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pigwig
Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 2:51 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 23 Feb 2006 Posts: 74 Location: Potions Dungeon
Aside from A/N and beta notes, another thing that really bugs me is when authors answer question posed in the reviews in the next chapter's A/N.

This usually takes up a fair amount of space at the beginning or end of a chapter and is completely incomprehensible to those who don't read the 6 pages of reviews at the end of every chapter. I don't know about everyone else, but when I'm reading a story, I tend to read all the posted chapters and then review.

Also, I hate fluffy Snape.

Another thing that sends me to the back button are stories that are spaced oddly. I know it sounds strange, but is it necessary to have quadruple spacing between dialouge lines? I've seen this done a lot. I don't know if these authors are trying to show pauses in dialogue, or if the story is just poorly formatted.

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darkdesire
Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 5:58 am Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Jun 2007 Posts: 19
Razz I'm sorry to say that I have nothing to add to this discussion, seeing as how you all have, in some way, touched on my personal pet peeves and then some. I find this most amusing, and have been forced to collect myself up off the floor due to various fits of laughter.

Shocked But, what the hell? Do people actualy use net speak in some of their stories? (Shuddering) I'm terribly glad that I haven't come across any of those yet.

But I do have to defend the poor hormonal crazed teenage girls. I'm not saying their writing is good, I personally don't choose to read it, but if it weren't for fanfiction some of them might not be writing at all. And you never know, they might come back to redeem themselves when they grow older. At least that's what I'm trying to do. Embarassed Although I've already made some of the mistakes mentioned before hand.

Damn. Oh, well, here's to learning and growing. Maybe newbie writers should be forced to read these discussion before submitting their first fic. I know I would have changed some things.
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tonksinger
Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 6:52 am Reply with quote
Joined: 02 Apr 2008 Posts: 15
My fanon peeves:

1. Time-turner-aged Hermione. I have a half-page long rant about this on my ff.net page. Suffice it to say that this plot device is not necessary for two reasons. 1: Hermione turns 18 at the beginning of her seventh year. Check her birthday, folks. 2: Wizards come of age at 17. And I went and did the math and using time-turner ages her approximately one and a half months, not the entire year that I keep reading.

2. Matchmaker/ incredibly eccentric / senile Dumbledore. He's a little quirky, but he's not mental.

Personally, I don't really have a problem with the whole frock coat thing. Who says there's only one style of robes? Besides, I really don't find the image of Snape wandering around in what is essentially a dress particularly attractive. And the school uniform has pretty much become the status quo.

And student/teacher relationships...well, as a HG/SS shipper, they're hard to avoid. As long as both parties are consenting adults, then I just sit back and enjoy.
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Pennfana
Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 5:31 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 07 Dec 2004 Posts: 216 Location: Ontario, Canada
I've got to admit, tonksinger, that I'm a bit curious about the math that you did regarding the time-turner's effect on Hermione's age. (This isn't an attack, by the way; I'm just wondering.) I've heard people say that their math totalled anywhere between one and six extra months added to her age.

Now, I do agree with you that saying that her use of the time-turner added a year (or more) to her age is absolutely ridiculous; she'd have had to live every day multiple times for that to happen, and if nothing else, I doubt that she'd have taken the risks associated with doing so. Still, I've got to admit that I'm curious about the way you arrived at the "one and a half months" that you did.

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tonksinger
Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 7:56 am Reply with quote
Joined: 02 Apr 2008 Posts: 15
Here's the basic idea of the math.

1. As far as we know, Hermione's taking three extra classes - Muggle Studies, Arithmancy, and Ancient runes. If she had all three of those classes every day (which she doesn't, but I decided to go with the greatest possible number of hours to emphasize how exaggerated a lot of fanfics make this), then that's three extra hours a day times five days a week = 15 extra hours a week.

2. School schedule - figure forty weeks of school in the year, given Christmas break. 40 x 15= 600 extra hours. Plus three for when she saved Sirius with Harry, so 603 extra hours in her life.

3. 603 hours / 24 hours a day = 25 extra days. Not even a month.

Wow. The fact that I actually did all that really brings home the fact that I am a nerd.

And on another topic, I have noticed a recent spate of betrothal/ true love potion fics. With one exception, I don't care for these. It makes having Snape and Hermione fall in love too easy - it's foregone. Just let them be around each other in a reasonably normal situation for a while and have the love just happen. It's so much more realistic and enjoyable.

And I know the student/ teacher thing is weird. But I still write and read it. Besides, the power difference can become an issue between them - my beta pointed that out to me one day, and it became a talking point between Snape and my OFC. She just says "hey, you git, we need to figure this stuff out."

And Hermioen is not a potions genius. She's not. She shows no particular interest in Potions aside from her drive to get the best grade. If anything, she's probably more devoted to Transfiguration.
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Pennfana
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 3:39 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 07 Dec 2004 Posts: 216 Location: Ontario, Canada
About the betrothal/true love potion fics: they're the result of a recent contest over at The Petulant Poetess. The authors were supposed to be anonymous, so they couldn't post their stories on other archives until the voting had taken place and the results were posted. That prompt was one of the more popular ones while the challenge was in effect, but now that the contest is over I don't think we'll be seeing too many more of these stories. (That, or they'll turn into the same sort of thing that the old Marriage Law challenge did! Very Happy ) Several of the attempts to reconcile the characters' fate with their free will were actually pretty interesting, even if some of them marched straight into Out-Of-Character territory.

Thanks for explaining the rationale behind your mathematics, by the way. I think that a lot of people figure that she might have used the time turner to allow for completion of assignments as well—even academically-obsessed Muggleborns have to sleep, after all—but since there's no way of telling whether she actually did so, and if she did, how much time she took for those assignments, I think that somewhere between one and two months would probably be a fair guess. No more than that, though.

I've noticed that the fics in which the author is trying to marry Hermione off before she leaves Hogwarts (usually because of some sort of marriage law) are generally the ones where the writer pulls the "time turner which, against all logic, added a year or more to Hermione's age" trick. Almost all of them seem to forget that the age of majority in the British wizarding world is seventeen, and that even if it were a year older, Hermione would be turning eighteen on September 19, 1997 anyway.

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