Progress Report 6/7
Jun. 7th, 2009 06:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lomonaaerenGot a whole bunch of ideas as I was lying there waiting to fall asleep last night. That’s the way it usually seems to work.
Inter Vivos: The epilogue to this is finally completed, which means the story is completed, and I’ll be posting the epilogue tomorrow.
Universal Chaos: Chapter three is complete and will be posted in a few days.
“Company Manners”: This one is moving well, I think. I’m delighted by the variety of opinions I’m getting on it (particularly as to whether Harry or Draco is more to blame for the current state of affairs).
Incandescence: This is the novel-length story about Draco as a novelist fictionalizing the lives of war heroes—and trying to fictionalize Harry’s—that I first got the idea for last year. The first chapter is complete, and it’ll be posted the day after tomorrow. This will probably be fifteen chapters or so.
“Promises Made on Wands”: The one-shot I currently have 1000 words of and am struggling mightily with because it will not do what I want.
Their Phoenix: Chapter 10 is 5000 words long now, and will be posted on Tuesday as usual. Draco has done something extremely stupid. Bad, bad Draco.
(These are in alphabetical order not because that’s how I thought of them but simply for ease of memorization).
“Blooming Narcissus”: Novella-length fic. Harry, suspicious and paranoid after long months of hunting particularly difficult Dark wizards as an Auror, makes a horrible mistake when he is sent to arrest Narcissa Malfoy on suspicion of harboring fugitives: he mistakes her threatening actions for an attempt to kill him, and kills her. He resigns from the Aurors in consequence, and sends an abject letter to Draco begging him to let Harry know if there’s any way he can make it up to him. Draco contacts him a few years later. He’s discovered, in necromantic books that the Ministry didn’t manage to destroy, a way to resurrect his mother, but he needs Harry’s help, because Harry is the master of the Deathly Hallows (and he’s the only one who has any idea where he dropped the Resurrection Stone). Harry eagerly agrees at first, and then less eagerly once he finds out what the magic involves. This will be a very interesting story, because Harry is being driven by guilt as he often is in my fics, but at a certain point, some things matter more than guilt and atonement.
“Carborundorum”: Draco works in the Potions department of the Ministry. One day, he notices that certain ingredients are disappearing. With some work, he tracks the thefts to Harry Potter, and figures out that all the ingredients are ones that make the Carborundorum Potion, which the guards at Azkaban who had to be around Dementors used to counteract the depression that the Dementors caused. Draco is puzzled, though, why Harry is using that particular potion rather than one of the many other, safer, more common potions that suppress clinical depression.
“Far Away and Long Ago”: This is a high fantasy AU based on the story “The Pied Piper of Hamelin.” Draco “rules” a town of Muggles who were subordinate to the Malfoy family in the past, but who are discovering new technology and new forms of government that mean they don’t need the Malfoys to mediate conflicts or solve problems for them anymore. Draco, furious at this disregard, decides to stop sulking in his castle and releases a plague of rats on the town. He thinks that they’ll come begging for help eventually, and he’ll get to lord it over them and gloat. However, the rats leave the town because of a young piper named Harry Potter, a traveling wizard-musician. Draco is furious again, and plots to destroy the young piper. Needless to say, Draco’s plots don’t work that well.
“Hammered Gold”: After the war, Harry is assigned to watch Draco Malfoy as part of his Auror trainee duties. He discovers that Malfoy is quietly making charitable donations and reforming his behavior without making a giant exhibition of it. The longer he watches, the more Harry falls for Draco’s decision to go his own way and make himself into a better person because that’s what he wants, instead of to prove himself to a skeptical world.
“Malfoy’s Mirror”: Definitely a working title. The final title will probably be a line from Through the Looking-Glass.
Draco discovers a cursed mirror in the Malfoy vaults when he inherits them from Lucius. Unfortunately, the way he discovers it is to exchange souls with his reflection and get trapped in the mirror, while his reflection inhabits his body and creates shallow imitations of Draco’s past actions. Harry enters the mirror to rescue Draco. But time passes differently in the mirror world, and Draco’s nature is changing to suit it.
