if I told you the truth, you wouldn't believe me

[pauraque_bk]

Writing writing writing writing. Making another run at the sequel to Void Sale. It was originally supposed to be a three-part thing, and though the third part seemed managable, I got hung up on the second. There are some things in the third part that I'm quite proud of, so I'm going to try to piece the middle together into some semblance of coherence.

Like the rest of the world, I'm holding off on writing more Harry Potter fic until OotP. My brain, distressed by this sudden constraint, caused me to have a bizarre HP-related dream last night. I essentially dreamed that I was plotting a story in which Sirius (in his school days) attempts to enchant a portkey to Los Angeles. There is a mishap which indeed lands him, Lupin, and Snape in Los Angeles -- in 1929. Many adventures ensue. Among other things, while Lupin and Snape attempt to track down the missing portkey, Sirius briefly joins a street-corner barbershop quartet to pick up some cash. It turns out the portkey is in the possession of a flapper (who looks much like Clara Bow). Sirius attempts to charm the flapper into giving it up, but she shuts him down. However, she takes a liking to Snape, who not only retrieves the portkey, but finds himself losing his virginity thirty years before he was born.

And there was more. When I woke up, I was debating whether or not I wanted the three to somehow instigate the market crash, or whether that would over-complicate the plot.

This is what happens when I deny myself a creative outlet. Maybe I should do it more often.

Comments

[muridae-x.livejournal.com]

Like the rest of the world, I'm holding off on writing more Harry Potter fic until OotP.

::blinks:: We're almost there now, aren't we? I've been so busy the past couple of weeks that I'd nearly forgotten. Now I can go back to debating whether to wait for my order from Amazon to turn up (maybe on the right day, with a minor possibility of early, with a larger possibility of being held at the sorting office as being too big to get through the letterbox and/or three days later due to post office/shipping screwups)... or find myself a midnight bookshop opening to go to. I may well end up with two copies yet, all in the name of reading it half a day (okay, night) early. Ah well, if I do I can always donate the spare to my mother who'll otherwise be waiting for the paperback. :-)

Your dream amuses me. Alas, I think it would tick off Sirius somewhat rotten. I'm really hoping for some quality Lupin, Sirius and Snape time in OotP. Not all together, naturally, although another snarling match between Sirius and Snape wouldn't go amiss.

[pauraque]

Yep, almost there. My local bookstore has a sign with a countdown of how many days are left. I went ahead and ordered the British version, which will probably arrive on the 25th or so, but I know I won't be able to wait that long. My brother's going to get it at midnight, so I figure I'll wait until he has to eat or sleep or go to the bathroom or something, and then sneak off with it.

I'm really hoping for some quality Lupin, Sirius and Snape time in OotP.

Me too, in a big way, and I think we won't be disappointed. I was thrilled to hear that Lupin would be playing a big part; I missed him terribly in GoF. And I can't wait to see if Snape's going to end up doing something really noble (and how much of a little shit he'll act like while he's doing it). ;)

Sirius is hard for me to like -- he reminds me too much of the jocks who made my life suck in high school, so I tend to sympathise more with Snape. Ah well, maybe he'll win me over in OotP.

[muridae-x.livejournal.com]

Sirius is hard for me to like -- he reminds me too much of the jocks who made my life suck in high school, so I tend to sympathise more with Snape.

Me too, actually. Snape reminds me a lot of a teacher with a scarifying tongue that I once had - who I thought was absolutely terrifying at 11, but incredibly cool and funny by the time I was 18. Of course, Snape is a greatly exaggerated caricature, but I hope we'll find that Harry and co learn to understand and appreciate who and what he is a lot more with growing maturity, even if they're probably never going to find him particularly likeable.

And Sirius? Sirius doesn't strike me as a great thinker. He's a hothead who's on the side of right, but something of a loose cannon. I like him mostly for the way he brings out the best/worst in Snape and Lupin who are my two absolute favourite characters in the entire series.

[pauraque]

Snape reminds me a lot of a teacher with a scarifying tongue that I once had - who I thought was absolutely terrifying at 11, but incredibly cool and funny by the time I was 18.

