Dear greennotebook,

Oh, how this made me giggle! I always loved how Rita Skeeter brought comic relief to the series and I really enjoyed what you did with her character. You truly brought out her best (or perhaps worst) aspects.

I quite enjoyed your OC, Amanda Claybourne. She was a well-rounded, fairly feisty individual with lots of drive. Speaking of her ambition, I thought she was motivated almost to a point of excess to get where she wanted to be. In the scene where she accused Rita of not telling the truth (which I adored), my mouth dropped open. It was scandalous how a junior member of the staff treated the veteran! I very nearly expected the next little section of the story to be a “scoop” written by Rita about the rudeness of people who had just left Hogwarts. I thought it was surprising how much gumption Amanda had. It certainly isn’t a bad thing and it fits within the context of the story, but it did take me by surprise. Perhaps you could foreshadow these comments towards Rita a little more so that they aren’t quite so surprising. Maybe having the editor speak a little rudely to her? I liked that he told Amanda that Rita’s hard to work with, but I wanted to see someone else talking back to Rita to justify Amanda’s actions.

What I really liked about Amanda is her dedication. She entered journalism to get rid of people like Rita Skeeter and she sticks to that throughout the story. Although I hate to characterize someone by the House that they were in, I thought that she was an excellent example of a Hufflepuff. Absolutely loyal and dedicated to what she does. I’m afraid that in many cases, authors misinterpret Hufflepuffs and make them weak and/or whiny or don’t really develop their characters. Amanda, though, is a well-characterized Hufflepuff. You really applied the traditional Hufflepuff qualities to her character without overdoing them or making them seem ridiculous. I thought that you did a very good job at depicting her as someone who wanted to make the world a better place through what she can do – journalism.

I’m glad, though, that you did not make Amanda a static character who was simply motivated to get rid of Rita Skeeter. The “compromise” at the end really completed Amanda’s character and made her more rounded. I also thought that it demonstrated an excellent source of humor.

Furthermore, I found Amanda and Rita to be a really interesting juxtaposition. They’re just at completely opposite ends of the spectrum with regards to reporting. Rita’s very much into the human interest side of the story and Amanda’s very much into the facts and truth. Speaking as someone who reads the news, I would have to add that the middle ground between the two of them is really the most interesting. I agree with Rita – there has to be something gossipy – but I also agree with Amanda in that there should be the truth. It’s a bit of a grey area, I think. I’m glad, though, that Amanda eventually came around and didn’t stay quite so idealistic. She wouldn’t have been as strong a character if she had stayed with the facts-only presentation.

One thing that I truly adored was Rita’s characterization. She was extraordinarily similar to her canon counterpart. Her dialogue was really striking: flippant and saucy. This was one of my favorite examples:

“You silly girl!” She perched herself on the edge of Amanda’s desk. “We don’t sell papers to tell the truth. We give the people facts. It’s not the same thing at all.”

Just like the way I imagined Rita. She wouldn’t dare call herself a liar. She just takes facts and twists them until they’re nearly unrecognizable. And I loved how this is absolutely revolting to Amanda, whose moral standards are so much higher than Rita’s.

The structure of the piece really added to the story, I thought. I enjoyed how you divided up so that we saw snippets of the story over a progression of time. It almost made it seem as though someone were reporting specific incidents that were occurring at the news office. One thing that I’d almost wished for was for the last little segment to be slightly longer, with more of a description of exactly what Amanda had done. Did she interview Rita? Research her old articles and present the facts as they should have been? I was really quite curious about it, so I did want to see a little bit more detail at the end, even if it was just in passing and not an actual description of Amanda’s specific actions. Rather like adding this into your line, “Amanda sat at her desk, exhausted after spending half the night interviewing Rita, sending off an autographed copy of her first front-page byline to her grandmother.”

Anyway, I really enjoyed reading this story. It was amusing in all of the right places, Rita Skeeter was absolutely true to canon, and Amanda was a wonderful OC. Lovely, lovely job!

