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paulamcgWhat did you recently finish reading?
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
As I’ve said before, I loved this from the very first page. I suppose it was not essential for how long the identity of the murderer remained a mystery. There was so much more (mystery, too) to this story than that. The central characters – the protagonist and her three friends, all the sort of people whom the world regards as useless – were beautiful, and the language was beautiful and I can just try to imagine how much more beautiful it could be in the original Polish.
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
of course, a masterpiece, a compact novel with nothing superfluous. Still, I managed to be taken unawares by how much I enjoyed it. I usually prefer both reading and writing first-person narratives. And Steinbeck impresses me by making me feel and share what the characters experience in the story even though he uses third-person narrative and not a close one but an onlooker’s view. At the opening – as well as the few other changes of setting – I felt a bit impatient when I had to visualise the details of the setting, which I felt did not even exist yet because there was nobody experiencing them. But of course, his descriptions are so vivid that he won me over. And the dialogue and the observations of the characters are so excellent that we really don’t need to have an access to any character’s thoughts. (Now I feel I should take the challenge and write a Marauder fic in this technique.)
What are you currently reading?
At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier
I feel secure I’ll enjoy staying absorbed in this written world for a long time. The sense of place and of era is wonderful, and I trust the writer has done her research well (once again). The descriptions are vivid, the characters real with their flaws. I don’t always like such frequency in alternating two perspectives, but here it makes the realistic account of everyday life interesting. One pov is third-person and the other first-person narration, and that works well, emphasizes the contrast between the characters. But I’m not sure what to think about the spelling in the first-person parts. I understand it’s a character voice based on her spoken language – but just because she wouldn’t have written it down, I don’t think it would be necessary to write it like this: Id tell em why wed kept it
What do you think you’ll read next?
The Dark Dark by Samantha Hunt, or
The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie
because the libraries are closed, and I don’t read e-books.
I know. It’s the same books I mentioned last time… what: three weeks ago! I’m a slow reader, and I’ve spent a lot of time on writing. I haven’t even read much fanfic. These three are among those fics I've particularly enjoyed and admired:
Library Solicitation by gracerene
A clever portrayal of two clever ladies, Hermione and Cho, for whom attraction has an intellectual basis, too.
Girls’ Day Out by hannelore
A heartwarming decription of friendship between three girls, two of whom support the third, who’s less experienced in this fascinating kind of shopping.
kings among runaways by renaissance
A refreshing story about Marauders who are not all in Gryffindor and are better characterised than ever by Rowling (or many of us who follow her canon).
At Remus Lupin Fest I’ve read only a few short fics, and my favourite in the fest so far is this gorgeous piece of fanart – featuring Teddy Lupin, whose existence I can no longer object to, even though I try to ignore HBP and DH:
One of Many Happy Moments
There are 38 fanworks, and it’s been interesting to see what Remus fans write these days. Someone commenting on my previous post here said something about Old School fic, and I’m not sure what that means. Fic in which Remus and Sirius are not pirates or clowns? Oops, did I reveal something just before it’s time for Reveals. I wonder if any of you could guess (just on the basis of the summaries) which two fics are mine.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
As I’ve said before, I loved this from the very first page. I suppose it was not essential for how long the identity of the murderer remained a mystery. There was so much more (mystery, too) to this story than that. The central characters – the protagonist and her three friends, all the sort of people whom the world regards as useless – were beautiful, and the language was beautiful and I can just try to imagine how much more beautiful it could be in the original Polish.
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
of course, a masterpiece, a compact novel with nothing superfluous. Still, I managed to be taken unawares by how much I enjoyed it. I usually prefer both reading and writing first-person narratives. And Steinbeck impresses me by making me feel and share what the characters experience in the story even though he uses third-person narrative and not a close one but an onlooker’s view. At the opening – as well as the few other changes of setting – I felt a bit impatient when I had to visualise the details of the setting, which I felt did not even exist yet because there was nobody experiencing them. But of course, his descriptions are so vivid that he won me over. And the dialogue and the observations of the characters are so excellent that we really don’t need to have an access to any character’s thoughts. (Now I feel I should take the challenge and write a Marauder fic in this technique.)
What are you currently reading?
At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier
I feel secure I’ll enjoy staying absorbed in this written world for a long time. The sense of place and of era is wonderful, and I trust the writer has done her research well (once again). The descriptions are vivid, the characters real with their flaws. I don’t always like such frequency in alternating two perspectives, but here it makes the realistic account of everyday life interesting. One pov is third-person and the other first-person narration, and that works well, emphasizes the contrast between the characters. But I’m not sure what to think about the spelling in the first-person parts. I understand it’s a character voice based on her spoken language – but just because she wouldn’t have written it down, I don’t think it would be necessary to write it like this: Id tell em why wed kept it
What do you think you’ll read next?
The Dark Dark by Samantha Hunt, or
The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie
because the libraries are closed, and I don’t read e-books.
I know. It’s the same books I mentioned last time… what: three weeks ago! I’m a slow reader, and I’ve spent a lot of time on writing. I haven’t even read much fanfic. These three are among those fics I've particularly enjoyed and admired:
Library Solicitation by gracerene
A clever portrayal of two clever ladies, Hermione and Cho, for whom attraction has an intellectual basis, too.
Girls’ Day Out by hannelore
A heartwarming decription of friendship between three girls, two of whom support the third, who’s less experienced in this fascinating kind of shopping.
kings among runaways by renaissance
A refreshing story about Marauders who are not all in Gryffindor and are better characterised than ever by Rowling (or many of us who follow her canon).
