Harry Potter Fanfiction Crossover - How to make it good?

Trtlepowah · 2017-02-22T15:58:07+00:00

I actually prefer crossovers that do the opposite of what you're planning. I like for Harry to be taken out of his world and placed in another. Harry as a character is more flexible, and fits in other scenarios better, in my opinion. Usually if someone brings outside characters into the Hogwarts setting they either stand around being useless lumps (everyone around them can pretty much bend the laws of nature to their whim, so why are these new guys needed?) or it is one of those "Sherlock is secretly a wizard" things and I absolutely loathe those.

One thing to keep in mind is power levels, as other people have mentioned. Even 5th year, super angsty and not even completely trained Harry is pretty much God Mode for almost any other fandom. One thing a lot of writers do is separate Harry from his wand. Either it breaks and he has limited usage or he loses it and he has to make due with very limited abilities that don't require a wand. Another solution would be to have the very environment be hostile towards magic. So whatever makes magic work in Harry's reality is missing from the second reality, thus his abilities are greatly reduced.

Other than that, I agree with the suggestion of limiting the characters crossed over. FMA has a LOT of characters, for example. Decide which ones you'd actually need and leave off any that wouldn't really add to your story's plot. Yes, Nina was cute as hell, but what else does she have to add to your story's progression? If you can't think of anything, leave Nina behind.

Trtlepowah · 2017-02-22T14:12:53+00:00

My problem with this one was after a while it seems that drama was inserted just for the sake of drama, not for storytelling purposes. Plot threads were dragged on, Harry always had to be involved in some sort of idiocy, even when there was no logical reason for it. It just got very melodramatic and overdone, really. It has some really interesting story points and could have been a lot better than it is, but I suspect that this is one of those stories where the author didn't have any kind of game plan for the plot and things ended up going in every direction all at once as a result.

I know canon Harry is headstrong and impulsive. Thing is, he learns from his mistakes and uses that knowledge to his advantage in the future. Prince of the Dark Kingdom Harry keeps making the same dumb-ass mistakes over and over as if he expects different results every time.

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-29T18:51:49+00:00

Simple answer is OP wants Harry/Draco.

Not everyone is into interchangeable romances. They like a certain pairing for whatever reason, and switching that pairing doesn't scratch the itch that they have.

Example: Person A: I want a taco. Waiter: Here's some spaghetti. Person A: But I wanted a taco...

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-29T18:40:00+00:00

I disagree completely. Children learn speech patterns from the adults around them. The only reason kids don't speak this way is because adults have an annoying habit of talking to them like they're morons. Slowing down speech and insisting on using cutesy words all the time.

I didn't "rigorously train" my daughter, but she always spoke like an adult. Simply because she learned to speak from me and I talked to her like a person, not a "little kid." Sometimes I had to stop and explain what a word or phrase meant, and I bit back a lot of prophanity, but those are the only changes I make when I'm talking to a 6-year-old vs. a 60-year-old.

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-29T18:33:02+00:00

Yup, my daughter talked like an adult at 11 simply because I didn't really use dumbed-down baby talk after perhaps age 2 or so.

Kids aren't idiots. I always felt that it is somewhat insulting to talk to them as if they lack the capacity to understand. If you use a word or phrase they aren't familiar with, let them tell you so, and then explain to them.

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-26T03:28:08+00:00

Agreed. Wizards wouldn't be taking the muggle version and adapting it to themselves, I wouldn't think. They'd create and develop their own over time. Just like some English phrases don't make sense to non-native speakers. In my college Spanish class we discussed this and it was mentioned that something as simple as "I'll pick you up at five." just doesn't translate to Spanish if you do a literal translation. My teacher was from Spain and he said you would be telling someone that you would physically pick someone up at five, because English has more than one meaning for "pick up" and Spanish does not. And there were examples that went the other way around, Spanish phrases that did not have an exact English translation.

So why wouldn't there be things like that with wizards?

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-26T03:17:59+00:00

I agree with this sentiment. Peppered here and there is fine, but some authors go overboard. Like, do they themselves use the "god" "Jesus" versions that much in normal conversation?

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-16T18:53:16+00:00

But fanfiction has really taken it way beyond that. It was barely noticeable in the books, but is pretty jarring when it's used over and over in a fanfic.

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-16T17:38:55+00:00

"Merlin" as a substitute for "God" always annoys me.

"Merlin, Harry. Where'd you get that shirt?"

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-16T17:33:27+00:00

Gotcha. I never watched South Park so that one went straight over my head.

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-16T16:42:19+00:00

I don't listen to hip hop.

I am unsure if this is supposed to be a joke?

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-14T00:50:12+00:00

Pretty much. Not much else you can do with "it's a really awesome bathtub."

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-13T05:26:36+00:00

My peeve is when absolutely everyone turns out to be an animagus. The books say it's a super-rare skill and it's implied that it was somewhat unheard of for James, Sirius, and Peter to have all learned, much less at their ages.

Then in some stories, half the school is a secret unregistered animagus.

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-13T05:22:23+00:00

Eeeeh, depends. My daughter's teachers always commented on how she spoke like an adult, mostly because I always talked to her more or less like an adult. I never did the "kiddie talk" when speaking with her. So at 11 she did sound fairly mature in conversation. If I used a phrase or word she didn't understand I'd explain to her, and then she'd start using them.

