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more notes you don't care about
Mar. 26th, 2011 09:02 pm
I keep not writing The Amazing Harry Potter Idfic Of Doom, because I feel like I should do things like research and outlining. (Unfortunately, I know very well that researching for fic ends up with me learning a lot of useful stuff and then never writing anything.) Happily, a side-effect of reading really depressing and slightly bad FF7 time-travel fic seems to be 'plot out happy fic in which people are bffs and everything turns out okay'.
Originally, I was going to start out with a couple of dorm-mates talking about what they wanted to be when they were little, and what they want to be now. (Su Li: a witch, but now a physicist. Mandy Brocklehurst: a film director, then and still.) But now I think I want to write about Slytherins and Hufflepuffs playing cards together and setting up an extra-curricular Muggle Studies group. During Harry's fifth year, I think -- so they can just be going for Umbridge's stamp of legitimacy to keep their innocuous card-playing and hanging-out legal. And then they actually start talking about Serious Business Stuff, such as the deficiencies of the school curriculum in, well, just about everything, the Wizarding World's sad lack of shiny high-heeled shoes, the Eurocentricity of Ancient Runes, and how oddly entertaining it is to play games that don't yell at you, squirt foul-smelling substances onto your skin, or blow up in your face. (See also: the merits of fountain pens.) And one of them knows someone who knows more about a topic they're curious about than they do -- say, muggle theatre? Asian history? -- and they bring them in, and it snowballs from there.
Another reason to do this in Harry's fifth year: While Harry and his friends are off storming the Ministry and whatever, I like the idea of a few (older or younger? or both?) students sitting around a table in an empty classroom, quietly having fun and planning the future.
How small a group was Umbridge forbidding in OotP? I forget, but this kind of group feels like it should start as small as possible. Four people?
Originally, I was going to start out with a couple of dorm-mates talking about what they wanted to be when they were little, and what they want to be now. (Su Li: a witch, but now a physicist. Mandy Brocklehurst: a film director, then and still.) But now I think I want to write about Slytherins and Hufflepuffs playing cards together and setting up an extra-curricular Muggle Studies group. During Harry's fifth year, I think -- so they can just be going for Umbridge's stamp of legitimacy to keep their innocuous card-playing and hanging-out legal. And then they actually start talking about Serious Business Stuff, such as the deficiencies of the school curriculum in, well, just about everything, the Wizarding World's sad lack of shiny high-heeled shoes, the Eurocentricity of Ancient Runes, and how oddly entertaining it is to play games that don't yell at you, squirt foul-smelling substances onto your skin, or blow up in your face. (See also: the merits of fountain pens.) And one of them knows someone who knows more about a topic they're curious about than they do -- say, muggle theatre? Asian history? -- and they bring them in, and it snowballs from there.
Another reason to do this in Harry's fifth year: While Harry and his friends are off storming the Ministry and whatever, I like the idea of a few (older or younger? or both?) students sitting around a table in an empty classroom, quietly having fun and planning the future.
How small a group was Umbridge forbidding in OotP? I forget, but this kind of group feels like it should start as small as possible. Four people?