~Kelly

Author's Response: Hi Kelly! Thanks for the beautiful review! Responding to a few points: I think you might be right about the disrespectful interaction between Amanda and Rita, and it's probably the sort of thing that would bother me in other writers' fics. In my head, I saw Amanda as not respecting Rita from the start and then finally snapping. Again, though, I think you are right and I should have foreshadowed the interaction somehow, or better established an atmosphere in which this would happen. I deliberately did not write much in the last section, and in retrospect, I can see how that might be frustrating to a reader. I wanted to offset the article's title from all the surrounding story because it was the joke upon which the story hinged, but I think I may have overdone that. Also, the challenge had a tight word limit, and the last section may have been punished more severely by merit of being written, well, last. I'm glad you found my Rita true to canon. That was my top priority, and I admit I had to work very hard with the dialogue, especially. Thank you for reading and reviewing! I am so happy that you enjoyed my story. ~greenie

Oh Anna, I really don’t know how to begin. I’m just so in love with this story and your writing that it’s difficult to pick a thing to start with. Just so you know, though, I adored this story.

You are so good at incorporating imagery and other senses into your writing. As I was reading along, I could really get the sense of exactly how everything felt or seemed because you did such a good job describing them. For example: It was a warm smell, like sunlight on pine trees, and he savoured it. Those lines just made me feel as though I was there in the story with Charlie and Lucas. The “sunlight on pine trees” description just opens up so many senses. Of course, you have the olfactory, as it’s supposed to be describing a smell, but then it’s also visual. I could really see the sun hitting the pine trees and I could envision the rest of the scene that went with it. And that, of course, just adds so much depth to the story because the reader can associate so many things and can almost see multiple levels of images all through one description.

The opening of the story was also so well crafted. First off, the description was done brilliantly again. I could almost feel that “glow” while sitting here in my rather chilly room. However, what I really liked was the structure of the beginning. Everyone gets paired off with a significant other until Charlie and Lucas are left. It’s a nice bit of foreshadowing that really makes the reader believe that they should end up together, even if only to complete the symmetry of the situation.

Although this isn’t a particularly dialogue-heavy piece, I also adored the way you used dialogue in this. It all sounded so real. A lot of authors (myself included) fall into the trap of having their characters continually speak in proper grammar and with a much better vocabulary than they should have. I really liked how, then, you managed to keep everything grammatically correct and yet still have the characters sound like they were saying things that people might actually say in real life. These lines were just a beautiful example of this:

Charlie raised an eyebrow. “Okay, I’ll give it to you. A little bothersome.”

“But why?”

“Oh, I’m just glad to know that you’re not some all-powerful mind-reader, that’s all.”

“Again – why?” Lucas inquired, not understanding why that might have disturbed Charlie so.

Just, wow. These sounded like perfectly normal people speaking in real life. That’s so hard to capture in writing, so huge kudos to you. I’m just continually in awe of this.

Anyway, Anna, this story was absolutely amazing. It was so emotionally engaging because of your amazing writing skills. I could really feel what the characters were experiencing and I love it when a piece of writing can affect me like that.

~Kelly

Dear ron lover,

This was a very interesting story to read. One doesn’t see many James/Lily stories in the Dark/Angsty category, which is really what drove me to read it. I liked what you did with James’ character, even though it technically falls under alternate universe. Although I am very fond of James/Lily, it’s always struck me as slightly implausible that James would pursue her relentlessly for so many years. Surely he would have had a period of doubt? This story seems so very realistic in that James does give up. So, lovely take on his character.

One thing that I did notice about this story is the writing style. You have a very distinctive style – lots of short and rather choppy sentences and very short paragraphs. Although writing with such short sentences is a very effective writing tool for making a specific point, it should be used in moderation. Just for the sake of keeping the writing fresh, I would suggest integrating sentences of different lengths so that the emotional impact of the abrupt and short sentences is greater. Although James is a very strong character now, I think that varying the sentence length would just give James (and his thoughts) a little bit more punch.

But, as I was saying, those short sentences really do convey James’ character very well. It brings out a good bit of sarcasm and dry humor, which are things that are extremely common in the teenage males of the human species. Take this, for example:

“Why do I do this Padfoot? That’s a good question. I hope you figure it out someday.”

That sounds extremely like a couple of teenagers having a disagreement. Perfectly characterized – you didn’t fall into the trap of writing a very mature James. While I’m sure that James did have his moments, he was still a very young man, and wouldn’t have perfect and polite behavior all the time. Especially around his friends. So I was very happy to see that you really nailed that part of his characterization properly.

Something else that I wanted to point out was your use of the past and present tense. You spent a good deal of time switching between the two tenses. Within the first few paragraphs you switch from: I sit down at the other end of the table to I made my way down the hall to where Lily and her friends were sitting.

