But, by the same token, in a smaller community, the people would also generally be closer to the events/people being written about, and thus more likely to know the truth for themselves.

Molly had personally met Hermione, and still chose to believe what an article (which quoted a Parkinson and a Slytherin - and we know how Weasleys tend to feel about that) said, over what her own experience should have told her.

While I wouldn't be above disparaging the Daily Prophet by referring to it as a tabloid, I was speaking of Witch Weekly; they're the ones who ran the story about "Harry Potter's Secret Heartache" that had Molly (along with the other angry letter-writers) so pissed off at Hermione.

I think that had more to do with Lockhart's admittedly good looks and Hermione's ovaries kicking into gear than her admiring him for anything his writing claimed he accomplished. Also, she was all of 12/13 during that time, and we're comparing her mentality to that of the adults of the Wizarding World.

 

It is indeed a small community but I have gotten the impression that they are rather spread out geographically. I'm thinking that a few thousand people in a small town would have a different level of interaction than the same number spread out in a city or country of millions. Hmm, on the other hand, they may be surrounded by Muggles, but most wizards and witches have no contact with them. So yeah, you are right. I guess I was drawing parallels between a group of people who live in their native country and a similar size group spread out in another country, but it's not really the same.

Playing Devil's Advocate here She met her for a few days or weeks across three summers, with no interaction in between. I can imagine her thinking "She was such a sweet girl, who knew she'd turn into such a slutty teen".

I agree with the rest of your comments.

 

When an author spells "Viktor" with a "c". The Triwizard Tournament is covered so often, yet so many people get spell his name "Victor Krum."

Equally annoying is when an author capitalizes the "S" in Lestrange.

 

How about using the word 'questioned' as a speech tag? It's not even grammatically correct; question is a transitive verb, so using it as a tag is just stupid. More to the point, though, it just sounds awkward and is another thing hack writers throw in because they think they'll come across as amateurish if they use the same tag too many times, it's just that the tag they're avoiding is 'asked' rather than 'said'. I have similar problems with questioning being used as an adjective, especially since something like quizzical works much better.

 

I blame any English class that was remotely like mine when I was in middle and high school, where the English teacher's head assplode because you use "said" or "asked" too many times (more than one goddamned time). I have a feeling this crap has been drilled into so many kids' heads by now that they don't think it's amateurish to use "asked" or "said", they're scared to use them.

 

Speaking as someone who just finished nearly 70,000 words of dialogue and who has a reputation of abusing certain speech tags and adverbs (and who was someone who had one of those asshole English teachers), I think it's a little more complicated than that. To me, repeatedly using 'said' or 'asked' without some sort of descriptive adverb lacks a certain degree of description and comes across somewhat lacking flair. Sure, from the context of the conversation, you can often derive the tone, but sometimes, you want to maintain a certain atmosphere through dialogue.

That's why, whenever I can, I try to establish the back and forth cadence of conversation and give the characters enough of an individual voice so I can avoid speech verbs altogether and work to indicate which character is talking through a description of what they're doing while they're talking to precede or follow the speech.

And on that topic, I've got a pet peeve: namely, dialogue that feels 'unnatural'. It's kind of hard for me to put my finger directly on a lot of it, but people seldom speak in unbroken paragraphs. They say words like 'ah' or 'uh' and 'like'. People interrupt each other. But conversation in so many fics is people speaking long complete sentences to each other, and outside of very specific circumstances, that just flat-out doesn't happen in real life.

 

Unfotunately, I think 'unnatural dialogue' is a problem that comes with the territory when it comes to writing. If an author were to write speech exactly as it is spoken in real life, it'd seem odd and disjointed, with pauses and fluffed words peppering the page.

I think if you were to take a recorded conversation and transcribe it, you'd see that it's not really something you'd want to read in a book.

 

Good god, this. I had to read Their Eyes Were Watching God over the summer for school, and the dialogue was absolutely awful. Every other word was purposely misspelled to convey the inflection, there were so many words cut to pieces (fuckin', 'cause, etc.), even the educated men sounded retarded.

Overly flowery language is a thing, of course, but at the same time making dialogue too realistic can be painful.