I wanted to ask you about this... I have to admit near-total ignorance of the British school system. Is it usual to have a school that runs from age 11 to 18?

And Sirius? Sirius doesn't strike me as a great thinker. He's a hothead who's on the side of right, but something of a loose cannon.

Yeah, I'd agree with this. Sirius worries me a bit, because Harry's accepted him so readily as a father figure, and though I know Sirius tries to be responsible, I think it's a lot for him to handle. Sirius is unstable and immature -- which is perfectly understandable given that he was in Azkaban not only for a long time, but from a young age (21 or so?). He never had an opportunity to grow up himself.

I like him mostly for the way he brings out the best/worst in Snape and Lupin who are my two absolute favourite characters in the entire series.

Yes, I feel the exact same way. I love the dynamic between the three of them. The tension builds up between Snape and Lupin throughout PoA, and Sirius just ignites it in the Shrieking Shack. Snape's reaction is perhaps surprising, but I was more shocked by Lupin's behavior, in retrospect -- the calm, quiet way he agrees to kill Peter is very chilling in a character we've come to think of as gentle, if strong-willed.

[muridae-x.livejournal.com]

I wanted to ask you about this... I have to admit near-total ignorance of the British school system. Is it usual to have a school that runs from age 11 to 18?

Yes, it is. They've renumbered everything since I was at school (the children in the lowest year are now "year seven" instead of "first years"), and they've changed half the exams, but it's still roughly similar and I would think that the most important factor would be the school system as it was when J K Rowling went through it and she and I would have done so within a few years of each other.

The lower schools tend to depend on the educational authority in question as to how many years you spend at each (the norm is 2-3 years at infant school (from the age of 4-5), four years at junior, then five or seven years at senior school (from the age of 10-11). The age catchment runs from 1 September to 31 August; you enter senior school in the September of the school year that you will become eleven, so Harry would have been one of the youngest in his year and Hermione one of the oldest.

When I went through the system, it ran from "first year"/"first form" through to "fifth year"/"fifth form". The first three years you learned a little of everything, then you picked a number of electives which you studied in addition to the basic core subjects for two years, at which point you sat your O Levels (which examinations have now been changed to GCSEs, but which are clearly where JKR got the OWLs from). At that point you were 16, and you would either leave school or continue on into the sixth form for two more years and do your A Levels (JKR's NEWTs).

It looks to me like in the Wizarding universe everybody stays on until they're 18 (although it could be interesting if Crabbe and Goyle don't return in book six and Malfoy is bereft of his sidekicks *g*), and as if JKR has simplified things by modifying lower sixth and upper sixth to sixth year and seventh year. But otherwise it's a pretty close parallel of the English school system, with a heavy dash of boarding school stories (something of a staple of children's literature in the era she and I grew up in) to make it a little more exotic.

[pauraque]

Thanks, this is quite helpful. It looks like the main difference is that in America, senior school is split up into into middle school (11-13) and high school (14-17).

I'm curious about what kind of effect this has on kids' behavior. When you were in senior school, did the older kids interact with the younger kids much? Would someone in the sixth form bother to bully someone in the second form, or would that just seem stupid? When I was growing up, you were somewhat protected from kids who were much older than you, by the simple fact that you went to different schools.

[muridae-x.livejournal.com]

From what I remember - it was a long time ago! - most bullying seemed to go on between kids in the same year as each other, with occasional terror campaigns by kids in the years immediately above or year below. The fifth and sixth formers (i.e. the top three years) tended not to bother with the younger kids too much, unless they were prefects, in which case they'd be walking the corridors at break and lunchtime herding them out of the toilets and cloakrooms to go outside. At my school at least, the fifth and sixth forms were somewhat segregated from the rest; they had their own areas and common rooms where they could hang out between classes. I don't know how typical that would be though.

But if you ever need a sanity check for an HP fiction from the education system point of view, let me know. I experienced it at first hand and I've probably read much the same boarding school stories as JKR would have, so I've a reasonably good grasp of where all her Hogwarts school system stuff originates from.