This confused me as I was reading because I was never quite sure where the voice was coming from. In order to avoid this, I would suggest rereading the story very carefully and comparing the verbs to make sure that there aren’t a group of paragraphs in one tense and another group in another tense. Keeping the tense uniform really helps make the story clearer for the reader. (And I’m not saying that, should you write a story in present tense, that a few past tense verbs won’t sneak it. However, there shouldn’t be constant switching).

Oh, and how could I read this without commenting on your use of song lyrics? You did a wonderful job of incorporating the lyrics into the piece. The song you chose was very fitting for the themes and really leant itself to the title. Actually, speaking of the title, I thought that it was extremely clever. Not only did it convey James’ multiple tries to impress Lily, but it gave the reader a bit of foreshadowing to the ending. I’m always impressed by clever titles like that. So, wonderful job on making the title have a double meaning and having it refer to a song. Brilliant work with that.

I think that you, as a writer, have a very firm grip on characterization, plot, grammar, and story flow. Once you master some of the more stylistic parts of grammar, I could only imagine that your writing – which is already wonderful – would be superb. I truly enjoyed reading this story and I look forward to seeing what else you write in the future.

~Kelly

Author's Response: Thank you for the really really long review. I wasn't expecting one that long. I'm not good with verb tenses at all. I really need to word on that. Thanks for the compliment. The really made my day. Thank you so much for the review. I'll try to work on my tenses.

Dear Spire –

This was a very interesting poem. It was fascinating to see your interpretation of Severus’ thoughts. He’s such a complex character and I think that you have a good handle on his younger self.

I found it very interesting that you chose to use the night (with its moon and stars) as the central image of the poem. It’s a fairly popular theme in poetry with good reason. It’s definitely mysterious, slightly lonely, and beautiful. You can evoke so many images just by using the night. What I immediately thought of when I noticed that night was the central piece of this poem was romance. Of course, when you mention Lily as the “only friend” – something that is reinforced from the repetition – I was immediately reminded of the idea that Severus was apparently in love with Lily. So, although night is one of those common things in poetry, I thought that you used it well to evoke certain images and ideas without having to openly state them.

But I wish I had them in their entirety,
A full moon and a smattering of stars --
Every night, especially on the darkest…
So why aren’t they always there?

I thought that these lines were quite beautiful and really capture Severus’ character. You spent a stanza before these showing that Severus can’t have everything. He can’t have both the moon and the stars at the same time. The mention of Lily in a stanza before that draws a great parallel between being unable to have both Lily and his other friends (and things like Death Eater activities). I thought that this parallel was especially pretty and fairly heartbreaking. I felt terrible for Severus because he can’t really have both – he can’t have weak stars and a weak moon. Essentially, he can have one or the other and it’s fairly heartbreaking to think about everything in Severus’ life that he wants but can’t have.

These lines are also very telling as to Severus’ character. The last line, especially, demonstrates that he seems to have very little to comfort and support him. After all, he seems to be relying on the stars rather than on another human. We, as readers, know that other humans haven’t always been there for Severus. His father didn’t seem to care about him and his mother did, but wasn’t strong enough to counteract his father. Then, Lily essentially abandoned him and their friendship. Severus’ mindset at this point – I’m putting a guess in that this was very near to the “Lake Incident” – must have been one that just didn’t trust other human beings. It just makes it more tragic that he has to apply that mistrust of humans to nature, as the stars and moon and the light that they admit are no more constant that the people in his life.

I found the structure of this poem to be very interesting. In the first three stanzas, the first two lines open with “Sometimes”. Then, a later stanza has the first two lines begin with “Most of the time”. This seems to give quite a bit of uncertainty to Severus and his actions, although the first three stanzas are actually about nature (and, thus, kind of underscore the point about the inconsistency of nature that I made in the previous paragraph). However, the repeated use of words and phrases like that seem to me to say something about Severus’ character. He seems to be questioning his actions and what he does; almost as if he’s testing out different courses of action and seeing what suits him best. We can only imagine that his Hogwarts years were some of experimentation with various things before settling firmly with the Death Eaters. So even though most of these phrases tended towards describing nature, I thought that their repetition definitely highlighted that questioning part of Severus’ character. I do, however, think that the message might have been more strongly conveyed if you had used the same structure throughout the poem. Most of the stanzas begin with a few lines that open with the same phrase, but there are several that don’t. While this is a largely stylistic note from someone who tends to like symmetry, I think that the poem would have flowed a little more smoothly if the other stanzas had opened with the same repetition. Not the same words, per se, but with the same repeating structure.