 

You guys slay me. Molly Weasley was/is the quintessential mother, and is the stand-in for an older Lily throughout a majority of the series. She's the closest thing Harry ever gets to a maternal figure, and if you reread the end of GoF you'll note that if not for Hermione's poorly timed capture of Rita Skeeter, Harry would have, for once in his life, broken down, let everything out, and let himself be comforted like any normal child ought to be able to do.

We see her only thru Harry's lens, so of course it's going to include some chafing at her not wanting any of them in Order meetings or dropping out of school to go camping without a fucking clue. Is anyone honestly surprised or willing to tell me "Hey, I'd think Molly was the bestest mum EVAR if only she'd have helped Hermione wash Ron's undies and pack an extra corned beef sandwich or two, then wished the three of them well as they went off on an obvious suicide mission!"

Get over it. She's a middle-aged housewife whose Entire Family is on the "Kill at First Opportunity" list for the baddest Dark wizard she's ever heard of - a wizard which, by the way, old Dumbledore has yet to put down and who has a hard-on for the Best Friend of her youngest son and Love Interest of her daughter, a Dark wizard whose casual plaything nearly killed said daughter, and whose big-ass snake very nearly killed her husband. All PRIOR to a werewolf using her eldest son as a chew toy and one of her former houseguests (Snape) slicing off another son's ear a few weeks after murdering Albus *inside* Hogwarts.

And are we forgetting that the last war cost her two of her Order Member brothers in one fell swoop? That even the vaunted Fidelius Charm didn't protect Order Members James and Lily and Neville's Order Member parents are gibbering shells in a mental ward thanks to a crazy bitch who happens to be free again?

Yeah, she was overprotective and quick to yell at her kids and had less of a sense of humor than most would hope and all that drivel. She was bitchy to Fleur and overbearing and yada yada. Welcome to some recognizable aspects of humanity, people. I hear a lot of bitching and moaning about Mary Sues and Gary Stus and yet when you see a character that looks for all the world to be a real and flawed and refreshing whaddya do? You bitch all the more.

She gave Hermione a smaller egg?! Oh Noes! Call children's services, call the Aurors! Oh the humanity! She didn't think Fleur was the right girl for Bill? Maybe too haughty or not grounded and used to working? Can you blame her? Everyone who saw Fleur - the picture of perfection - would've figured the same thing. And this is her oldest son, the one she's doted on the longest and already feels needs to tone it down from long hair and dragon-fang earrings, so I'd be skeptical if she *wasn't* skeptical of Fleur not breaking Bill's heart.

She "cock-blocked Neville's kill" or whatever retarded thing one of you said?! S.T.F.U. - no really. Look, Neville had already *had* his crowning moment of bad-ass/awesome when he stood up in Voldemort's face and said No, then proceeded to lop the head off the last Horcrux. Besides, Neville had already confronted his Bellatrix demons way back in OotP, broken nose and all. In my opinion, Bellatrix at that point was not even a concern of Neville's, aside from killing her to save someone a la canon Molly. Molly killed her to save Ginny and Hermione, end of story.

So get off her probably overweight back. She's the kind of Mama Grizzly fucktards like Sarah Palin and her Teabagger cronies cannot even dream of being.

This is where Kenneth Branagh's genius came into play in the Chamber of Secrets movie. He played the smarmy, vapid opportunist to the hilt and I loved every minute he was on screen.

Adverbs are bad, m'kay? Seriously though, adverbs are like religion - they're a crutch, they're bad for you, and you don't need them.

It's always been my opinion that if you can't communicate a sense of the speaker's intentions, actions, emotions, what-have-you without dropping 'vehemently,' 'caustically,' 'angrily,' 'woodenly,' or [insert -ly word here] on the end, you've failed in your writing. This is not to say I am innocent of this, because I can pull up almost any random thing I've ever written and find far too many adverbs for my liking. It's just that when I reread the "classics," the distinct lack of adverbs tumbling off the pages always catches my attention.

"Hullo," she said. Our eyes met and she turned away quickly, her hands busying themselves in her apron.

^Can't recall what that was from just recently and I may have flubbed the quote but there was no need for 'meekly' or 'quietly' after 'said.' The rest of the context, brief as it was, told me *everything* I needed to know about the volume and timbre of her voice and in fact a lot about her state of mind. I think we all fall into the trap of "I'm afraid they won't get it!" so we pile on the adverbs (and words in general) in an attempt to get our *exact* meaning across, all the while suffocating the life out of the reader and crushing any semblance of nuance under an avalanche of tedium and minutiae.