[pauraque]

unless they were prefects, in which case they'd be walking the corridors at break and lunchtime herding them out of the toilets and cloakrooms to go outside

See, we didn't have prefects. We didn't even have hall monitors. Did your prefects have much power beyond herding kids around? (I also can't seem to remember whether HP prefects can take house points or not.)

[muridae-x.livejournal.com]

Did your prefects have much power beyond herding kids around?

None whatsoever. Prefects were pretty much just there so that they could do the traffic management that otherwise would have fallen to a teacher. You could report a persistent offender who just refused to do what they were told, but it would be the teacher you reported them to who decided whether to take action.

I may be misremembering, but I don't think our school actually removed house points for bad behaviour. You got them for good behaviour/good work, or you didn't get them; bad behaviour usually got you a detention, or for the worst sinners, suspension. So the sinners/tragically misunderstood heroes who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, were only responsible for their own downfall, not that of their house as well.

But I'm guessing that JKR's more drastic playing around with the house points is as a result of the dramatic points she's trying to make with it. Incidentally, I have a vague memory that Percy may have tried to take away house points at least once, but I may be wrong.

(Finally remembering that I have a HP icon to use...)

[pauraque]

I may be misremembering, but I don't think our school actually removed house points for bad behaviour. You got them for good behaviour/good work, or you didn't get them

Where I went to school, there was no such thing as houses or house points. But later, I was a teacher's aide at a private boarding school, where, in fact, they did have four houses (dorms), and points for work and behavior. Each student could earn a possible 42 points in a day, and if you did everything right, that's how many you'd get. Any misbehavior, and you'd lose some. There were six points in a period, and a teacher could only take away points for his/her own class (though anyone could take them at lunchtime, and some of the slimy gits/poor misunderstood babies did wait until lunch to take more points from students who had ticked them off/been a bloody fool earlier in the day).

As a teacher's aide, though I did make reports on who'd been working and who'd been messing around, I couldn't take away points directly. But man, when those kids really got on my nerves, sometimes I wished I could. No wonder I sympathise with Snape. ;)

There wasn't an ongoing tally of which dorm had the most points, but if members of a dorm lost too many in a day, the whole dorm would lose privileges. But I think this entire system is very unusual in America, even in private schools.

Incidentally, I have a vague memory that Percy may have tried to take away house points at least once, but I may be wrong.

Yeah, I'm not sure. I'd think that if prefects could, there would be a limit on how many they could take. Or it could be similar to what I had, where prefects can make discipline reports, and the teacher decides how many points to take.

[spican.livejournal.com]

Just chiming in with an unrestrained squee at the information that there'll be a sequel to Void Sale. It did feel like a whole and complete story, of course, the beautiful way it was crafted. But at the same time I was just dying to know what happened next when I finished it, with Marita and Krycek so on the edge with each other, and Jeffrey just returning from the brink to the afterlife.

So yes yes yes! Let there be a sequel!

[pauraque]

Thanks, I can always use some cheerleading to keep me motivated. ;) I'm making some progress... the only trouble is that I'm reading over stuff I wrote nine or ten months ago, and trying to remember what the hell I meant by it. I don't have the same ready knowledge of XF mythology that I did then, though it's starting to come back to me.

When I get a complete draft put together, do you think you'd be interested in checking it over? I've been very lazy recently in not getting things beta-read, even though I know the results are 100% better with a few more pairs of eyes.

[spican.livejournal.com]

When I get a complete draft put together, do you think you'd be interested in checking it over?

I'd be happy to! I'm pretty busy through the next couple of weeks, so can't promise a speedy beta during that time, but apart from that my schedule is clear and I'd love to beta your story. :) So just send it here when you're ready!

[pauraque]

Cool. Thanks. :)

[muridae-x.livejournal.com]

Oh well, if it's cheerleading you need... I too will find a sequel to "Void Sale" extremely welcome, and look forward to seeing it when it's done. I appreciate the difficulties in coming back after a break to pick up where you left off, and trying to make all the pieces coherent and regain the momentum though. It can be tricky, but I'm sure you'll manage it.