So, I wanted to tell you that this was an absolutely lovely poem to read. I think that you really explored Severus’ character in a believable way and left very thought provoking questions for the reader. I really enjoyed this.

~Kelly

Author's Response: Thank you so much, Kelly! This is one of my favourite things I've written, so it's lovely to read this feedback! -hugs-

Dear Secret shadows –

This was a very interesting poem to read. I was particularly interested in your summary, where you stated that this poem was originally about government but then was applied to the Death Eaters. As a reader, I’m very curious as to whether or not this was edited in order for it to be applied. Or is this, perhaps, the original version? This is actually one of the things that I love most about poetry; the same words can be interpreted in so many different ways. If this is indeed the original version, being told what the current subject is and what the first subject was gives a very interesting and very different interpretation than if you’d simply stated that this was about Voldemort.

Also, on a rather related note, you say that this poem was originally about “government”. This poem actually seems to be more about politicians than actual government, although this is my personal interpretation. If this original poem had been about the government itself, I think that it would have been more easily transferred to the HP universe as a poem about the corrupt Ministry of Magic, rather than the Death Eaters themselves. Although, of course, it is important to realize at the same time that it was the Death Eaters running the MoM. But, on the other hand, it is the politicians who would have been running the government. Also, your title seems to suggest that this is about a group of people and the individuals therein contained rather than the group as a whole. What I wanted to do with this little explanation was really to explain why I started reading this poem. I was rather intrigued by the comparison you drew because it wasn’t quite what my mind expected – it isn’t wrong by any means – but it was unexpected and very thought provoking.

I really liked the way you used the concept of wearing masks in this poem. The Death Eaters, of course, wear literal masks, but it’s a nice parallel to suggest that they also wear figurative masks. It almost suggests a “Lucius-Malfoy-model” of the Death Eaters in which they’re not inherently evil, but have merely assumed the role and are hiding behind it. This is rather different from the way that I initially read the books, where I saw what seemed to be a clear divide between “good” and “evil”. I like this interpretation, though, as it makes them more human. It’s almost physically impossible to have such a sharp divide between the Death Eaters and other people; there has to be some sort of grey area.

That is not to say that what I drew from this poem was that Death Eaters were lovely, sweet, and caring people once they stepped out from behind their masks. Based on many of your lines – especially “Deep down we go into the abyss” and “We’ve lost ourselves to promise and pain” – it seems as though the Death Eaters have absorbed a part of their character that they assume behind their masks into their personalities. Or, perhaps, that human beings all have that evil somewhere within and the hiding behind those masks merely brought that piece of their nature into prominence.

Structurally, I find it very interesting that you open with a description of the Death Eaters: who they are, what they do, how they behave, etc. And then, half way through the poem, you switch to a cautionary tone and seem to offer a warning to others to not follow this path. I thought that this was a particularly powerful structural choice. The first half of the poem is fairly disturbing and I think is meant to be so. It makes the warning at the end of the poem just that much more meaningful. And, on that subject, the repetition of the first two lines paired with a new couplet in the last stanza was my absolute favorite part of this poem. It brought the poem in a full circle with the repetition, but managed to express a certain feel of regret on the part of the Death Eaters. In the first part of the poem, they seem to perversely enjoy what they do, but after the warning to others not do act as they have, they express this regret over the fact that they’ve been lost to this other world and it’s impossible to return again. I think that this impossibility of return exists on two levels. The first is that it may be physically impossible to rejoin the world after being a Death Eater because of the negative stigma attached or the fact that they may very well be imprisoned for life. The second is that that they’re mentally unable to rejoin the world because of all the things that they’ve done and witnessed. It would be impossible, I think, to put that completely behind them.

I wanted to quote a few lines:

Tiger, Tiger,
Run, run, run
Out of the darkness,
Into the sun.

This would have been the first stanza in the “warning” part of your poem. I thought that the words themselves were particularly well-chosen. The concept of darkness is an excellent choice for describing any follower of the Dark Lord. I did wonder why you chose the word “Tiger”. It didn’t really appear anywhere else in the poem. Is this a reference to William Blake’s poem, The Tyger? Was it a purely stylistic choice? It generally fits in the poem and I liked it, but as a reader, I’m curious as to where it comes from.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this poem. It was extraordinarily complex – much more so than many poems that one finds here on this site. That complexity really lends itself to making the poem extremely thought provoking. I think you did a marvelous job in your portrayal of the Death Eaters. You characterize them extremely well, while managing to put a very interesting twist on their behavior. I hope that you continue to write and post poetry like this because this was a really enjoyable piece to read.