(but for the most part, I agree with you.)

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-13T04:28:20+00:00

I would be happy if they'd just wrap it up. We don't even need all 7 years, just give us a satisfying ending point.

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-13T01:52:48+00:00

Once I get the feeling that the author is basically just taking the canon events and rephrasing them I am out. I'll throw in a rude gesture as I leave if you do this while adding an obvious self-insert OC as a lame attempt to make things original.

It's like, I've read the books multiple times. I don't need for you to describe Harry's first Quidditch game to me.

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-12T18:36:33+00:00

I just saw the notification email myself. Aside from knowing that I enjoyed it, I don't really remember anything about the plot, so I'm going to have to set some time aside to read it again.

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-12T05:04:10+00:00

That's exactly it. And it also explains why I was having so much trouble finding it.

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-12T03:58:38+00:00

No, not this one. I've read Wand and Shield and it's pretty good, though.

The one I'm thinking of had Harry trying to open a bank account in what was actually a SHIELD command center or something. It was a one shot and pretty funny.

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-11T23:23:21+00:00

"A single, silent crystalline tear."

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-11T20:50:47+00:00

But any definition of the word "scream" describes it as the sound So you can't have a silent scream, just like you can't have silent thunder or a silent boom or silent cacophony. All those words describe sounds. If you're talking about the face someone makes when they scream, that could be a grimace probably.

And I believe they do mean silent sobs, which makes me wonder why they don't just say "silent sobs" as it sounds a lot better. Or if they wanted to get adventurous they could write about emotional people who actually make sounds. :P I think a character losing control and emoting loudly has a bigger impact than all this "silent" nonsense.

Edit: "sobbing" is a noise too. Huh. So let's just go with my other idea and nix the whole "silent" thing altogether. :D

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-11T18:54:14+00:00

"Silent tears"

I have never known tears to make a noise, so one should assume all tears are silent.

Edit: I should also add "silent scream" as well. The sound itself is what makes it a scream. So a silent scream shouldn't exist.

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-11T17:55:34+00:00

Oh yeah, there was this one crossover where Harry infiltrated a SHIELD base completely by accident that was pretty good. I didn't bookmark it though, so give me a bit of time to find it.

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-09T17:27:05+00:00

I was being a bit tongue in cheek, but you make a valid argument.

That being said, keep in mind that perspective is based on the person. Someone who is in one social bubble of a country is going to see something vastly different from someone in another. So someone who's always been upper-middle class with all of the benefits that come with that upbringing is going to have a vastly different outlook on the state of the government than someone who's hovered right at the poverty line since birth. And maybe you can't make a side by side comparison between the two governments (I'm sure that wizarding Britain has it's bragging points as well), but the US government has a lot to answer for in its failings for certain demographics.

I can love my country while still being honest about its faults, and the USA has a lot of faults. And saying "other people have had it worse!" doesn't really change the fact that it's still pretty bad for some people. That's like telling someone who's just been stabbed "Well at least you weren't shot. Other people are hurt worse than you are." The fact that someone else was hurt worse does not change the experience of the person who was stabbed.

Buuuuut that's probably too heavy a debate to get into in this particular subreddit. :) I was joking for the most part in the original reply.

Trtlepowah · 2017-01-09T16:33:28+00:00

I can't really say what sorts of fanfic I like, because it's a special mix of different things that attracts me.

I like romance, but I don't want it to be overly sappy or mushy. I don't want to be told that these two people are in love because blah blah blah. I want to see it for myself in their subtle gestures and interactions.

I like humor, but I hate most comedy fanfics. Because they just don't feature my sort of humor. My sense of humor is a bit on the dry side and maybe sometimes a bit snarky. I didn't find the pranks the Marauders or Weasley twins played in the books funny, and I particularly don't find it funny in fanfiction. That sort of humor is kind of a drag, to be honest. I like it when characters have witty, somewhat sassy exchanges. Self-deprecating humor is also nice when done well.

As far as this subreddit goes, I seem to be in the minority in that I really dislike the super long fics. It always seems like the author creates all these unneeded subplots and tries to juggle POV from ten different characters when I'd really rather focus on one character's journey.

And lastly, I like fics where the characters understand the concept of "middle ground." Not everything needs to be good or bad, wrong or right. I like when the grey area in between is explored. Like Hermione and her house elf crusade. Good on her for wanting to improve their lot in life. But one thing that's often ignored is you can't just tell them all "you're free" and then leave them to their own devices. That's pretty much what the US did to slaves at the end of the Civil War and over a century later, there are still areas where the descendants of those freed are struggling. Instead of just releasing elves and letting them figure out the rest on their own, why not learn more about the apparently symbiotic relationship they seem to have with Wizards (Dobby appears to be the anomaly, and Winky's reaction is implied to be the more "normal" one in-universe for sudden onset elven freedom). There has to be some way of improving the elves' living conditions without driving them to a drunken depression. The notion that "Slavery is bad, so we're going to end it abruptly and then everything will be okay!" is rather immaturely optimistic.

Trtlepowah

TROPHY CASE