OOP: Still catching my breath: Mermaid/Sirius/Villains/Fanon vs. Canon

[Suzanne Burns]

At 06:00 AM 6/26/2003 +0000, Catlady (Rita Prince Winston) wrote:
>Carole wrote:
>
><< Suzanne -- where is that mermaid/Sirius erotic epic you promised
>me in 2001? >>
>
>If she has the mermaid, I have the tropical island ... I even have a
>mermaid, but mine's suitably fat for someone who lives in a northern
>ocean...


Woot! You remembered! And what a coincidence because OOP has mtivated me to 
go back to it!

I did begin writing it, but then it swerved away from erotica and became 
more of a little mood piece about Sirius experiencing a brief period of 
relative peace far away on a tropical island. After reading OOP, I want to 
double back now and make that summer really, really good. My mermaid is 
more southern and manages to catch Sirius's attention in an interesting 
way. May I consider you to be a beta reader? It would be my first peice of 
fanfiction ever, so I am a little nervous!

Onward.

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How long do we need to do this?
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I won't rehash my feeling about everything. I read the book in one swell 
foop and am still processing. But I wanted to touch on a few points.

First thought, best thought:

With all due respect to Rowling, the writer who supplies us all with our 
raw material, I have just realized that the better fanfiction ( you guys 
all know who you are: take a bow!) has in my imagination pulled ahead of 
Canon in terms of better writing, meatier characters, and depth. I feel 
blasphemous saying this, but.... *looking down at my shoes* well.... I.... 
uhmmmm.... Found myself feeling profoundly disappointed over many, many things.

Okay, I will cut to the chase. The bad guys simply are not developing past 
being cardboard cutouts. I expected something more in this book, have 
anticipated more all along, and they are just not happening. LV is utterly 
uninteresting to me. Same with Draco. The prophecy? I remain completely 
unconvinced as to its urgency. Sirius's death? Okay, I can accept that he 
died, in fact I had a gut feeling this was going to happen, but the way it 
was handled needed so much more development. For heavens sake, Rowling had 
a great opportunity to give us a show down between Sirius and Bellatrix, 
maybe something that would fill in the depth of their animosity, and what 
do we get? One line "You can do better than that!" The fight scene in the 
Ministry? It read like an action movie script. I would have been much more 
convinced if fewer people were there (which would have made some sense-- I 
frankly have a hard time believing that a mob of deatheaters could parade 
into the ministry without being noticed). Hope about just Lucius and 
Bellatrix lurking in the shadows and waiting for Harry? Maybe a little more 
insight into what drives them?

I want my villains to be evil and complex. I also want to believe that they 
can be seductive and lure in followers. For the life of me, I do not find 
any of their motivations to be believable. They need a makeover. This is 
the single thing that is frustrating me most, and I praise the Fanon for 
brilliantly filling that gap, Cassie Claire especially.

And that is what Fanfiction is for, at least for me.

I used to think FanFic was just something to read while I waited 
impatiently for the next Rowling book. Now I am experiencing a curious 
change: I am looking at the Rowling books as mainly the raw material that 
fuels the writing of stellar FanFiction, and AU FanFiction feels just fine. 
The world she created has taken on a life of its own.

Who ever would have thought.

Anyway, I have many more thoughts than this, and there are parts of the 
book I LOVED, such as getting more insight into Sirius's family, but I will 
save this for another time.

Yours,

Suzanne







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