HP Fanfiction Help (closed for catch up)

The Black Fog {Draco Malfoy}

The Black Fog by walkingdead_cookie

Okay, I really do like the idea of Draco having secret feelings for someone, and I do like the premise of your story. This idea is great, and you have filled it with an air of mystery that really pulled me in right from the start.

While your story is good, I do feel that there is something off about your main character Olivia. I only really see two sides of her: the happy-happy, love-love side and the angry eyes, I-will-personally-be-the-death-of-you side. It's like there is no in between. And I have also noticed that her mood changes a lot, and it does so very quickly. I feel like she gets angry just for the sake of the plot or to cause more drama. While that is completely fine and good, I think there should be more levels to her. She shouldn't always be at one end of the happy-mad spectrum; she can be in the middle sometimes too. 

And I do understand that when people are in bad moods, they get snappy and salty, but when someone is in a good mood, they shouldn't just randomly be like, "I'M MAD NOW!!! EVERYBODY RUN!!" She should start off irritated and then gradually make her way to Hulk mode. It's just something you can do to make her more realistic.

Something else about your characters that really stood out to me was the love between Olivia and Cedric. I get it; they were friends since before the story opened, but I do feel like their relationship just sprang up like a boom town. It felt completely random and even cringey to read because to me they acted like the ultimate BROTP and then... surprise, we're dating and we also love each other.

Wha--?

How--?

There was no build up, and when people go from best friends to a couple, things usually get complicated. To make things more believable, your characters should have more complex feeling than just "I like you" and "I want to toss you off a cliff." You should maybe have her weary of dating him and gradually feel more comfortable, because they go from the friendzone to the end zone pretty fast. They practically spit out the L-word every other second, and I don't know about you, but if somebody besides my mom told me they loved me, I'd freak out and run for the hills. Sorry, Ced, but even coming from you, the L-word would terrify me.

And speaking of said word, the first time Cedric told her he loved her, she brushed it aside like it was nothing. "Oh, just your typical Tuesday... my boyfriend didn't just tell me he loves me or anything... Nope, just the usual." In fact, I don't think she said it back to him either. That... just... YOU CAN'T PRETEND LIKE IT'S NOTHING!! LOVE IS AN EMOTION CHARACTERS SHOULDN'T JUST THROW OUT TO EVERYONE!

Okay, now that I'm calmer, I'll go on to discuss the emotions of Olivia in a calm, cool, and collected type of way. You need to give this girl more feelings. I am NOT NOT NOT NOT saying to load up your fanfic with cheesy declarations of love every other chapter, but you should at least show more of their interactions as a couple. You know, hand holding, "No you say 'bye' first--" "No you say 'bye' first--", inside jokes, blushing when he calls her "pretty," him blushing even harder when she calls him "pretty," friends gagging in the distance... just the average cute teenager couple things. There is so much more you can have them do than just walk around telling each other that they love each other.

Other than the whole spontaneous relationship thing, I really do like how you've portrayed Cedric. I like how you have him act low key pessimistic all the time, and honestly, that is my favorite type of Cedric. I personally write him like that too, so we have something in common let's be friends!

Now, let's get technical. I noticed that in your authors notes you say, "ignore the grammar mistakes," but it's time to correct some grammar mistakes! Yay!

Within dialogue, there MUST ALWAYS be some type of punctuation at the end of the quotes. No exceptions. Here is an example of what you did and how to correct it.

"Hello, everyone" Jessica said. "I just ate an entire box of Oreos"

Notice that there isn't any punctuation at the ends. It should really look like this:

"Hello, everyone," Jessica said. "I just ate an entire box of Oreos."

Notice the difference? It's a tiny thing, but it is super important.

Along with your dialogue, when you enter a new paragraph, be sure that it is COMPLETELY entered. When writing on the Wattpad app, you need to press enter twice, or the paragraphs will be conjoined. It can be very confusing when the dialogue is cluttered like that, so be sure that if you aren't writing on a computer (like I am now, or I would've given an example) remember to double enter every time.

Also, and this is HUGE, you misuse the forms of your/you're. Speaking of, you do this with a lot of homophones like allowed/aloud. Make sure that if you're using "you're" that it makes sense in the sentence. You're means you are, so if you write you're book, you're actually writing you are book.

If you are a book, there is a problem. Make sure that when you use "you're" you read the sentence to yourself using "you are." If it doesn't make any sense, change it to "your." For extra help with this concept, you can read our Grammar Help book which goes into more details about this and a lot of other mistakes and rules that might be helpful.

Something else I've noticed is that you use the words "umm," ugh,"and "like" all of the time. Just because the story is written in first person doesn't mean that you can use those types of words. You can use then in dialogue, but try to avoid that during the narration. It doesn't look right and often disrupts the flow of the sentences.

Overall, your story is very interesting, but you should work on developing the characters emotions and relationships and try to correct those few simple errors. I am very interested to see where this story goes :)

-Jtsquared4