Fic: "Night Terrors" (PG-13 for violence)
Title: Night Terrors
Author: CorvetteClaire
Rating: PG-13 (violence)
Summary: Harry dreams of Azkaban.
Disclaimer: The characters belong to J.K. Rowling, not to me. I am borrowing them for entertainment purposes only, not for profit.
Feedback: Yes, please! I would love to know what you think.
( Night Terrors )
Author: CorvetteClaire
Rating: PG-13 (violence)
Summary: Harry dreams of Azkaban.
Disclaimer: The characters belong to J.K. Rowling, not to me. I am borrowing them for entertainment purposes only, not for profit.
Feedback: Yes, please! I would love to know what you think.
( Night Terrors )
This is marvelous! I do enjoy this kind of discussion so much! Many of your observations strike right at the heart of why I consider this fic something of a "fluff piece" (I know it sounds silly to call a story about torture and nightmares fluff, but that's what it is).
The fic started out as a personal wallow in angst, sparked by the image of Harry sitting in a cell in Azkaban. It was hopelessly sentimental and self-indulgent, since I didn't intend to share it with anyone. You can see the traces of that original shape in it, very clearly I think, in some passages (more specifics on this later). But first, Harry's inner voice...
There's a very fine line to walk between sentiment and emotion, and it's one I take very seriously. What I'm hearing in your comments about Harry's direct thoughts is that I crossed that line. I agree with you. I rewrote those lines obsessively to get the right feel to them, but I was focused on getting Harry's thoughts on the page and didn't recognize that the problem was in the direct voice itself. (I sometimes do that when I'm cheating - I've exhausted myself writing the indirect thoughts, so I switch to direct voice to cut corners. It rarely works the way I want it to.)
That fine line gets even finer, when you're talking about an overwrought teenager in love, pouring his heart out to a ?dead? lover. The sentimental drip in me wants to put Harry's anguished words on the page. The writer in me ought to know better.
Your final comment above feeds into this same problem, I think. I need to back off on voicing Harry's angst for better effect. I'll try that last scene before Harry wakes without the dialogue and see how it plays.
Now on to your next post for more discussion... (ooh, this is fun!)
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