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Chapter: Expectations | Story: Facing Tomorrow

I love this!  I am so excited to keep reading :)
Well written and a captivating concept... I am truly hooked.

Author Response

Woah, intense! Ha, so I'm the worst review-threader ever. I forgot I had people waiting for me to review their stories :P

Anywho, I love this story. In fact, I'm adding it to my favourites. Seriously, this is one grown-up work. Nobody ever thinks about how life would be like if you didn't actually like what you were doing as a career. Plus, you depicted the war and aftermath in a short and precise manner. Just brilliant!

Is this the work that you're putting in present tense? Geez, I just adore present tense. It's like you're there, with the narrator as he/she goes about what they will. In fact, I'm glad your story is in present tense, because my common "suggestion" for most of the stories I read is to put it in present tense. It's just more exciting to read that way.

So, good job (I feel silly saying this, because you're a million times more talented a writer than me)!

As for your main character, she's believable in every way. I'm relieved because the last story I reviewed, the main was very much a Mary Sue. It was like she was a robot or something. Not the most thrilling person to read about.

Right, so I think my favourite part about her past is the fact that she was friends with Cedric. Silly for me to say, but it made me smile, because that is so unique. This story is just brimming with potential and uniqueness, I'm so excited to read the next chapter!

Okay, I promise I can properly articulate my thoughts. I'll do a better job on the next chapter :D Awesome start, and the tone of the piece is a bit darker, but I don't think it's too overwhelming. Bravo!

Author Response

Heh, don't worry...this was my first review request, so I had no idea how long I should expect to wait for the review!

I actually really appreciate you calling this piece 'grown up'.  I am trying to be more mature with this piece, but it's apparently quite hard to write a mature story when you're not a very mature person! But yes, I agree...the not loving your job thing is such a common problem and yet so many people in fanfics are in their dream job, so hopefully it adds some fresh complications to the mix.

Present tense is interesting to write...sometimes if I'm not focussed when I'm writing, I'll suddenly realised I've written four paragraphs in past tense and I'll have to go back and fix them.  I think it works for this particular story though, I wanted the reader to be right there in Emily's brain with her.

Thank goodness you don't think Emily's a Mary-Sue.  well I figured she wasn't because she's pretty messed up and all, but it's good to get objective affirmation :)

The Cedric thing is something I am really excited about, because I could practically write a whole novel on their friendship from all the backstory I've created for them.  I also thought it might be a good opportunity to try and write the girl/guy friendship in a more realistic way than I've seen in a lot of fics.  And one where they're not actually secretly in love with each other (like my next gen gems! :P).

"you're a million times more talented a writer than me"  You, sir, flatter me with your lies! :P  But thank you for the compliment :)  And thanks for the review, I was so excited to hear your thoughts on this!

Hi, there! Gryffindor Monthly review exchange is going down!

I thought this was a really neat start to a story. The idea isn't something I've ever seen before. Post-Hogwarts is my favorite era to read because there are so many interesting possibilities and directions to pursue in the aftermath of the war. Every character who survived would have had some sort of story to tell, considering that the entire wizarding world was being rebuilt from the ashes. Your main character should have a really interesting view into what happened at Hogwarts in those intervening years.

And that's not the only reason she's interesting. I really liked Emily's back story. I do agree with your author's note that there was a lot of it. Perhaps you could have held onto parts of it and worked it into the narrative or dialog of future chapters of the story. But you're four chapters in already, so I think the chances that you'd want to go back and rewrite everything at this point are fairly slim, so I'll leave it at that.

I really liked the idea of her being a muggle-born witch who seemed to have more than a couple of close brushes with danger during the war. I really hope you give yourself more chances to explore those events and the effects they had on her life and her mindset as the story unfolds. In her current situation, she seems to be in quite a rut. I wonder whether the malaise she find herself in has anything to do with the relative lack of excitement and challenge in her life, compared to what she went through to survive the war?

Let's see, what else? The opening scene was absolutely brilliant. The way you took her so low and then, with the question about using the loo, you managed to take her even <i>lower</i>. I also thought you did a really good job of capturing Professor McGonagall's voice. It's not an easy thing to do. Not at all. But you wrote her commendably.

The reason I'm focusing so much on your plot and characterization is that I couldn't find a thing wrong with your writing. I didn't see a single typo and everything flowed beautifully. Your word choice was really good and nothing sounded awkward or singsongy. The chapter had a good mix of dialog and narrative -- especially for an introductory chapter. Once I settled into the flow of the chapter, it was really engrossing and it was over before I knew it!