“Politician and Aristocrat”: Along with not a lot of stories about Auror training, you don’t see a lot of stories where Harry reforms the Ministry (instead of getting fed up with it and walking away). This would be a story that transforms Harry into a politician, and ultimately Minister, with all the dirt that implies, and rolls around in the nasty, nasty world of compromise. Draco is the aristocrat of the title, of course, and he teaches Harry some tricks for enforcing his will, in exchange for getting his way some of the time. Their alliance eventually extends to the personal.
“Unscrupulous Practices”: Draco became an Auror in order to ensure that some of the pure-blood families, at least, would get a better deal than they would without any sympathizers in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He despises Harry Potter more than ever, since he’s become a loudmouthed proponent of punishing pure-bloods as much as possible. But then he’s walking down the street behind Potter one day and sees him simply melt into the sunlight. Obviously something strange is going on here.
Inter Vivos: The epilogue to this is finally completed, which means the story is completed, and I’ll be posting the epilogue tomorrow.
Universal Chaos: Chapter three is complete and will be posted in a few days.
“Company Manners”: This one is moving well, I think. I’m delighted by the variety of opinions I’m getting on it (particularly as to whether Harry or Draco is more to blame for the current state of affairs).
Incandescence: This is the novel-length story about Draco as a novelist fictionalizing the lives of war heroes—and trying to fictionalize Harry’s—that I first got the idea for last year. The first chapter is complete, and it’ll be posted the day after tomorrow. This will probably be fifteen chapters or so.
“Promises Made on Wands”: The one-shot I currently have 1000 words of and am struggling mightily with because it will not do what I want.
Their Phoenix: Chapter 10 is 5000 words long now, and will be posted on Tuesday as usual. Draco has done something extremely stupid. Bad, bad Draco.
(These are in alphabetical order not because that’s how I thought of them but simply for ease of memorization).
“Blooming Narcissus”: Novella-length fic. Harry, suspicious and paranoid after long months of hunting particularly difficult Dark wizards as an Auror, makes a horrible mistake when he is sent to arrest Narcissa Malfoy on suspicion of harboring fugitives: he mistakes her threatening actions for an attempt to kill him, and kills her. He resigns from the Aurors in consequence, and sends an abject letter to Draco begging him to let Harry know if there’s any way he can make it up to him. Draco contacts him a few years later. He’s discovered, in necromantic books that the Ministry didn’t manage to destroy, a way to resurrect his mother, but he needs Harry’s help, because Harry is the master of the Deathly Hallows (and he’s the only one who has any idea where he dropped the Resurrection Stone). Harry eagerly agrees at first, and then less eagerly once he finds out what the magic involves. This will be a very interesting story, because Harry is being driven by guilt as he often is in my fics, but at a certain point, some things matter more than guilt and atonement.
“Carborundorum”: Draco works in the Potions department of the Ministry. One day, he notices that certain ingredients are disappearing. With some work, he tracks the thefts to Harry Potter, and figures out that all the ingredients are ones that make the Carborundorum Potion, which the guards at Azkaban who had to be around Dementors used to counteract the depression that the Dementors caused. Draco is puzzled, though, why Harry is using that particular potion rather than one of the many other, safer, more common potions that suppress clinical depression.
“Far Away and Long Ago”: This is a high fantasy AU based on the story “The Pied Piper of Hamelin.” Draco “rules” a town of Muggles who were subordinate to the Malfoy family in the past, but who are discovering new technology and new forms of government that mean they don’t need the Malfoys to mediate conflicts or solve problems for them anymore. Draco, furious at this disregard, decides to stop sulking in his castle and releases a plague of rats on the town. He thinks that they’ll come begging for help eventually, and he’ll get to lord it over them and gloat. However, the rats leave the town because of a young piper named Harry Potter, a traveling wizard-musician. Draco is furious again, and plots to destroy the young piper. Needless to say, Draco’s plots don’t work that well.
