FIC: Remus Lupin and the Revolt of the Creatures, Chapter 1 / 21 (PG-13)

[paulamcg]

Title: Remus Lupin and the Revolt of the Creatures, Chapter One: Sharing Meals with Harry
Author: PaulaMcG
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: (subtly, eventually) Remus/Sirius
Era and universe: Summer and autumn 1996, an alternative world after OotP
Chapter summary: After Sirius’s death, and having returned to England, Remus must first focus on Harry’s basic

Comments

[kellychambliss]

A very satisfying start. You've developed the characters nicely, particularly the multi-clothed Mrs Figg, who retains all her fun canonical oddity at the same time that you make her more complex and interesting. I like the opening line, too: the oxymoron of cold heat is arresting and catches the reader's interest (or at least, it caught mine!) And there's something touching about tattered Remus and ragged Harry eating together; their feast with Arabella is a nice contrast to the meanness of Petunia. Remus's character works well, too; he's in-character yet more nuanced. He's polite and diffident, yet not a complete push-over. (One of the things I like about his canon self is that he's very likable, but he also has flaws: he's weak at times and unwilling to confront his friends when their actions warrant it. He's got a steely core, though, and you show both aspect here.)

If I have any reservations about character, it's with Harry, who seems a bit too pitiful and helpless in his first scene, a little too long-suffering and martyred. That's why I particularly like his self-assertion with the butterbeer later (and his comment that he can take care of himself).

I hope you don't mind if I offer a brief beta of the opening paragraphs:

//since he had left the sultry London street so suddenly, boarding the Knight Bus, and fallen down on the cold floor.//

The verb tense doesn't seem parallel here: we've got past perfect ("had left," "[had] fallen") mixed with a present participle ("boarding"). I think the sentence might be smoother as "had left London, boarded the Knight Bus, and fallen. . ."

//Still, he had assured that he was well enough for the trip.//

Had assured himself? Had assured someone else (the Order, perhaps)? "Assured" has to take an object.

//Little had he known / until he had finally returned from those exhausting travels through the foreign werewolf communities and forced the members of the Order to confess / that nobody had checked on Harry.//

I found this sentence a little hard to follow because of the long clause that separates the two parts of the main grammatical construction "Little had he known. . . that" Perhaps you could set off the clause with commas? Or shorten it?

//Until an alarming letter had made Dumbledore himself consult Remus.//

Is the sentence fragment intentional here? I found it a little jarring because I'm not sure what you want it to accomplish rhetorically.

//He had realised that he was too weak to succeed in apparating from such a distance, though.//

You could tighten a bit here: ". . too weak to Apparate from. . ." The lack of success is implied, so you probably don't need to state it..

I'm a very nit-picky beta, so just let me know if this is far more detail than you want. (I personally love nit-picking, but I realize that it's not everyone else's favorite approach.)

I look forward to the rest of the chapters.

[paulamcg]

Thank you very very much for your amazing feedback! I’m thrilled that the characterisations work so well for you, and that you’ve found this a satisfying opening. It’s impossible to say what I’m more grateful for: your encouraging praise or your wonderful nit-pickiness. In both of these elements the level of detail is just perfect for my needs.

I suppose it’s most essential that while giving more nuances to Remus I have not (yet?) made him out-of-character. (When he’s convincing here, perhaps the further, not totally conventional development in the characterisation will be more easily acceptable as in-character, too. He will certainly remain both weak and steely, though!)

It’s also encouraging to hear that as early as here I’ve managed to make a minor canon character more complex. But I wonder if I should do something about Harry’s helplessness in his first scene. Thank you for telling me that you found my tattered and ragged characters’ shared meals touching (and not too repetitive, but including a contrast). Making my characters suffer from hunger (and cold etc. - of poverty) is some kind of a kink of mine, and it’s sometimes embarrassed me how blatantly I describe such hardships in my early writing.

It’s reassuring to know that the opening line can catch a reader’s interest (a discerning one’s, too). That was truly the first line I wrote when I started to write fanfic in September 2003. Instead, the rest of the opening paragraphs have been revised several times, and it seems to have been hard for me to improve them. That’s why I’m particularly happy about the beta of the second paragraph. I’ll be just increasingly grateful, if you want to take the time to point out any other jarring phrases (in this chapter and/or in any later one) and to perhaps suggest how to fix them.