~Indigoenigma

Author's Response: To my lovely reviewer indigoenigma, I greatly appreciate your time to read my latest Harry Potter related creation. Quite honestly, I just threw the summary together, but now looking back on it I realize that the vagueness of it, using only a comparison between government and death eaters, allows the reader to become intrigued by the concept on which this poem was written. This is indeed the original, although the only reasons it wasn’t accepted in the first place was A. I accidentally listed two categories instead of just poetry, and B. they suggested I use commas AND periods, not one or the other. Well yes, it does refer more to the politicians, but what I meant about government is how said politicians corrupt the whole ideal rather than just themselves being corrupt. It’s difficult to erase certain mistakes past leaders may or may not have made. I particularly enjoy the use of metaphors, similes, and symbolism because of this fact, that poetry is interpreted by the reader in many ways, as well as the fact it draws people in. Lucius Malfoy was a major inspiration actually for this particular piece of work. Personally, I would think if he wasn’t a Death Eater, his elegance might lead him towards being a white-collared criminal rather than the brute he became under Voldemort. I ADORE how you discovered the grey areas; that all humans have that bit of evil inside of them. It is a major point in this poem, and several of my others. I find it rather odd that of all the poems I enter to mugglenet, the dark ones are the ones that get accepted. I always seem to associate my darker poems with either more metaphors or literacy for some reason. You’ll come to find most all of my poems have what many call that ‘circle effect’ which brings the beginning to the end and relates as well as ties the poem together. Honestly again, tiger was just a stroke of luck from my muse. It intrigues the reader towards its meaning, not because it doesn’t fit, but because the initial choice is unknown. I myself do not know it, but isn’t that the beauty of poetry? You can relate it to most anything if you change the way you view other things. Thank you so much for your kind words, and I assure you I will be posting more often for dedicated viewers such as yourself! ~Secret Shadows

Dear clabbert2101 –

That was a very interesting piece of poetry to read. I’m quite intrigued by the fact that you wrote it from the point of view of the victim. And not just a regular victim, but one that dies at the end. It’s a very interesting perspective to have for a poem because it’s almost as though they were writing the poem as they went along (because it is written in the first person present tense) and then they die, but the writing seems to continue normally. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this perspective, but it does make for a very interesting (and somewhat unsettling) realization at the end of the poem when one realizes that the narrator was just eaten.

Structurally, you have a very clipped-feeling set-up. Each stanza is two lines and each pair of lines is a sentence. This gives the poem a very start-stop sort of feel. Personally, I am quite fond of this type of structure, but I don’t know if it meshes well with the poem overall. Since it’s being narrated in the first person present tense, I almost feel that the structure ought to contain more of that panic and fear that the narrator says that they feel. Psychologically speaking, when people are frightened, they think a rather continuous and repeating set of thoughts, which is usually only broken by sudden realizations about their surroundings or situation. What I would have wanted to see out of the structure (in order to convey that) would be either a less rigid structure with more than two lines per stanza or longer sentences that spanned several of these short stanzas. I think that another structure might add more depth to your poem due to the tense that it’s narrated in.

Generally speaking, I thought that your word choice was excellent. These lines actually stood out to me: Pain like fire, excruciating, /Consuming all that I could be. This is the only time that you deviate from present tense and I think that it was an excellent choice on your part. Instead of saying, “…consuming all that I am” I really liked how you switched to future tense. The realization that your narrator’s entire life is ending and that they no longer have a potential future is made very clear with your sudden switch to future tense. It makes the poem feel a little bit more tragic. Your word choice also did a wonderful job of creating a rather gruesome feel with the “ripping, shredding, pulling” line about flesh. I could really envision that scene and it made the poem feel quite a bit more dramatic.

Overall, I enjoyed the poem. It’s definitely unique – I’ve never seen another one written from this perspective before – and I think that you did a good job with it, though there are always little things to improve upon. Keep writing poetry!

~Kelly

Author's Response: Kelly, That is the most in depth and wonderful review I've ever recieved. Thank you for putting the time and effort into writing it, all to help me improve my writing and show your appreciation for my poem. You are awesome, even if I took forever to respond. That's not a reflection on your awesomeness, I'm just slow and/or lazy. :D ~Bella