I was really pleased to draw you as a review exchange partner this month. I see you around the forums a lot and you seem like a really active, really interesting person. I'll be back for chapter 2 soon. :)

Author Response

Thanks so much for the review :)

I hadn't seen anything quite like this either and I wanted to look at what the ramifications of the war would be like for a regular witch or wizard.  At the same time, I was also curious about how the wizarding world dealt with the treatment of mental illness...not like what happened to Gilderoy Lockhart or the Longbottoms, but actual depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress etc.  Wizards might have advanced healing techniques but they aren't immune to psychological pain.

Yeah, there is a lot of information in this first chapter, but it's really only a base for the information about Emily.  It's a kind of starting point for our understanding of her situation, but I'm not sure what I could take out.  There will be a lot more information being revealed about Emily as the story progresses too.

I think the muggle-born aspect is so interesting, because it creates this automatic tension between the two worlds a witch or wizard is forced to live in.  It frustrates me when an author has a muggle born witch or wizard but then practically ignores the muggle aspect of their life.  I wanted to include some interaction and connection to the muggle world for Emily, which will come up in later chapters.  But I also thinks it makes an interesting backdrop for her experiences during the war...which will be explored further as the story progresses :)

Oh I'm glad you like that opening scene.  I wrote that a long long long time ago and it just sat there on my hard drive as this random plot bunny until one day I got the inspiration to write the rest of the story!  Oh and McGonagall...I am so worried about her.  She's going to be a fairly regular part of this story so I hope I do her justice.

There will be more action in the coming chapters, but I hope you still like it :)  Thanks again for the great review!  I was really happy to get you in the review swap too!

Hi darling! I was very excited when you request this. Mainly because I love reading fellow Gryffies work, but now that I've read the first chapter I'm even more excited because of how different this story is!

To address your first concern of this being too information heavy: No, I don't think so at all. I think you've set Emily in a perfect position to be dwelling on this. The last day of school after two terrible years of teaching seems like it would put anyone into an introspective kind of mood, and I think you really moved her train of thought along well. There were  a few parts that I think felt unnecessary. Mainly when she was talking about her year on the run. I think that instead of her thinking of what the facts to to (she'd been on the run, she'd met up with people, Snatchers occasionally found them, and so on) you should focus on her feelings. We know what is was like for a Muggle-born on the run during the HP series, so we don't need the added bit about snatchers and such. I think instead if you ever wanted to edit this you could focus on what it was like for her to not know where her next meal would come from, being so cold and tired and sick of it all. You do that a bit at the end, but I think you could make it primarily about that. Wanting to stop fighting, to let yourself just be done with it all, is a really powerful sentiment so I think surrounding that in all the things that drove her to feeling, instead of just the facts, would be really powerful in that paragraph!

I love that Emily has lost so much spark. That sounds mean, right? But I'm thinking this story will be about her finding that spark again, about recovering and moving on and learning to be Emily again, so starting her out in such a dull sort of feeling, almost like she's on autopilot and has to remain that way to get through the day was absolutely an awesome choice. That gives you so much room to build her character back up, to let her grow into a person who has a passion for life again, and eek that all just makes me so excited!

Her realization at the start of the story about it being *her* that is making the class boring was really awesome, as well. I also think that you could really tie in that first section and all her thoughts about the war if you could insert something during the first part when she's still with her students about her feeling like if maybe if they understood how lucky they are to be alive during this time, if they understood what everyone had to sacrifice to get them in that school and free, maybe they'd pay more attention. That would kind of build her feelings later in the chapter up, so we'd really understand how much the war has changed her.

To be honest, all the things I'm pointing out are just suggestions for an already amazing start. You can not listen to any bit of what I've said and leave the first chapter how it is, and it would still be a really intriguing beginning. 

Oh! And McGongall! She felt perfectly fine to me. I think that you put her in a good balance between being the McGongall we see with students and the one we'd imagine with colleagues. Not bright or bubbly or anything, but not as stern as she is with students. A very good combination!! I also liked that she believed in Emily so severely. That made <i>me</i> want to believe in her, which already made me feel like I was getting attached.

This is a really lovely start, and I hope I was able to be helpful!! Please feel free to request for the next chapter &hearts;

Jami

Author Response

Thank you so much for reviewing this :)  I really appreciate your comments and it gave me lots to think about.

I'm glad you don't think this chapter is information heavy,  I guess you just hear a lot of "make your first chapter catchy, reel your audience in" blah blah blah so when I wrote a non-action first chapter that's all this internal moping, I worried that it might not work, but it does seem to set the tone.