“Hammered Gold”: After the war, Harry is assigned to watch Draco Malfoy as part of his Auror trainee duties. He discovers that Malfoy is quietly making charitable donations and reforming his behavior without making a giant exhibition of it. The longer he watches, the more Harry falls for Draco’s decision to go his own way and make himself into a better person because that’s what he wants, instead of to prove himself to a skeptical world.
“Malfoy’s Mirror”: Definitely a working title. The final title will probably be a line from Through the Looking-Glass.
Draco discovers a cursed mirror in the Malfoy vaults when he inherits them from Lucius. Unfortunately, the way he discovers it is to exchange souls with his reflection and get trapped in the mirror, while his reflection inhabits his body and creates shallow imitations of Draco’s past actions. Harry enters the mirror to rescue Draco. But time passes differently in the mirror world, and Draco’s nature is changing to suit it.
“Politician and Aristocrat”: Along with not a lot of stories about Auror training, you don’t see a lot of stories where Harry reforms the Ministry (instead of getting fed up with it and walking away). This would be a story that transforms Harry into a politician, and ultimately Minister, with all the dirt that implies, and rolls around in the nasty, nasty world of compromise. Draco is the aristocrat of the title, of course, and he teaches Harry some tricks for enforcing his will, in exchange for getting his way some of the time. Their alliance eventually extends to the personal.
“Unscrupulous Practices”: Draco became an Auror in order to ensure that some of the pure-blood families, at least, would get a better deal than they would without any sympathizers in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He despises Harry Potter more than ever, since he’s become a loudmouthed proponent of punishing pure-bloods as much as possible. But then he’s walking down the street behind Potter one day and sees him simply melt into the sunlight. Obviously something strange is going on here.
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-07 11:22 pm (UTC)I like the idea of "Far Away and Long Ago”, I don't think you've set any of your story outside the HP world before, have you?
no subject
Date: 2009-06-07 11:29 pm (UTC)Draco in Incandescence writes novels that are obviously based on the lives of the people in question.
And no, I haven't chosen any really wildly AU setting for my fanfic- not even non-magic.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-07 11:49 pm (UTC)Ooh! That's always fun to read. I read a original scifi slash that models itself after the Obama-McCain elections.
Here's one quote- "We've been lucky, every time Trisha Harr (Sarah Palin) opens her mouth lately you hear half the fucking galaxy slap its forehead. 'I have plenty of interplanetary relations experience! I can see Vega from my front porch!' God." Good times, good times. Will we get to see excerpts of Draco's writing?
no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 12:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 01:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 01:16 am (UTC)"Blooming Narcissus" Makes me sad because I am on this Narcissa binge right now and I just love her to bits! I don't want to see her die...T__T
"Carborundorum" sounds good. I really like the fics where Harry goes about doing things without telling people when people -really- should know about it, especially when Draco has to dig the truth from him or reveal it to him or something, because he usually does it in...slightly mean slightly sharp sort of way. I always like that about him.
Honestly, "Company Manners" confuses me because as far as I can tell they're both -totally- at fault and I have NO idea how they're going to work around their issues.
And I'm kinda sad to see "Inter Vivos" end... what good times...
^__^
no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 01:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 02:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 02:27 am (UTC)I must say, I was never big into the HP fandom (I tend to get bored easily and wander away), but I've read no other fictional piece of work but yours since I found you.
You writing style is very compelling and easy to read. You tend to explain complex theories and scenes in relatively few words, and yet you don't leave the reader feeling deprived of description or imagery.
I do believe you've ruined me for many other Harry/Draco fanfiction, since not many can compare. And I'm okay with that.
More than your writing style, I deeply enjoy the intelligence, psychological insight, creative and unique ideas, and your characterization. Your characterization gets me every time. You paint in flaws and sometimes, I deeply dislike them, but I never feel like they aren't "real". There's never a lack, even in shallow characters.
I could rain you with accolades all night and still not cover everything.
