Slumber

Title: How I Married Your Mother
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Draco/Astoria, some Theodore/Daphne, Blaise/Pansy, Roger/Astoria
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~7500
Summary: When Daphne and Theodore get engaged, making sure Astoria follows through with maid-of-honor duties becomes the best man's responsibility. But aiding and abetting was hardly what Draco signed up for.
Additional Notes: Written for hp_canon_fest for the prompt "Asteria is a criminal mastermind, Draco is her reluctant sidekick. The crime in question could be the heist of the century or something as simple as stealing an apple. Means, motivation, success up to the author." Original posting can be found here, although in this version I switched the spelling back to Astoria. My betas carlyinrome and todaythesamesky did rock star stuff for me! Any further mistakes are mine post-beta. Also, the shameless allusion to a popular prime time TV show sort of extends past the title.

( This is the story of how I married your mother. )

Random Writing Babble

I was reading an old application for a game -- think June 2008, almost exactly three years ago -- and realized that a phrase I used to describe my character's appearance back then is almost exactly the phrasing I used to describe a character in a fic I wrote this year. Granted, I was thinking of the same man while I was writing both, but the semi-self-plagiarization probably means I'm a little too used to using the same turns of phrases or something.

Blergh.

Read a couple of posts recently about POV and epithets too, things I'm not normally aware of when I write, and yep. I've been very recently guilty of them.

Double and triple blergh.

Glompfest Beta?

Due to alaana_fair's not-so-subtle pimping, PLUS the availability of an awesome prompt that I just couldn't say no to, I signed up for Glompfest. Which is funny, because I actually checked, and I have a total of two Harry/Draco fics in my archives, ahahaha. Also, don't look, because I'm not proud of either of them.

Anyway. Almost a third of the way through, and I was wondering if anyone on the flist would like to beta? It will probably be under 5,000 words. I hope.

Het Big Bang Tips and Beta?

I signed up for het_bigbang with a Slytherin-based plot in mind. It's 25k minimum, due September 20th or something close to that date, and I'm not allowing myself to start it until Glompfest gets done. I know 25K is peanuts to some of you (and you have my eternal admiration), but I've never written anything over 10,000 words. So. I need some help? Possibly a beta who will help point out plot holes, iron out loopholes and what-have-you, and then proofread along the way, if someone has the time. And if you've participated in a big bang before...

What generally works best in terms of outlining/planning so you know you'll reach 25K? How do you determine whether or not you have enough of a plot to make the minimum, but not too much that it goes way over? (I don't want to be unable to finish it, since deadlines seem to be my only motivation for writing things.)

General words of wisdom? Advice? Writing habits that really help and writing habits that really don't?

Thanks. ♥

*waves* Been around commenting a bit, just not posting.

But I did want to post a rec, and I realize I am probably SO LATE with this, and I am pretty sure recs went around sometime last year when this first got posted, but I just read this last last week and you know how each ship in fandom has this epic story that more or less is the standard all stories written for the ship have to live up to? This is it. I think this is THE fic for Draco/Astoria.

Title: The House that Cedric Built
Author: annafugazzi
Rating: R
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Draco/Astoria
Category: 8th year fic, Romance/Drama
Summary: Draco didn't think there was much reason to hope for a better future. Asteria proved him wrong.

Recommendation: Two things first.

1) I did not like the idea of Astoria Greengrass at first. I always thought Draco would end up with Pansy. And while I was primarily a slasher, I was okay with that. When JKR first said Draco married someone called Astoria Greengrass, my first thought was "WHO THE FUCK WHY DID SHE DO THAT???" I was not happy.

2) But I felt like I had to make Draco/Astoria work in my personal canon, because it was now, in fact, canon. If you know me well, you know I'm pretty happy shipping characters that had a total of five mentions in the book. The reason behind that is probably because deep down, I am at heart a stickler for canon. Now that Book 7 and the epilogue have been released, I feel kind of compelled to keep stuff that I write within canon. I get a little bit more freedom writing about unimportant people like Terry Boot or Theodore Nott without feeling like I'm going way off course the actual events in the book or the interviews. And I also try to bridge JKR's inconsistencies. (There is an entire backstory in my mind about how Terry Boot could have been at Hogwarts in their 7th year despite being marked as a Muggleborn in JKR's notes, for example.)

So I wondered about D/A, and how they got together, and made up random stories in my head. I didn't like the idea of an arranged marriage, didn't like how the assumptions were less than favorable towards Astoria. I wondered how much like Pansy she would be, and because I'm a pretty big Draco fan, I wanted him to have a happy ending too.

Enter The House that Cedric Built. I stumbled onto it after coming up with an idea for a fic that I had titled "The House that Theodore Nott Built" which is probably why I started to read THTCB, and initially I thought I would just read it a bit and click out. It is a LONG story, and I never have any patience for anything more than 5,000 words. (Which is funny, because I'm well aware that my own stories recently have gone over that limit...)

But then I couldn't just put the story down. It is just so well-written, and compelling, and oh my god just one of those stories that you can see happening in canon, despite the fact that the trope used (8th year) might have elicited a scoff from me had I known that's what was going to happen.

IDK I just think, if you haven't yet, you should go and read it. :|

No, really. They are. It's got Olivia Newton-John in it.

AND GAMES WITH DANCE NUMBERS. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA WHAT.

UNF.

In my hurry to get to the shower this morning I picked up one of those LUSH products lying around my room thinking it was soap--it was not, it was a shimmy shimmy massage bar--and now I am LEGIT sparkling.