You know, I hadn't thought about the whole reflections being purely about her actions/facts and not her feelings.  I might have a little look at that section and see if there's some tweaking I can do, although I don't want to put too great a focus on her feelings at this point, because the plan is for her feelings to seep out slowly throughout the story, almost like she's hidden them away from herself but they start to escape.  So there may not be a lot I can change there but I'll have a look at it all the same.  It's always good to look at things with fresh eyes I think.

lol...not mean at all about Emily losing her spark.  As the story progresses you see just how much spark she has lost - almost like who she is and who she was are two different people!  This story is definitely about the rebuilding of a person who had been deeply affected by war, I mean yes there's a little bit of romance and a bit of action planned, but essentially this story is about Emily's journey.  I'm glad you picked that up :)

When I wrote that bit about her class being boring, it made me smile. :)  I think it's a good demonstration of how low Emily's self esteem is - how little she thinks of herself.  That's a really interesting suggestion about tying in her thoughts about the war with her thoughts about the kids being bored, but unfortunately I don't think it would work, mostly because I think it would be out of character for Emily to think that way.  Whilst she does get cross with her students and blame things on them sometimes, she mostly sees her student's lack of interest as her own fault.  She places a lot of blame on herself (something that's explored in further chapters) and believes that her classes are boring because she's a terrible teacher.  Also, I suppose this isn't obvious yet, but Emily doesn't see the war as something to be proud of - for her it is a source of fear and nightmares.  Oh and this class is sixth year so they would have actually been first years during the war/at the time of the Battle of Hogwarts...I think.  I need to get my timeline sorted out properly but I'm pretty sure that's right.  But like I said, thank you for the suggestion all the same :)

Oh I'm so pleased you liked McGonagall...I think she's the thing I'm most worried about in this whole story!  I will be interested to see what you think of my characterisation of her as the chapters progess though.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for this awesome review.  It was so helpful and really did make me think about aspects of this chapter that I hadn't considered before.  It also helped me to think about my main character and why she acts and thinks the way she does, which was actually really encouraging because it made me realise I have a pretty deep understanding of Emily.

Really, thanks again and I'll request the next chapter once your review thread is empty :)

Love the teachery comment about how her students couldn't care less. Sounds pretty typical.

*sympathises with her* Teaching can be SO hard on your self-esteem sometimes. You can't see what other teachers are doing, so it's very easy to start thinking they're all doing better than you and have less problems.

One thing that occurred to me is wouldn't Snape have been about 21 or 22 when he became Potions Master. If he was applying for the job when Harry was a year old and he's the same age as James and Lily, who were only 20 when Harry was born? Of course, with all the trials and all, it may have been a bit later he actually got the job and I'm being very nitpicky here anyway, but I did expect her to be younger when it said she was the youngest teacher in 300 years.

Really like the idea that her parents weren't completely sold on the idea. I think most parents would have doubts, so it's good to see that acknowledged.

How could she even get INTO a Muggle university with no qualifications? I have heard that English universities don't focus as entirely on A-level results as ours do (well, as ours do on the Leaving Cert., since we don't do A-levels), but I'd still imagine they'd require a little more than an 11 year old grasp of maths and literacy.

Love the way you use Cedric and his death to establish her age and when this story is set. It's a very natural way of doing it and if she's Cedric's age, more or less and is now 25, that means we're about 5 years after the war.

Is she meant to be exaggerating about Voldemort trying to take over the world? I guess it's vague in canon, but there really isn't any evidence he tried to take over any more than Britain. Of course, he was only in power a year and may have planned to take over more countries later on, but still, it was the British Ministry he seized control of.

And, gosh, I'm oblivious. I didn't even make the connection between her being a Muggleborn and how she'd experience Voldemort's reign.

Really like the idea of exploring how an ordinary person might have experienced his time in power anyway, but making her a Muggleborn makes it even better.

Like the way she calls Umbridge a troll of a woman.

Author Response

Thanks for the review...it gave me lots to think about!

Firstly, I facepalmed when I read your comment about the Snape thing.  How could I have forgotten about him?  Gah!  I mean, he would have been 21 or 22 when he started teaching, and Emily was 23 (remember that at this point in the story she's been teaching for nearly two years) so it's actually pretty close, but still, I can't believe I missed that.  HOWEVER it has caused me to do a bit of creative thinking and the result of which is that I now have a little mini plot point relating to Snape that will make an appearance later on in the story, and I'm actually kind of excited about it.  So thank you for pointing that out because it's actually helped the development of the plot! :)

You are definitely right about the Muggle university thing, but if you have another look at the chapter, you'll notice that the uni thing is Emily's parent's suggestion and her comment is that 'it was never an option', and whilst she gives the specific reason of not wanting to live without magic, that overarching statement also refers to the idea that muggle university would not interest Emily, would be difficult for her to get in to etc.  Maybe I was being too subtle?  I dunno.  The purpose of that sentence though, is to show how separated Emily's life has become from the life of her parents, and their unwillingness to completely accept magic as her life now.  Although, I reckon wizards could find a way to go to a muggle university if they really wanted (though I doubt that many of them would).