The second paragraph is far from smooth, isn’t it? And perhaps it includes far too much information in a confusing jumble. On the other hand, this reflects Remus’s state of mind, and I wouldn’t like to leave the immediate scene for more than one paragraph of exposition. I wonder if the small changes are actually enough.

I’m afraid the sentence fragment is there only because I realised there were too complex sentences before it. And I’m not sure if what I originally wanted to say with “Little had he known” makes sense: that he had hardly known anything (important) at all, as he had not known how the Order had neglected Harry. I’m inserting the edited paragraph here:

//Remus had felt rather ill for the last few days. Still, he had assured Dumbledore that he was well enough for the trip. He had asked to be appointed for this task, because he was eager to see Harry and he believed he was the right person to find out what Harry really needed. Little had he known until - upon his return from those exhausting travels through the foreign werewolf communities - he had forced the members of the Order to confess that nobody had checked on Harry. They had been so busy with the goblins that they had, in spite of their promise to expect frequent reassurances, chosen to believe that Harry’s silence meant he had nothing to complain about. Only an alarming letter had finally made Dumbledore himself consult Remus. He had realised that he was too weak to apparate from such a distance, though. //

Oh, I’ve deliberately not capitalised apparating. My justification is that it would have been like capitalising driving in a Vernon-pov story. I’ve always understood that a lot of terms related to magic are capitalised in canon only due to Harry’s perspective. My viewpoint character has learnt to know these words and phenomena of his culture as a child, so he would not capitalise in his mind. I know that sticking to this idea can get me in trouble in moderated archives - or at least make some readers pay attention to these “errors” instead of fully enjoying the story and giving (in my view) more essential feedback. I’ve actually given up and decided to use the canon capitalisations in the short stories, even though it still disturbs me when my Sirius or Remus thinks about Muggles and wizards. But before giving up here I wanted to ask for an opinion.

Thank you again for this precious gift.

[kellychambliss]

More to come this weekend, but here's just a quick response to your revision. Overall, I like the way it develops, but I have a couple of stylistic questions:

//Remus had felt rather ill for the last few days. Still, he had assured Dumbledore that he was well enough for the trip. He had asked to be appointed for this task, because he was eager to see Harry [add comma after "Harry"]and he believed he was the right person to find out what Harry really needed.

Little had he known until - upon his return from those exhausting travels through the foreign werewolf communities - he had forced the members of the Order to confess that nobody had checked on Harry. As I read it again, I still find this sentence a bit hard to follow. What woud you think of something like this (beginning with the dependent "until" clause)? -- "Until he'd returned from his exhausting travels among the werewolves and forced the Order members to confess their neglect, he'd had no idea that nobody had checked on Harry."

They had been so busy with the goblins that they had, in spite of their promise to expect frequent reassurances, chosen to believe that Harry’s silence meant he had nothing to complain about. I might move the "in spite of" clause to the start of the sentence rather than interrupting the main clause with background.

Only an alarming letter had finally made Dumbledore himself consult Remus. He had realised that he was too weak to apparate from such a distance, though. //

It's always a tricky business, doing background exposition. This version is nicely tight and clear.

[paulamcg]

Thank you so much for your prompt further comments on the second paragraph. On the basis of your wonderful response I’ve now rewritten the paragraph like this:

// Remus had felt rather ill for the last few days. Still, he had assured Dumbledore that he was well enough for the trip. He had asked to be appointed for this task, because he was eager to see Harry, and he believed he was the right person to find out what Harry really needed. Until he had returned from his mission and forced the Order members to confess their neglect, he had had no idea that nobody had checked on Harry. They had been so busy with the goblins that, in spite of their promise to expect frequent reassurances, they had chosen to believe that Harry’s silence meant he had nothing to complain about. Only an alarming letter had finally made Dumbledore himself consult Remus. He had realised that he was too weak to apparate from such a distance, though. //

I use contractions only in dialogue. Do you think it’s all right? And perhaps it’s not necessary to say more about Remus’s mission yet. Otherwise I’d like to mention foreign werewolf communities (and in that case, would something like “the exhausting travels from one foreign werewolf community to another” be better than my original wording”?), because “among werewolves” could reinforce the readers’ preconception that it’s been like in HBP: staying among werewolves in Britain. Finally, is it all right to place the “in spite of” clause like this, after “that”?

I’m afraid there’s a lot more that could be improved stylistically in this chapter. But the tightness and clarity of this paragraph must be crucial.

Your help with and interest in this stoy - as well as your kind words elsewhere (while I feel ever further from hopeful) - mean a lot to me. Thank you again.