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Feb. 26th, 2006 06:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bliumchikFrom Scott Lynch - what were your earliest writing incidents?
Oh ho ho ho.
Well, not counting the blatant Animorphs rip-off in year one or two, the first would have to be a story (some of which I actually wrote down, and subsequently lost) about Mink, a white kitten whose neighborhood was flooded. Our hero then made a raft out of a door (don't ask), rescued twin tabbies off a rooftop, and then proceeded to uncover a vile plot behind a pet food company which was experimenting on kittens. Or at least, he was going to. I never got past the discovery of their front organisation, which was some kind of kitten playground, or something.
Further along my small fuzzy animal obsession, were the AcroRats, who were not actually rats, but were certainly acro. They were actually mice. Super mice. Who became so by eating coconuts (seriously, don't ask). I invented several nift, er, inventions, involving a technique for stealing coconuts off market stalls and a trampoline system involving mouse traps, and got up to the introduction of the main antagonist, a cat, before losing my manuscript. Yes, folks, I sense a recurring theme, here.
With the invention of the computer I actually managed to not lose my stories mid- er, story, but that period of time consists mostly of fanfiction. Thus I shall post an excerpt from my very first (I think) fanfiction, "Guess Who's Back", to illustrate my, er, Early Style. *cough*
The Boy Who Tediously Continues To Live looked at his companions across the table. Ron and Hermione were there, of course, with their usual following of Ex-Hogwarts students, Professor Dumbledore with the teaching staff, Fred and George Weasley with some *business partners*, Moody with some old Aurors, Rita Skeeter with her band of intrepid reporters, quills poised, and Cornelius Fudge, looking confused.
Harry Potter sighed and stood up. This was beginning to get repetitive. “Okay, everyone,” he said, “You all know why we are here, and why I have formed this elite anti-Voldemort league. For the past twelve years, every year, Voldemort has returned, and every year, I have by some monumental coincidence managed to not get killed in a manner which caused him to die. Starting to see a pattern here? The one exception being my fifth year at Hogwarts, in which I merely escaped death once more. Fortunately He sat on a Knarl in the summer holidays and was once again reduced to the ghost-like non-death status that is becoming so familiar.”
“Get to your point,” growled Moody, who was grumpy because his eye had been malfunctioning.
“I’m getting there. So, anyway, every year since then he has found a new way of returning, and we have found a new way of not-quite-killing him. Here is Hermione, our Book master, with all the facts.”
Hermione stood up. Her efforts at finding Voldemort-related information had resulted in her wearing thick horn-rimmed librarian glasses because the eye-vision spell kept wearing off. She waved her wand and a blackboard appeared behind her. A chalk jumped up and started writing as she spoke. “Right, now what we have here is a full list of everything Voldemort has done to come back so far and all our countermeasures. Year One: Harry’s first year at school. Voldemort possessed our DADA teacher in hope of obtaining the philosophers stone. Harry defeated him using the Mirror of Erised and escaped death because Quirrel (that is, Voldemort) could not touch him. Year Two: Not really Voldemort, but rather a past version of himself (Tom Riddle) attempted to get at Harry through an old diary, Ron’s little sister and the Chamber of Secrets. Harry defeated him once more with the Sword of Godric Gryffindor, Fawkes the Phoenix and a Basilisk tooth. Year Three: once again not dealing with Voldemort directly, but rather his servant Peter Pettigrew, alias Wormtail, who framed Sirius Black for a few murders but had an alibi, specifically being dead, Harry and Sirius were almost killed by Dementors but were saved in an incident involving a time-turner, an invisibility cloak, the Whomping Willow and an escaped Hippogriff. Year Four: Voldemort returns using an ancient spell requiring Harry’s blood, which he obtained by interfering with the Triwizard Tournament, Cedric was killed but Harry escaped thanks to the phoenix feather in his wand and his dead parents. Year Five: Voldemort attempted to make Harry obtain a prophecy about them both, this resulted in a fight between six Hogwarts students, ten Death Eaters and five Aurors; in