At Remus Lupin Fest I’ve read only a few short fics, and my favourite in the fest so far is this gorgeous piece of fanart – featuring Teddy Lupin, whose existence I can no longer object to, even though I try to ignore HBP and DH:
One of Many Happy Moments
There are 38 fanworks, and it’s been interesting to see what Remus fans write these days. Someone commenting on my previous post here said something about Old School fic, and I’m not sure what that means. Fic in which Remus and Sirius are not pirates or clowns? Oops, did I reveal something just before it’s time for Reveals. I wonder if any of you could guess (just on the basis of the summaries) which two fics are mine.
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Date: 2020-04-08 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-08 06:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-08 07:14 pm (UTC)I wonder if any of you could guess (just on the basis of the summaries) which two fics are mine.
Okay, I'll take a crack at it. :) I haven't read any of the fics in the fest, so no cheating, summaries only. I think we can eliminate all the non-Wolfstar fics straightaway, and the setting-change AUs, and the AUs that diverge somewhere other than after OotP. Can't be any of the Sirius Lives fics, or ones with Teddy. It's not the BDSM one. If we also take away the fics with Tumblr-style tagging conventions, we're left with only a few candidates. The Teen-rated ones are probably more likely than the explicit fics. The summary of "Falling Into Place" sounds so totally unlike your writing style that I'd cross it off on that basis.
My guesses are "An Endearing Portrait" and "To Admit What Is Not More Illegal". The next runner-up would be "Renewal", which does sound like the sort of thing you'd write too, but the other two are tagged similarly in a way that would make me suspect they were both written by the same person regardless.
How did I do?
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Date: 2020-04-08 07:48 pm (UTC)It’s also nice to hear that you agree that Of Mice and Men is great.
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Date: 2020-04-18 09:57 am (UTC)An Endearing Portrtait and
To Admit What Is Not More Illegal
are, indeed, mine. I’m pleased you know me so well that you could conclude this (although perhaps I shouldn’t be proud to be known to write in such a narrow comfort zone!) The summaries are written – and the tagging’s also done – so similarly in these two fics that I understand you were quite sure after crossing off almost everything else. The summary does make Renewal look like the kind of thing I could write – you are right! The task could have been a bit more difficult if I hadn’t said whether I’d written one fic or two.
I started writing An Endearing Portrait when I was afraid my first fic wasn’t Remus-centric enough, as Remus was asleep for a big part of the story. I ended up using Sirius’s perspective in the second one, too, but decided to use the third person – and succeeded, even got a lot of kudos and comments on that one, but I can’t know if it’s just because of the shortness or the smaller amount of angst (while the other fic was received well enough, too). I think I set both fics in the Marauders’ school years, because it was easiest to find first-five-books-compliant prompts in that era.
Thank you so much again for taking the challenge and an interest in my participation in the fest!
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Date: 2020-04-09 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-09 09:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-09 11:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-09 12:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-09 12:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-09 12:59 pm (UTC)My chaptered Remus fic is still not on AO3. I’ve decided to post all my pre-hiatus short stories first. I uploaded the completed novel on FictionAlley, but now it’s up only on my Livejournal, the first chapter here: Remus Lupin and the Revolt of the Creatures. (I originally posted it on a small forum, and I edited all the chapters in 2009 – 2010 before posting on LJ, but the early chapters are, in my view, not quite so well-written at all as later ones. If you’d first like to see my better writing style) you could first have a look at a short fic, for instance (PoA-era) If He’s Got Any Strengths.
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Date: 2020-04-10 12:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-10 01:35 pm (UTC)I’m replying here to your reply to my first comment on your story at AO3, because I think that over there I shouldn’t talk too much about my fic.
We seem to share something in our interest in extrapolating from what Rowling has shown of magic. However, I don’t think we’re rivals, as my take is different enough – humbler, I’d say. You’ll soon see that also in the humble way my Remus thinks about and uses his ability in magic.
But, like you, I’ve been eager to develop the concept of other than wand magic. Instead of non-verbal magic (a concept which I don’t think appeared in canon before HBP) I use the term voiceless magic, because in this magic the witches and wizards use often the same spells as Harry has learnt, and just don’t say the incantations aloud but have the words in their minds. Besides, I’ve been particularly interested in exploring the magic of other than (merely) human creatures and of those humans who have no Hogwarts education and often no wands.
On the other hand, I haven’t included anything called wards in my universe at all. I think that’s another term that doesn’t appear in canon, at least not before HBP, and I think this one came to fanon from fans’ knowledge of other magical worlds.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-11 11:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-11 12:54 pm (UTC)Besides, even though I don’t use the word ward, the concept is definitely not absent in my fic. My characters use personal sealing charms, which prevent simple Alohomora from working, and I’ve shown a bit more about how Fidelius works.
Since I’ve recently read short fics, I haven’t seen much worldbuilding, but I’m always happy when the writer has not forgotten magic even when the focus of the story is on personal (intimate) relationships. In my novel the past Remus/Sirius is on the background and its development a subplot in the backstory, and there’s no other central ship, but my writing focuses a lot more on the characters than yours (at least in its beginning), so that I wonder if you’ll find it interesting enough. Besides, the whole novel is written in limited-third-person narration, solely from Remus’s perspective. Part one (first six long chapters) take place in canon settings, and only after that do I get to more worldbuilding, including magicbuilding.