her timeline linear,
  i.e. the same from the first chapter?
  (If so, the snitches have travelled forward
  while we stayed with her, and we’re now
  “behind” the canon story but “forward”
  from the first chapter, if I read this right.)
  

• Let's Try That Again, Shall We?

  (#) GryffindorDragon 2011-01-16

  I am interested in reading more of this. Hope you keep writing.

  Author's response

  Thank you! I really appreciate people telling me things like that.
  
  In terms of word count, I have about the next 19k (another 2/3 of what is currently posted) already written. I'm currently hung up on a few things I need to work out, including the surprisingly painful task of finding names for original minor characters. So you will definitely get more story eventually. :)

• Let's Try That Again, Shall We?

  (#) siaru 2011-01-19

  Well, if you're looking for normal-sounding names, go look in your email client program's spam-trap. Those spammers put a lot of effort into creating names which sound like real people; since you've no way of returning them to them, they're effectively gifted to you. Might as well get some use out of the stuff.
  
  One can't help but wish that somehow those pigeons were rats instead, with a silver-pawed one discovered after the mercy-cut was given. As it was, it's a warning to the arrogant: if you push this Trelawney too hard, you're gonna get Seered, and, if you take Umbridge at that, no snitch in time will save you. Getting the point of Divination takes guts.

  Author's response

  Awesome! If I could rate a review +1, I would. :)
  
  
  As to names, over the course of the story I have used the following techniques:
  
  - a god-awful lot of lists of names on the Internet (Wikipedia is good for this)
  - the phone book
  - randomly flipping through the dictionary
  - going through bibliographies in the back of textbooks from college
  - using names of textbook authors
  - lists of stars
  - multiple field guides to plants, birds, and reptiles
  
  (not an exhaustive list)
  
  I have several repositories of names built up at this point, but I expect this will be an ongoing process so long as I try to show the plots of the books from the perspective of outsiders looking in. I realize I am totally overdoing it for the purposes of fanfiction that I intended as mental stimulation and a writing exercise. :P

• Let's Try That Again, Shall We?

  (#) mirabilos 2011-01-20

  OK thanks, I think I understood correct then.
  
  And thanks for taking attention to detail
  on such a level as you describe for the
  story ;-)
  

• Let's Try That Again, Shall We?

  (#) tricorvus 2011-09-08

  Good golly miss molly! Sybill thinks that some of her 'gifted' sevvies will see something in bird guts? Yikes. And yes, I know it was a real thing, back when. Good stuff. :D

  Author's response

  I _think_ she thinks one or two might be able to do it, and a few others might be able to see through her Dumbledorean doublespeak and appreciate it in a nuanced way.
  
  But partly she is doing it out of frustration at her situation and the Wizarding world in general. She is one of the few characters in my story who has any sense of perspective.
  
  My version of Sybill is an explicitly AU element, there to make the plot go, so I feel extremely free to play with her. :)

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