the ensuing confusion the prophecy was smashed. Harry was again saved from certain death by Dumbledore and some moving statues. Year Six: Voldemort’s followers attempt to resurrect his mangled corpse using forbidden magic but stuffed it up like the bumbling idiots they are so that he had a strange compulsion for dancing. He still, however, managed to corner Harry and Dudley in a Muggle amusement park where he had had a cover as Waldo The Ever-Dancing. As he was about to use the Avada Kedavra curse a Muggle policeman attempted to arrest him for Causing A Disturbance Of The Peace and in the struggle He was blown up by an over-zealous constable. Year Seven: His followers called up his ghost and used a Solidifying Spell on it, fortunately before he could wreak too much havoc Ron had the bright idea of using the Finite Incantatem spell which turned him back into a ghost. Year Eight: Voldemort haunted Harry until Professor Trelawny exorcised him. Year Nine: Voldemort's shattered spirit occupied a few million snakes all over the world, he managed to group them together in a n attempt to over-run Hogwarts with so one would bite Harry, Neville’s failed Elixir Draught turned out to be a snake poison and we were saved once more. Year Ten: A sort-of repeat of year four, only they didn’t use Harry for the spell, Voldemort got a make-shift body back but it turned out to have a free-wheeling temporal gland so he kept swinging from baby Tommy to the old man Tom Riddle would have become if he hadn’t started his search for immortality. Professor Dumbledore managed to trap him in his baby state and put him in a Muggle orphanage. Year Eleven: The Death Eaters broke into the orphanage and liberated the Dark Lord Baby, they somehow changed Dumbledore’s spell so he was an old man, where-upon he made himself all-new body parts one by one except for his wand hand, because he needed all his power to do it and couldn’t use his other hand. This was his downfall as his arthritis caused the death-curse aimed at Harry to back-fire AGAIN with the same results as the first time it happened. Year Twelve: He attempted to posses Harry but failed because True Love intervened as that was when Harry married Ginny.”
Hermione took a deep breath and looked around. Everyone was staring with their mouths open as she had said all that in one breath. There was a snore from the general direction of the Hogwarts staff, where Professor Battye (the new DADA teacher – all the others had been scared off after a year, except Miss Jones, who died a horrible death) had fallen asleep. Rita Skeeters journalists scribbled furiously as they attempted to copy off the board everything Hermione had said so fast they missed it.
Hermione sniffed. “I don’t know, try to get some facts across…. as I was saying-” “SNOOOOOOOOOOOHRT…. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee.” Hermione threw her hands up in the air. “Oh good grief! ....Would somebody wake up Mr. Battye please? Thank you. If we may continue? Right. Well, I’ve been studying all the books about the Undead and-”
“What? He isn’t undead!!” Exclaimed Neville, who had grown a lot and actually become a competent wizard.
Hermione rolled her eyes. “Well, if you kill him, he turns up again next year. I can’t think of a better word for that than ‘undead’.”
“Except possibly ‘nuisance’,” Ron cut in.
Yes, folks, I DID blatantly steal that line from Discworld.
You see, folks, the reason you must STAY AWAAAAY from ff.net is that it's full of... well, THAT. At least I can say I grew out of it!
Oh ho ho ho.
Well, not counting the blatant Animorphs rip-off in year one or two, the first would have to be a story (some of which I actually wrote down, and subsequently lost) about Mink, a white kitten whose neighborhood was flooded. Our hero then made a raft out of a door (don't ask), rescued twin tabbies off a rooftop, and then proceeded to uncover a vile plot behind a pet food company which was experimenting on kittens. Or at least, he was going to. I never got past the discovery of their front organisation, which was some kind of kitten playground, or something.
Further along my small fuzzy animal obsession, were the AcroRats, who were not actually rats, but were certainly acro. They were actually mice. Super mice. Who became so by eating coconuts (seriously, don't ask). I invented several nift, er, inventions, involving a technique for stealing coconuts off market stalls and a trampoline system involving mouse traps, and got up to the introduction of the main antagonist, a cat, before losing my manuscript. Yes, folks, I sense a recurring theme, here.