Kind of like I just did with this long-ass post.

Yep. Soliloquies are for Shakespearean plays, not for novels, etc.

I enjoy reading dialect actually. Usually... I gave a public presentation this spring concerning a somewhat unpopular public works project and afterwards had to go thru the stenographer's transcript to boil down the concerns and comments. It's strange to see your *exact* words down on paper, including every 'um' and 'ah' and 'uh well' and 'oh - okay then.' After a couple read-throughs I felt alright but upon first glance I felt like an idiot had taken over my body and stood in front of a couple hundred people, flinging his poo for a couple hours.

I recall the first time I ever read a story in actual phonetic dialect and I wish I could recall the title. It was so new to me and I was blown away when the "words" clicked for me. I loved it and I still love reading dialogue written in the vernacular. It's how we actually talk, so why wouldn't the speech between characters be that way as well?

 

Lulz... who's got anger issues, now? :awesome

All I was saying was that her willingness to believe the worst about someone (whom she'd already met) at the drop of a hat, all based on a trashy gossip article, is a snapshot look at the Wizarding World's penchant for allowing themselves to be lead around by the nose by whoever shouts their lies from the taller pulpit.

And, that some people might miss that beside the more obvious "Gee, aren't parents a drag?" angle.

Agreed.

Didn't they originally want Hugh Grant for the part?

I mean, I don't like Lockhart's character, but it's kind of an apathetic dislike, just shy of indifference... I just acknowledge that's he's the mildly villainous putz the author wants me to feel he is and then I move on, unlike characters I actively hate, like Draco.

However, I can't help but think that seeing Hugh Grant's shit-eating grin on the screen would have filled me with some kind of unreasoning murder-frenzy for Lockhart.


Actually, when you really think about it, Lockhart's 'off-screen' crimes are pretty awful. He steals people's memories, their experiences. He takes what are probably some of the most exciting moments of his victim's lives, and makes them forget they ever happened.

That he makes money off saying he did those things is almost inconsequential beside that. And, yet, so many people either seem to write him off as kind of a non-entity, or think he's not bad enough already, and thus write him as also being a rapist who obliviates his student victims. :?

 

Why is it that whenever Harry gets sent to Azkaban, they take all of his possessions and shit, including his gold? Sirius had all of his gold. Lucius gets sent to Azkaban and has all of his gold. The Lestranges had a vault.

seriously what the fuck

 

Because any Indy!Harry needs to have his money stolen out from under him. Get with the program, man! And look on the bright side, it's better than having the Weasleys or Dumbledore steal his money, right?

 

Killing Hedwick in front of him, brutally, is also a requirement, amirite?

 

"HEDWICK! NOOOO!" Harry screamed. "Oh wait, that's just Hedwick, Hedwig's mentally disabled cousin."

 

But it canonically makes no sense! The Lestranges tortured somebody into insanity, and they had a vault filled with gold! That alone proves that going to jail in the Wizarding World cannot steal all of your money! If you absolutely must have him lose his money, why can't it be done all nice and proper, with the goblins?

 

Because he's always innocent. The money isn't being taken from him legally, but through loopholes and newly written laws specifically aimed at him, to show just how corrupt the Wizarding World is, so that when Harry breaks out and kills everyone, it seems justified.

 

I think these writers don't reflect about their concept and are only able to copy other people's ideas. While there's nothing fundamental bad about copying other people's ideas it's getting problematic when these ideas were plain bad in the first place. It's like the idea/virus concept.

Another factor might be that these writers/readers process stories differently. They might be more attracted to the emotional message than the story making any kind of sense.

 

Hmm... When you think about it, we only see the Lestrange Vault full after things have deteriorated to the point where Bellatrix can walk down Diagon Alley with no one giving a shit. Maybe, the Ministry only gave her the gold back after Death Eaters took over? /Silly WMG

 

The Goblins control and own Gringotts, not the Ministry. IIRC, Voldemort had to have his corrupt administration forcibly seize control of the bank.

Frantic Author is right. Any story that has a Non-Voldemort-controlled Ministry taking away someone's gold because they were sent to Azkaban is total fucking bullshit. If you do this in your fics, you're bad and you should feel bad.

 

That's a little bit too harsh. Since when did something not happening in canon mean it can't be done in fanfics?