blamebrampton

Et cetera. First off, plainer-than-plain dialogue with little to no narrative linking. Second, POV switch at Hermione's inexplicable line. Third, the same word is used twice in a row. Fourth, and worst, none of these comments have anything to do with each other. They could, but there's no mortar to cement them together and explain them. The entire story was written like this, with very little linking. Or else you'd get an entire chapter of pointless, stupid, useless-to-the-plot dialogue. I began to explain some of the (major) issues to the author, and she begged me to help her. What can I say. I'm a sucker. I tried to explain all of this and what was wrong with it, giving concrete examples, suggestions for alternate wording, suggestions for where the narrative could expand, which dialogue could be cut altogether (lots of it), and that was mostly fine. She argued every single point, but usually did as directed. I'm not the sort of person who will tell the author exactly what to say, but I pointed out many areas that needed work. When we got to the issue of the OOC-ness, we hit a major hitch. She couldn't see that the characters were, in fact, not themselves even remotely. Draco was cooing and Snape was misting over every three seconds and Harry was a wimpy adolescent girl. Whose nickname for Draco was, and I kid you not, "Angel". I said at one point that I could under no circumstances come to view that as IC, unless she sold it reallly damned well! Which is really the entire point of characterisation in fanfic - you have to sell the particular characterisation you've chosen and seduce the reader into believing it somehow. The further you stray from canon, clearly the harder it's going to be. Granted, the fact that the series is written from strictly Harry's POV, it's going to be hard to characterise other characters through a more neutral lens, which might very well be a more forgiving one. There are limits, though! And my point to the author was that she had not sold me. She wanted to slap an OOC label on it and call it good. I explained as gently as possible that I thought that it is a) unforgiveable to write fanfic based on other people's characters and then write them OOC on purpose, and that b) no one would deliberately read a story with an OOC label on it. Our relationship, as beta-to-reader, ended badly. And in certain circles, that terrible, terrible story is extremely popular. *sigh* What can I say?

I stopped beta-reading after that one, though. :P What can I say, it was a rather souring experience!!

I do like the freelancing. I just moved to a new city not three days ago, so I'll be looking for connections here! And btw, the "Character Inconsistency Fairy" makes perfect, absolute sense to me. No need to explain!!