clinicallyinsane posted a comment on Monday 17th January 2011 12:41am for Chapter 02 - Lunch Breaks and Friendship

They are NOT stages of grief. Get it right!

nintschi posted a comment on Wednesday 19th May 2010 5:12pm for Chapter 02 - Lunch Breaks and Friendship

I love this story so far and casey and her family and saying goodbye to sirous and snuffles
amazing chapter love it
thanks

Daily Prophet Reporting posted a comment on Tuesday 22nd July 2008 9:00pm for Chapter 02 - Lunch Breaks and Friendship

Abraxan,

I've been lurking around FFN off and on for a while now, and though it looks like I'm about five years, 1.2 million words and an original novel or two late in doing so, I've finally decided to give your work a try. And I've got to say, those numbers are absolutely staggering -- especially considering its all in one universe. So, before I go any further, let me pass along my thanks for all the hard work you've obviously put in.

Admittedly, I've read about 0.08 percent of it so far, so I'm not going to be rushing to any judgments. But so far I'd describe this as light and enjoyable, if perhaps a bit toward the cute and idealized end (especially for this site). I like that the framework for everything I've seen comes down to a dog named Sirius and I'm enjoying the interplay between Harry's friends and the Dursleys and their ilk. And Harry trying to fit in with such a different crowd has been nice enough, too.

On the other hand, the dialogue has struck me as being a bit uneven, sometimes sounding a bit young for the characters -- though that could be in part a reaction to reading authors like Jeconais whose characters always act decades beyond their age.

Anyway, like I said, I've only just touched the earliest surface of what was obviously a Herculean undertaking, so I'll leave it at that for now. Considering that volume I'm certainly not going to be reviewing every chapter but I'll try to be conscious to pass along my thoughts, and even if I don't, you've got my appreciation for all you've done for the fandom.

Thanks a lot!
-Kevin

Abraxan replied:

LOL, that's quite a long review for having read only two chapters!   If my characters sound young, perhaps you haven't read canon in a while.- I picked up where JKR left off after OOtP and kept the characters as much like she had them as possible, then matured them as my series progressed.   If you'll recall canon, her characters are very "young" in comparison to a lot of fanfic versions of them.  

All that said - when someone's grieving, they don't usually sound or act sophisitcated, in my experience.   They'd rather curl up with a beloved "lovie" like a teddy bear or something and revert to childhood, hoping everything will be okay again when they wake from their nap (or whatever).   Harry is very inexperienced with girls, particularly Muggle girls.   Casey's a sweet, kind-hearted girl with a completely different background than anyone he's met before.   The innocence of their friendship is deliberate on my part.

And all THAT said - when I started writing Refiner's, I hadn't written any fiction at all in 16 years or so, and I'd never written anything longer than a novella.   So there will be a bump in the road here and there that you'll see, I'm sure, but I was both feeling my way and pushing the envelope with Refiner's, learning how to write a fantasy novel that kept the characters in character, had an involved and intriguing plot that kept the reader interested, and how to create original characters who fit into the world, had their own voices and body language, and deserved to be included.  

Refiner's was a learning process as well as a lot of fun for me, as were the subsequent stories.   The saga is now complete, since I finished uploading the third actrual novel in the series, "Now and Forever" last week (and I've never counted how many words were in that one, nor what it added to my total - one of my readers did that for RF and ToD, but all those other stories and N&F need to be added to see what the total is - maybe someday I'll do that myself, I dunno).   Whatever the total word count (and I"m sure a lot would've been edited out for REAL publication, but the nice thing about fanfics is that no publisher is there to tell you it isn't profitable to publish a book over 120,000 words unless you already have a huge name! - and that's the truth, by the way - that's the maximum word count for a first-time author if they're writing fantasy - if writing some other genre, publishers want you to stay at a much lower figure - they allow extra words for world-building in sf/f), you're in for a long read - and hopefully an enjoyable one.   I look forward to your comments whenever you decide to share again.

Abraxan

TxA_GunFighter posted a comment on Wednesday 21st May 2008 8:43am for Chapter 02 - Lunch Breaks and Friendship

Outstanding chapter and very well done. Looks like a very good story.

gunny

Abraxan replied:

Thanks a lot!   I hope you enjoy the rest of it!

Abraxan

CodeRomance posted a comment on Tuesday 1st January 2008 7:55am for Chapter 02 - Lunch Breaks and Friendship

hmmm I hope that's all they have is friendship! lol i guess i'm just upset because i think ginny should be helping him...but this works too for now anyway!

CodeRomance

Abraxan replied:

Just keep reading - I think you'll like how everything works out . . .

Glad you're enjoying it so far!

Abraxan

k13cat posted a comment on Friday 2nd November 2007 3:57am for Chapter 02 - Lunch Breaks and Friendship

what a wonderful idea & memorial for Sirius (& snuffles) and what might have been. I'm still crying.

Abraxan replied:

Thank you very much!   I was surprised JKR didn't do something similar in her books - I can't imagine poor Harry having to deal with Sirus's death with no closure, the way she did it in the books.   How sad for him, poor guy!   I'm glad you liked it!

Abraxan

Moontail_Ice posted a comment on Friday 1st June 2007 10:11am for Chapter 02 - Lunch Breaks and Friendship

Casey seems like an interesting character. She doesn't seem to be a Mary Sue, so that's good. It's nice to see a story where Harry heals emotionally instead of him rushing into being better. I am now totally in love with this story, so I'm going to continue reading the next chapters!

Abraxan replied:

Casey's a very popular character with my readers, so much so that I used her as a character in the original novels I've been writing the last couple of years.   I'll be publishing the first one, "Star Sons 1:   Dawn of the Two" soon, so keep an eye on the "news" part of my pages on this site!   I'll post an announcement when the novel is ready to order!   The second novel (it's a series) is in first-draft form.   I'll work on polishing it after I get the first one published.

Thanks for writing!   I'm glad you're enjoying the story!

Abraxan

Christina C. Keimig posted a comment on Wednesday 30th November 2005 3:44pm for Chapter 02 - Lunch Breaks and Friendship

Made me cry. Beautiful memorial.

Wooster posted a comment on Monday 28th November 2005 12:04pm for Chapter 02 - Lunch Breaks and Friendship

Oh goodness, this is really cute. Ok, brace yourself for the inverse of the one girl who says 'I miss Casey' in all of her reviews for the sequel. I'm going to be constantly comparing this to it! It's really good, but Harry seems so much younger. Hm...of course this could be attributed to a)I imagine he feels like a child at the Dursleys b)He's experiencing a lot of new things for the summer and c)He still has a lot to go through