That aside, I am loving Company Manners and Universal Chaos right now. And Their Phoenix is really intrigueing since not many can get to pull a threesome off right, and the little but you've written of Snape in Inter Vivos and a previous oneshot is spot on.
My favorite genres that you cover are abstract magic / magical theories, psychological, and political. So I;m very much looking forward to Blooming Narcissus (although, I love how you write Narcissa, so I'm very sad to see her go.), Politician and Aristocrat (I'm glad to see someone tackle this), and Unscrupulous Practices (this Draco intrigues me).
Strange that you're planning a "Through the Looking Glass" take. I'm currently re-reading it in my free time when the internet is not available. I;m very much looking forward to it. I've always enjoyed 'Alice' takes.
And although it's over quoted, it is a rather good quote:
Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 02:50 am (UTC)I'm going to limit the excerpts of Draco's writing, simply because I'm worried about differentiating it from my own.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 02:50 am (UTC)I think that story will be fascinating, especially because I plan to include some magical theory I think is cool to explain Harry's disappearance.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 02:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 02:52 am (UTC)Well, she might come back in "Blooming Narcissus." Maybe. We'll see.
Draco will be especially mean in "Carborundorum," for a special reason.
It'll take some special effort from both of them to get "Company Manners" to a good resting place.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 02:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 02:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 02:56 am (UTC)I'm glad that you get the essence of the complex themes I want to convey. Sometimes, as with stories like 'I Give You a Wondrous Mirror,' I don't always convey them as sharply as they're appearing in my head.
I'm afraid 'Universal Chaos' and "Company Manners" will both involve more of those deeply flawed characters. Then again, if you enjoy them...
I'm still nervous about 'Their Phoenix.' Then again, I didn't think I could write Draco/Snape slash, and so far I think that's going all right.
'Blooming Narcissus' is the one I'm most interested in at the moment, but not necessarily the one that will get written first; I'll need to be in the right mood for it.
And thank you so much! I think that story will be called 'Six Impossible Things' now, and Harry will need to perform six hard tasks to get Draco out of the mirror world.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 03:44 am (UTC)Oooh, I like "Hammered Gold" and "Unscrupulous Practices" as ideas! As always, I am in love with "Phoenix". Hurray for it growing!
no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 06:21 am (UTC)though Politician and Aristocrat sounds very interesting as well, as does Carborundorum.
And I SO love Company Manners!
Aza^^
no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 05:36 pm (UTC)The new ideas all sound interesting, but I'd really like to read Hammered Gold.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 09:18 pm (UTC)So glad I could help you with your title delima. I'm really looking forward to that one.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 10:41 pm (UTC)I was all for “Carborundorum” and then saw your comment about Draco being particularly mean in it. Hmmm....
“Far Away and Long Ago” sounds cute, and definitely a change from your other stories - but quite a change!
“Politician and Aristocrat”: Hmmm. Potentially quite good, although I would normally turn away from a Harry who becomes an oily old politician....
“Unscrupulous Practices”: Intriguing, what with Harry melting away into the sunlight...!
Huh, I think that I've sounded a little negative (for me) in my assessments - but I've liked all of your stories, even when you refuse to cater to the fuzzy happies, so I'm sure that I will enjoy whichever plots you do choose to pursue. (Although do you have to have Harry kill Narcissa? That's just too, too cruel ;)
no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 11:50 pm (UTC)"Hammered Gold" might be my next one-shot.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 11:51 pm (UTC)And thank you!
no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 11:52 pm (UTC)"Hammered Gold" may be the first one from this list that gets done (as several of the other ideas are fairly long).
no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 11:54 pm (UTC)And I want Harry to kill Narcissa because I'm interested in having him commit a genuine crime/make a genuine mistake, and then seeing what he does about it.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 03:38 am (UTC)Politician and Aristocrat
Date: 2009-06-09 01:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-21 01:19 pm (UTC)(Warnings for those at work: NC17 in the second part. Language throughout.)