The end is in sight...

[rj_anderson]

...although the bulk of the work has yet to be done. With the help of the D&L revisions group I've re-edited The Potions Master's Apprentice and Personal Risks to make them OotP-compliant. I'm still prepared to make more changes as necessary, but the major inconsistencies and omissions have, I think, been fixed. You can find the revisions here and here.

TPMA Changes

changed "Silentio" to "Silencio" (well, I was close, at least);

added a bit about the competence of the Weasley twins to Snape's speech in Ch. 1 about Maud's skill in Potions;

fixed the embarrassing gaffe in which the look in Snape's eyes is described even though Maud is blind and can't see them;

thrown in some more detail to the description of what the DE's came to find the night young Maud lost her parents (which attentive readers might recognize as "seeding" for the Snapelets WiP);

changed Draco's "Muriel" and "Maud" in Chapter 2 to "Groggins" and "Moody" (thank you, hedda63);

removed Mad-Eye's reference to the Order (which was inserted in the first round of revisions) from his flashback speech in Ch. 3 and added that he's been watching Snape all summer;

toughened Snape up some more (which I think, or at least hope, strengthens the impact of the humanity he does show in Maud's presence);

evened out Maud's characterization, which was previously at odds with her behaviour and attitude in the later stories;

changed Dumbledore's "fraternization" in Chapter 3 to "hand-holding", which makes it a bit clearer what he's referring to, and a bit less like he's jumping the gun;

whacked out a bunch of unnecessary adverbs and adjectives with an editorial machete.

PR Changes

the first scene now takes place on a Monday night after one of Harry's Occlumency lessons (though Maud doesn't know that and Snape doesn't tell her);

changed a bunch of "lassie"'s in Mad-Eye's speech to "girl"'s, and threw in a couple of "yeah"'s, to bring his diction closer to what we see in OotP (though I suspect his dialogue still needs work);

Muriel's insinuations to Maud just before their duel are a bit more nebulous, which I think makes more sense given that she really is just taking a shot in the dark;

fixed the calendar of the story to conform to Snape's teaching schedule and the information we have from Harry about that week in OotP (i.e. H. had Occlumency lessons with Snape on Monday and Wednesday of that week, plus regular Potions classes on Monday and Thursday, so Snape couldn't have taken his "day off" until the Friday, when Harry might reasonably be expected not to notice his absence);

lots more mentions of Umbridge, including in reference to Floo travel (thanks to Elaine Lahey for catching that one) and Muriel being one of her spies;

Maud's lost hundred points are now merely fifty points;

fiddled with Snape's "Jobberknoll feather" speech about Harry, with a stronger acknowledgement of his genuine dislike and a less solid justification (less solid from Maud's POV, anyway -- Snape still thinks of himself as rational, even when he manifestly isn't);

indicated that Maud knows Snape is not entirely consistent when it comes to rules, his speech about lawlessness notwithstanding;

more stylistic hack-and-slash;

more toughening up of Snape's character;

and a few other things I can't recall at the moment.

If We Survive chapter one's going to be a doozy, though. Not that it's going to be that hard to make the necessary changes, but it'll involve quite a bit of rewriting and possibly some new material to bridge the gaps (drat that George Weasley for leaving Hogwarts so early!). On the other hand, I can finally fix that tooth-grindingly awful farewell scene between Maud and Snape, which has been bugging me for ages... I must have been hopped up on cold medication when I wrote that bit, is all I can think.

Comments

[yunitsa.livejournal.com]

I can finally fix that tooth-grindingly awful farewell scene between Maud and Snape, which has been bugging me for ages... I must have been hopped up on cold medication when I wrote that bit, is all I can think.

Alas - I'm afraid I always loved that scene, in all its sappiness :) Though, if nothing else, this has motivated me to go back reread D&L - I used to know it nearly by heart, but it's been a while. In the original version, though - I have a nostalgic fondness for it, all your own-worst-critic comments nonwithstanding :) and a strange reluctance to see pre-OOTP fics I like being written into line with the new book. Probably because, as interesting as the possibilities OOTP presents are, I somehow found the post-GoF world just more fun to play in.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I always loved that scene, in all its sappiness :)

Well, I'll try to keep all the Good Parts. It's just a few of Snape's lines that bug me.

And although I share your feelings about the post-GoF world being more fun than writing mid- or post-OotP, the darker, more adult tone to the HP novels does seem to fit in a bit better with the tone of D&L. IMO, anyway.

[bluemoon02.livejournal.com]

Wow... you have the patience to go through the whole thing and make it OotP compatible?....I wonder what your zodiac looks like...*Plans...prolly lots of Virgo...and Libra...And some Scorpio, simply for writing about Snape at all!*

*Cuddles adjectives and adverbs....For they are my descriptive friends*

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Wow... you have the patience to go through the whole thing and make it OotP compatible?

Well, it's not really that difficult. If I'd been seriously jossed by Book 5 then I probably wouldn't bother, but on the whole the changes I actually needed to make were minimal. I've just used this opportunity to clean up a few rough bits along the way. :)

I wonder what your zodiac looks like...

*chuckles* You probably don't want to know. A friend of mine who is into astrology asked to do my birth chart once (hoping to convince me that there was something to it), and the result was so far from accurate in the few concrete statements it did make, and otherwise so utterly nebulous and self-contradictory, that I was really quite amused. She had made quite a study of it, too, so I don't think it was because she did the chart "wrong" or anything like that. I felt sorry that she was disappointed, but for myself... no surprises there.

*Cuddles adjectives and adverbs....For they are my descriptive friends*

I like adverbs and adjectives too, but in the editing process I often realize that I've combined two adverbs or an adjective and an adverb right after each other, when one would suffice and make the story read much better. I'm all about the description these days (ironic since as a teenager I often complained about books that had too much description in them, and insisted that I was no good at writing descriptions myself), but I'm also prone to over-writing at times...

[bluemoon02.livejournal.com]

*Grins*...My dear, that sounds like a challenge...Ah, go on...Lemme have a go...You can mock me when I get ti totally wrong!...Although I've done about thirty over the net...And a couple for my nieces and nephews...And I haven't been wrong yet...Not drastically, anyway...S'just a case of sticking to the basics and watching for patterns...At least, in the vague and entirely untrained way I do it!

I mostly use adjectives and adverbs for decoration...I don;t actually like them that much, but when I was in primary school I was told off for writing my story with a big long heavy description, then all teh dialogue in a row, then lots more description...I'm constantly battling to find a half way!

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well, if you're really interested in giving it a go, I was born in Kampala, Uganda, Africa on March 23rd, 1970, around 7 p.m. (sorry, can't be more specific with the hour and minute, but on the other hand, if it's totally wrong, you can use that as your excuse ).

RJ you never stop amazing me.

[ravensnape.livejournal.com]

Holy cow, RJ, where do you find the time? Where am I going to find the time because now I'll have to go and re-re-read D&L. I really try to keep your Severus in mind while writing my Severus and if you have butched him up even more I really have an explosive situation on my hands between he and Raven. they simply will combust for the energy between them.

[naomichana.livejournal.com]

I do hope -- given Harry's convenient absence from the Leaving Feast -- that the Weasley twins put in an unscheduled appearance despite having technically dropped out. It'd be just like them, I'd hate to lose George's Exaudio commentary.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Oh, don't worry, it'll be in there. Just earlier in the year, and under slightly different circumstances. :)

I need that Exaudio bit to link up with the use of the same charm in a more serious context later -- so it would be a mistake to dump it completely, I think.