Hi all! Well, to Vlad and the others pondering the outcome of the messing with time... for me, there has only been one answer from the start. Harry cannot be changing the past.

It's simply not possible for several reasons. 1) If Voldemort dies, Harry, Ron, and Hermione would not be friends to the same degree, if at all, and therefore would not be in the past together. 2) (this was in someone else's script, the one with Wells) If they change the past, there is no reason for them to go into the past in the future, so they wouldn't be there.

Somehow, none of the Trio's efforts CAN work. That's why in my script, I had Dumbledore perform a memory charm on the Marauders so that they wouldn't know about the Trio. No matter which script happens, don't forget that more time travel is possible. Therefore, if Scabbers goes to the future, he could go right back in time to when he left. And if Draco is stuck in the past, he can always go forward to his own time from the past. It is not necessary for Draco to spend four years at Hogwarts or Scabbers to be missing for four years.

Of course, this leaves the problem of the prophesy. However, there is no reason at all why the experiences Harry has in the past (seeing his parents, perhaps even a secret from his parents such as a spell) cannot effect how Harry can defeat Voldemort OF THE FUTURE. I may be wrong, but I don't think that the prophesy said that Voldemort of the Past must die, just that working with the three that defeated Voldemort can help Harry destroy him. So Harry, while not being able to change the past, can return and change the future.

(Going back over the past posts, I realize this is kinda what bakban said earlier. Sorry to repeat myself. Also, the future-Voldey-going-back-to-the-past thing makes sense as well, but boy would that be confusing!)

This is the only really viable way that I see the end of this script happening. And to the Admins: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE listen to WeasleyHarem and let the last script be longer!!!!

And for those of you who asked about what I plan on spending my gift certificate on... WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am soooooo freaking excited about having 50 whole dollars to spend on books!!!!! I'm in college, so all the books I do read are boring and I can never afford good ones. So I have absolutely NO IDEA what I'm going to buy. I've been to the site several times and just sighed over the books. Now I'm down to eliminating the zillion or so choices I'd picked out. Anybody have any good suggestions?

I thought about this too (who hasn't?). The prophesy said that Voldy would mark his rival as his equal. Taken literally, (obviously, Voldy marked Harry) it would mean that if Harry saves his parents and doesn't get a scar, he wouldn't be the one able to defeat Voldy. However, we're forgetting that in the english language, marked doesn't necessarily mean actually physically marked. It could also mean regarded. Voldemort's intent alone to kill Harry could secure Harry's role in the prophesy, even if he never gets the scar.

There's the loophole that makes this contest's plot less... well... silly, really.

Personally, I thought the memory charm on the Marauders was brilliant - I had wished that I had thought of it first.

In my scene, they left Malfoy behind with the intent on returning for him. I never meant for that to be the only reason for going back again.

:sorcerer:

Wow, y'all have been thinkin hard about this... I agree with a lot of these comments regarding the outcome of our little story. It gets more and more exciting as the rounds progress. Last night, I was lying awake thinking about how this might turn out, as far as the time travel goes and I think the technical aspects are way too crazy to take 100% seriously. Because we know they go back, they really have already written the past... (our story) so it would already have happened... and if it had already happened, we know how the story ends, or they wouldnt have gone back in the first place. I think it more appropriate to see this story more like Austin Powers "Oh no I've gone cross-eyed" rather than Back to the Future II "So that takes us to the alternative 1985, rather than the 1985 we know."

If we get all tied up in the semantics of it, we'll drive ourselves crazy and enjoy the story less... not saying we shouldnt make it as cool as possible... but i think some people let the fine details get in the way of them really enjoying the fun of it. - At least thats what I get from reading some of the captions.
Im super excited to see these last few rounds... I think I might write some more myself just for fun!

:sorcerer:

I think the voting process in the finals is too long Cutting it 6 hours would be better . You could add those hours to the writing process or even the preliminary voting process.

Just my opinion.maybe i just can't wait for the outcome and the next mission. :ermsmile:

On the 'does Harry kill Voldie' question. I think there's a consensus forming.. And I'll agree that Harry can't kill Voldie in the past, otherwise there is no Harry Potter story.

HP & the Philosopher's/Sorceror's Stone can't exist.. and so on and so on.

So in this adventure, I guess Harry has to learn something, or make his peace with his mum and dad, or bring some object back from the past, or discover Voldie's weakness, or bring some closure or resolution to his relationship with his parents. But whatever happens, Voldemort has to be there to be the focus of JKR's existing and future stories.

On the length thing, now that the scenes are getting so good -- the early scenes really don't compare with the standard of writing in rounds 3 and 4 -- perhaps we could be allowed a few more words. The 5000 character limit is good when you only have to deal with one or two or maximum of three kind of factors, like fights, or explanations and so on. But when you have to deal with more than that, the strict limit forces authors to cut corners.

Getting back to scene 4, we had to combine about 4 or 5 elements, and there simply wasn't enough space in 5000 characters to do that properly.

* Fight scene with Marauders
* Harry's action convinces James
* Voldemort's awesome power
* escape from Voldie (yet again)
* Set the scene for Godric's Hollow

A quick check on the four finalists shows that none of them did more than three of these convincingly, if at all. While each of those scenes was really good, it's just asking too much of us to fit more than about three elements into 5000 characters.

Having said that, i think it's good to limit us to 5000 characters. Those who read all 100 or so submissions need the scenes to be relatively brief. So my plea is for the scene mission to be a bit less detailed in terms of what *has* to happen. Maybe guide us more in a certain direction, without being quite so prescriptive of the specific elements that we should try to include.

