10 things I hated about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

SPOILER ALERT:

1-Could Hermione cry anymore if she tried? I think as the main female character she could have been less over the top. If she wasn’t crying she was arguing.
2-What about Luna Lovegood? J.K. Rowlings created one funny, quirky character and never used her potential.
3-The 200 plus pages in the middle where nothing happens? I thought that was what Editors are for. I guess they’ll print anything when your sales are out of control.
4-What’s so great about Dumbledore? He never worked as a mentor for me. He was too aloof. Nor did he stand out in greatness from the other adults like Mr. Weasley (who I loved).
5-Fleur was flighty? It’s the feminist coming out in me again but I do recall at one point she excelled enough in magic to be chosen to compete for the Goblet of Fire. Why does she come across as an angry domestic Paris Hilton?
6-Anyone else notice that the invisibility cloak got bigger? Remember back in the Philosopher’s Stone how the cloak just grazed over the floor. So if it barely fit one 11 year old. How does it completely cover two 17 year olds...sometimes three?
7-Where’s the big bad magic? How did three high school students with six years of negligible learning about the Dark Arts avoid detection from the greatest evil wizard of all time. He-who-shall-not-be-named loses some fear factor points.
8-If you set-up something, pay it off. Sorry, a big pet peeve of mine. Rowlings set-up all sorts of things and didn’t use them: a blind dragon heading straight for Hagrid, Aunt Petunia and family, the angry centaurs in the forest, Quidditch, the feet showing under the invisibility cloak, the search for Snargles, Etc etc etc.
9-Dobbie shows up just to die. This reminds me of a similar scene in Pirates of the Caribbean Part 3 where the commodore shows up to free the protagonist only to die before the scene is over. It’s a cheat. Characters have to provide more than just an easy escape. Better to have sent an angry Kreacher with conflicting loyalties.

And my top 10...We didn’t go anywhere unexpected? Okay, this might have been difficult with bazillion readers pressuring Rowlings for the final instalment but the ending is what will prevent Harry Potter’s elevation into the greatest books of all time. The ending was predictable and expository. No awe. No special twists. And Voldermort was ultimately a blank threat, a character of no dimension; his outwitting by Harry was no surprise for anyone.

Red Virtue---[blushing]

This is the name of my 7 day 15 page script for the NYC Midnight Madness.

Don't ask where it came from. It was 11:54 pm and I had 5 minutes to submit.

Here's the link if anyone wants to read it.

http://www.thisisnotawebsite.ca/4-redvirtue.pdf

Cheers

Karen

This blog has been locked by Blogger's spam-prevention robots.

I tried to post earlier this week and this is the message I got.


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Dumb robots...at least I'm back. And my brain cells are beginning to rub together again.

Fried Green Tomates

Fried Green Tomatoes

That’s what my brains are. Furious writing, making the MYCMM deadline with only seconds to spare can do that it seems. Four days after I’m still having difficulty putting 2 + 2 together.

I didn’t do myself any service by taking until Wednesday to start my actual writing. My BIL and SIL were arriving with families on Friday night. So there was a house to clean and groceries to buy. With four kids in the house, that’s a two steps forward and one back type of thing.

My writing took place between midnight and 2:00am. By Saturday I had a rough first draft down and a day to rewrite. I decided whatever I completed by 11:00 pm would have to do. I would take thirty minutes to correct typo's then email the script by 11:30 which gave me 29 minutes to spare for the 11:59 pm deadline.

Talk about your Midnight Madness.



My script was finished at 11:02. I put my timer on for 30 minutes for the edit.


At 11:31 all hell broke lose. Kids screaming and crying. My teenager begging me for the copy of Harry Potter. Fighting over beds and toys. Did I mention I had 9 extra people in the house?



AT 11:45 I locked myself in my office and tried to focus. I still had to make my Title page. I had a crappy logline but no time left to improve it. At 11:51 I tried to save it as a .PDF. My scriptwriting software has an odd way of doing this. It's not in the SAVE section but in the PRINT section but I couldn't remember the exact steps...and the directions were saved on my other computer which I had just turned off. Shit.



There was allot more swearing and cursing, finding the email with all the directions, saving, renaming files, emailing, while literally juggling two laptops in my 3” by 3” space know as my office, before I finally sent the email.

Google time… 12:00am Sunday, July 22nd. 60 seconds late!!!

But there’s a happy ending to this story. After 48 hours of anxious pacing I received my confirmation email to say my entry was accepted.


Except for the last 20 minutes, it was a rewarding experience. I think just writing FADE OUT: was worth the money. It's been a long time since I forced myself to finish anything.



But if I do this next year...I'm going into hiding.

Waiting for Midnight Madness

I entered a scriptwriting contest. The NYC Midnight Madness Scriptwriting Challenge...aka How to Burn Your Brain Out in One Week.

I have one week to write a 15-page script based on an assigned genre and set-up. I've never done a writing blitz before since my lifestyle of kids, home and business doesn't permit it. But I thought with the kids out of school perhaps I could attempt one. I can seriously only write for a couple of hours at a time anyway.

So in about two hours I'll know where I stand.

Maybe I should take a before picture. J

Summer Break Week 2

I feel I am writing a survivor log.

It's week two of summer break and already I feel the strain. The kids have been out of school all of 10 days and already I feel like I'm losing my sanity.

Since no one wanted to go to camp this year, I've instigated a couple of rules.

First-Everyone gets out of bed by 9:30 am and breakfast is closed by 10:00. This is my attempt to keep everyone on the same feeding schedule. Making meals is not my favourite task so when I make the effort I want everyone hungry. Hopefully getting teenagers out of bed at this hour will also avoid the middle of the night prowl. The downside is I lose a third of my energy stores in enforcing this rule.

Second-No TV or video games before 5:00. If the kids are determined to be at home, it's not going to be to vegetate in front of the TV. And the minute someone says they are bored, I will put them in camp. After one week no one's complaining. Note: they found their GAME Boys so I needed to add them to the rule.

So wrangling the younger boys, dealing with my hormonal teenagers, summer school, jobs, rugby practice etc etc. Etc leaves zero time for blogging.