Kind of lost my momentum a little. Without further ado, and better late than never, let's return to the Wacky World of Deserving™. ( Deserving Chapter 11 )
Everyone in the fic talks in this stilted, over-formal way, except when they're throwing the word "wank" around in polite company because the author Did Not Do The Bloody Research. Hermione is one of the few characters for which it isn't necessarily OOC, but it is when she's talking to Harry.In the hands of a good author, this would have been a good indicator of how she views their relationship now, showing how she's not on good terms with him and is treating him in a very distant, professional manner, but since this is Deserving and everyone in the world talks like this, it means fuck all
( ... )
And there's no excuse for relying on tired stereotypes to characterise their dialogue when they've got seven books and eight films to draw on. (Okay, Neil had four books and two films. That should still be enough.)
MotS and Neil should have just stuck to writing natural-sounding dialogue the way they would have done it for American characters, because at least then it might not have sounded like robots.
A lot of writers do this and then have a beta check it over for words and phrases that can be changed to make them sound more authentic. I quite like the crowdsourced Britpicking for Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (contains spoilers) but something like that only works if you've got a lot of readers anyway.
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MotS and Neil should have just stuck to writing natural-sounding dialogue the way they would have done it for American characters, because at least then it might not have sounded like robots.
A lot of writers do this and then have a beta check it over for words and phrases that can be changed to make them sound more authentic. I quite like the crowdsourced Britpicking for Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (contains spoilers) but something like that only works if you've got a lot of readers anyway.
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