With the invention of the computer I actually managed to not lose my stories mid- er, story, but that period of time consists mostly of fanfiction. Thus I shall post an excerpt from my very first (I think) fanfiction, "Guess Who's Back", to illustrate my, er, Early Style. *cough*
The Boy Who Tediously Continues To Live looked at his companions across the table. Ron and Hermione were there, of course, with their usual following of Ex-Hogwarts students, Professor Dumbledore with the teaching staff, Fred and George Weasley with some *business partners*, Moody with some old Aurors, Rita Skeeter with her band of intrepid reporters, quills poised, and Cornelius Fudge, looking confused.
Harry Potter sighed and stood up. This was beginning to get repetitive. “Okay, everyone,” he said, “You all know why we are here, and why I have formed this elite anti-Voldemort league. For the past twelve years, every year, Voldemort has returned, and every year, I have by some monumental coincidence managed to not get killed in a manner which caused him to die. Starting to see a pattern here? The one exception being my fifth year at Hogwarts, in which I merely escaped death once more. Fortunately He sat on a Knarl in the summer holidays and was once again reduced to the ghost-like non-death status that is becoming so familiar.”
“Get to your point,” growled Moody, who was grumpy because his eye had been malfunctioning.
“I’m getting there. So, anyway, every year since then he has found a new way of returning, and we have found a new way of not-quite-killing him. Here is Hermione, our Book master, with all the facts.”
Hermione stood up. Her efforts at finding Voldemort-related information had resulted in her wearing thick horn-rimmed librarian glasses because the eye-vision spell kept wearing off. She waved her wand and a blackboard appeared behind her. A chalk jumped up and started writing as she spoke. “Right, now what we have here is a full list of everything Voldemort has done to come back so far and all our countermeasures. Year One: Harry’s first year at school. Voldemort possessed our DADA teacher in hope of obtaining the philosophers stone. Harry defeated him using the Mirror of Erised and escaped death because Quirrel (that is, Voldemort) could not touch him. Year Two: Not really Voldemort, but rather a past version of himself (Tom Riddle) attempted to get at Harry through an old diary, Ron’s little sister and the Chamber of Secrets. Harry defeated him once more with the Sword of Godric Gryffindor, Fawkes the Phoenix and a Basilisk tooth. Year Three: once again not dealing with Voldemort directly, but rather his servant Peter Pettigrew, alias Wormtail, who framed Sirius Black for a few murders but had an alibi, specifically being dead, Harry and Sirius were almost killed by Dementors but were saved in an incident involving a time-turner, an invisibility cloak, the Whomping Willow and an escaped Hippogriff. Year Four: Voldemort returns using an ancient spell requiring Harry’s blood, which he obtained by interfering with the Triwizard Tournament, Cedric was killed but Harry escaped thanks to the phoenix feather in his wand and his dead parents. Year Five: Voldemort attempted to make Harry obtain a prophecy about them both, this resulted in a fight between six Hogwarts students, ten Death Eaters and five Aurors; in the ensuing confusion the prophecy was smashed. Harry was again saved from certain death by Dumbledore and some moving statues. Year Six: Voldemort’s followers attempt to resurrect his mangled corpse using forbidden magic but stuffed it up like the bumbling idiots they are so that he had a strange compulsion for dancing. He still, however, managed to corner Harry and Dudley in a Muggle amusement park where he had had a cover as Waldo The Ever-Dancing. As he was about to use the Avada Kedavra curse a Muggle policeman attempted to arrest him for Causing A Disturbance Of The Peace and in the struggle He was blown up by an over-zealous constable. Year Seven: His followers called up his ghost and used a Solidifying Spell on it, fortunately before he could wreak too much havoc Ron had the bright idea of using the Finite Incantatem spell which turned him back into a ghost. Year Eight: Voldemort haunted Harry until Professor Trelawny exorcised him. Year Nine: Voldemort's shattered spirit occupied a few million snakes all over the world, he managed to group them together in a n attempt to over-run Hogwarts with so one would bite Harry, Neville’s failed Elixir Draught turned out to be a snake poison and we were saved once more. Year Ten: A sort-of repeat of year four, only they didn’t use Harry for the spell, Voldemort got a make-shift body back but it turned out to have a free-wheeling temporal gland so he kept swinging from baby Tommy to the old man Tom Riddle would have become if he hadn’t started his search for immortality. Professor Dumbledore managed to trap him in his baby state and put him in a Muggle orphanage. Year Eleven: The Death Eaters broke into the orphanage and liberated the Dark Lord Baby, they somehow changed Dumbledore’s spell so he was an old man, where-upon he made himself all-new body parts one by one except for his wand hand, because he needed all his power to do it and couldn’t use his other hand. This was his downfall as his arthritis caused the death-curse aimed at Harry to back-fire AGAIN with the same results as the first time it happened. Year Twelve: He attempted to posses Harry but failed because True Love intervened as that was when Harry married Ginny.”