I have always believed it was Voldy's intention to take over the world.  I mean the guy was a power hungry psychopath who believed in the superiority of magical people over muggles.  I seriously doubt he intended to stop once he'd taken over Britain.  Yes, Emily is certainly being hyperbolic here, but exaggeration is often steeped in truth.

I'm glad you liked the Cedric thing, I thought he was a good anchor, because I think anchoring an OC to canon is important in fanfic (otherwise you may as well just be writing an original fic...In my opinion anyway), but sometimes I get a bit sick of the anchoring always involving the trio or their children in some way.

Thanks again for your review, I'm terribly passionate about this fic, because it's causing me to think about my fanfic writing in a whole new way, and I love that!  I hope you'll keep reading, and I love the CC, as was proven by the snape thing, it can be incredibly useful!

It is looking really good, an interesting read. Although information heavy like you said you don't wabble off talking about something that has little interest for the story. So, for only having read the first chapter it is looking very good!! :) :) :)

Author Response

Aw thanks, I'm glad you liked it.  Yeah, lots of information in this first chapter, but the whole story isn't like that, and I dunno, I kind of like the way this starts...I think it's sort of unique.  I mean you don't even learn the character's first name or get a physical description of her until chapter two, which was intentional, and I haven't seen that a lot in stories.
Thanks so much for reading and reviewing, I hope you keep reading :)

Don't worry, it wasn't too information-heavy at all! You gave us plenty of - erm - stuff about Emily, her history, her likes and dislikes, her disappointment. 
I don't normally read stories like this (I'm more of a Marauder era) but the summary caught my eye and I'm really enjoying it. However I did notice (sorry, I'm a bit of a freak about this kinda stuff) a few capital letters needed for things like Potions, Transfiguration ans Butterbeer, but it wasn't enough to disrupt the flow of the story.
I think your whole plot is very original, because, really, we don't ever hear things from a 'normal' point of view, do we? It's always the Boy Who Lived, so I'm intrigued to see how you develop that. 
Please update soon, I really like it!
P.S I enjoyed that bit about Binns and how she must be an even worse teacher than he is!

Author Response

I don't normall read stories like the either, letalone write them!  :)  But sometimes a character just pops in to your head and you can't say no.  Thanks for the heads up on the capital letter thing, I'm a bit of a grammar/spelling/punctuation nazi myself but I always seem to miss a couple of things, no matter how much I edit.

I'm glad you liked the comment about Binns, I thought it was funny too :)  I'll try to update soon, please keep reading.  Thanks again for reading and reviewing!

Hello!

This idea really intrigues me and I can't wait to see where you are going to go with it. This story is not at all the sort of thing I normally read (I'm generally a fan of next generation fics) but your summary was really interesting and made me want to give this a try...all I can say is I'm very glad I did!

I don't think there was too much information in this chapter at all! I liked the way we found out the character's background and I like Emily's character already. There's obviously real depth to her and she's really suffered. Although she isn't a canon character and didn't fight at the Battle of Hogwarts, she has had to endure a lot and seems quite unhappy with life - although who wouldn't be, when they've lived through a war like that? And I also liked how you mentioned Cedric Diggory, because including links to characters we know makes Emily seem much more real and close to the story we really know.

McGonagall must have seen something special in Emily to make her a teacher at such a young age, even if Emily hasn't seen it in herself yet. I'm interested to see how her character will develop through this story.

I really enjoyed this chapter (if you couldn't tell from the review so far!) and I like you writing. This idea is original and I can't wait to see where you go with it. I've added this story to my favourites, so please update soon!

nott theodore :)

Author Response

Thanks so much for the review, I'm kind of worried that nobody is going to read or like this story because it is so different from my usual style, so I'm glad someone likes it so far! :)  There's going to be a few ties to canon characters, I want to explore the cedric friendship a little bit and mcGonagall will be playing a big role in Emily's journey. 

I'm a next-gen sort of person too normally, but in next gen, people usually write a completely new story with a few familiar names.  My concept for this story is that it's a bit like looking at the story we know and just panning the camera slightly to the left and looking at the person there, just outside of the spotlight.

I'll update soon, and I hope you like the rest of the story.  Thanks again for reading and reviewing :)

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