Hermione took a deep breath and looked around. Everyone was staring with their mouths open as she had said all that in one breath. There was a snore from the general direction of the Hogwarts staff, where Professor Battye (the new DADA teacher – all the others had been scared off after a year, except Miss Jones, who died a horrible death) had fallen asleep. Rita Skeeters journalists scribbled furiously as they attempted to copy off the board everything Hermione had said so fast they missed it.
Hermione sniffed. “I don’t know, try to get some facts across…. as I was saying-” “SNOOOOOOOOOOOHRT…. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee.” Hermione threw her hands up in the air. “Oh good grief! ....Would somebody wake up Mr. Battye please? Thank you. If we may continue? Right. Well, I’ve been studying all the books about the Undead and-”
“What? He isn’t undead!!” Exclaimed Neville, who had grown a lot and actually become a competent wizard.
Hermione rolled her eyes. “Well, if you kill him, he turns up again next year. I can’t think of a better word for that than ‘undead’.”
“Except possibly ‘nuisance’,” Ron cut in.
Yes, folks, I DID blatantly steal that line from Discworld.
You see, folks, the reason you must STAY AWAAAAY from ff.net is that it's full of... well, THAT. At least I can say I grew out of it!
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-26 12:59 am (UTC)And ALSO. Your tales of early manuscripts had me in STITCHES. I recall in fifth grade writing a short story for an assignment which involved Satan's daughter running away from home because she decided daddy was a bastard, and she ended up adopting two homeless children. I SWEAR TO GOD I DID THIS IN COMPLETE INNOCENCE OF HOW BIZARRE AND SACRELIGIOUS IT WOULD SEEM.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-26 04:58 am (UTC)In my last year at school, we were working on the genre of crime fiction, so for one assignment I wrote a second-person future-tense crime-horror thingy with a protagonist who was either possessed or insane (I never actually decided). The narration would switch between intense patches of second-person-future violence and third-person-past discovery of the violence that our Mr Protagonist had wrought, then had this particularly messy and runny and red patch in the middle with entrails, and then it was kinda neatly inverted so that the 'calm' third-person-past bits were all violent and horrific.
Um... hello. I'm somewhat creepifying. *waves*
no subject
Date: 2006-02-26 04:10 pm (UTC)Nobody should have to wave withouth a leetle flag.
Did your teacher like the story?
no subject
Date: 2006-02-26 05:57 pm (UTC)The 'plosions? Kinda.
The creepifying horrorful one? I never got it back, but my mark was Very Good.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-26 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-26 05:51 pm (UTC)I think the only thing in there that's genuinely funny and does not deserve to be burnt at the stake is "except Ms Jones, who died a horrible death".
And when you consider that the rest of the fic consisted of Voldemort singing Eminem songs...
no subject
Date: 2006-02-28 01:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-28 01:51 am (UTC)