Also, can we have fewer fights, and more time to have the characters talk to each other? While the fights contain some superb action and great opportunities to show off our creativity, they are getting a bit repetitive. Maybe try to focus some of the next rounds on how Harry. Ron and Hermiione deal with the emotional side of what they are doing. Maybe give us a chance to explore time paradoxes a bit more. maybe try to unravel what motivates Voldie and why he is trying to kill off the Potters.

Just my 2-cents' worth

Congrats to Vladagain for winning this round!! I really did like your story, and now that the voting's over I'll say it - I didn't like mine for this round as much as I liked yours.

But I am noticing a disturbing trend. Four rounds - four female winners! I'm starting to wonder if my gender is working against me? Or maybe I'm just not as tuned in to the emotional nuances of the characters? I do consider myself an enlightened 21st century type of guy.

Oh well. I hope eveyone will take this post in the spirit of good fun, in which it was intended.

agrippa

I dunno, you're the only one (I think) to make the finals twice. I would say "always the bridesmaid, never the bride" but that's girl stuff again. How about, third times the charm.

I'm really psyched to have won and hope to never make the finals again because I just couldn't take the tension of not knowing what was going on. I'm devoting myself to Draco-redemption and parody from here on out (probably not in the same scenes, though...) I found it ironic that in earlier scenes I'd gotten knockedfor being too kind to Draco and in this scene I got lots of sad comments about (apparently) killing him off (I wrote to all those folks and told them as far as I was concerned he wasn't dead, I'm too find of the little brat to do that)

Kidas wrote:
hear! hear! yeah! What he said! In a real 8 chapter story this would be about the time where the characters would take a breather and set things up for the end story arc. We had the set up chapter, the 3 chapter 1977 story arc, now we need another set up chapter before a, probably, 2 chapter Voldy defeat story arc, and then a wrap up chapter.

I'm all for action and movies thrive on it but we need some time to sort things out.

As to the "disturbing trend" I for one, don't even look at the screen name of the author of the scene until AFTER I have rated it. I don't want to be biassed in anyway. (Being to lenient to my friends, or pounding those whom I might not like to well) I rate the scene, not who wrote it. I try to be fair.

That's me as well. I almost never look at the author's name. Not really because I don't want to be biased (I'm new here so I really don't know anyone), but because I'm so eager to read every entry I can (I rated 98 scenes out of 104 this round) so I often skip over the extraneous details. I don't read others' comments either, except for the finalists... and sadly, I never leave comments. I know we all thrive on those things but I just can't bring myself to tell people something was wrong with their scene, and I refuse to lie and say they're all wonderful. I rate hard. Nothing I saw in the prelim voting got more than a 3... and it had to be pretty exceptional to get that (I wouldn't even have given my own scene A Narrow Escape a 3). In finals, I often give a 1, 2, 3 and 4 in order of my preference. This last round of finals, I couldn't. It was too close for a couple of them and they got the same number from me.

How do you folks find you're rating these scenes? Do you rate hard? Do you hand out high ratings all around?

Congrats, Vladagain... yours was by far the clear winner and I'm really pleased for you!

Janice
:sorcerer:

I think Agrippa was teasing about the disturbing trend part...

but I'm confused. I didn't think you could see who wrote something until after you voted. I know my browser does some stuff a little different but I thought not knowing was part of the Potter Project design.

I tend to rate pretty black and white. I hand out 0 stars for blank scenes or things wildly off-mission. I rate many scenes very low (around 1 star) - either for spelling/proofing/lack of basic grammar/not in script format or failure to meet the mission scene very well. Some of these scenes might deserve higher scores for creativity or just plain trying but I rate them low to do my part to keep them out of the finals. I rate a few scenes high, the ones I find most compelling (maybe not 5 stars but high), and then the mass end up in the 2 range, good solid scenes that don't stand out from the pack in any way. And things like Frying Pan I tend to rate high just cuz they make me laugh. For a scene like the winner in round 1, which had errors and wasn't in tue script format I'll make exceptions to my standard rating method because the idea is outstanding (I think that was the only "aha!" scene for me so far.

and I try to leave comments for every scene, although with many of the 2's I find it's hard to say much really. But I want to try to encourage people to keep trying and a positive comment sure is nice to read.

Congratts Vlad! There was no question you'd win this round.

Hey! > I thought we first two did pretty good... our missions werent as exciting as the following missions so we didnt have as much to 'cram' into ours, but especially the winner of round one, considering she's only 14, she did VERY well, and the following scenes wouldnt be what they are if they didnt have something to start from! I do agree however it is next to impossible to fit all of that info in 5000 characters or less. On the other hand, if they were longer, reading the 100+ scenes would take forever!

As for the ratings: I tend to rate midrange for scenes that follow the mission well and are well written, but dont really excite me, something that really catches my eye with a new innovative idea or something fun included, i'll give higher ratings... submissions with horrible spelling errors, way off mission, or blank scenes i stick to lower ratings. I can be a bit tough to please because I am not a fast reader and I get distracted easily... so if the scene doesnt hold my attention well, it will also effect the way I rate.

Indeed I was! And if there's some way to see who wrote it before you vote, I sure don't know what it is.

As for "third time's the charm" - this round was my third time in the finals. (I had scenes make the finals in rounds 1 and 2.) Perhaps the fourth. I've finally realized that - like so many of you - I don't have any idea why a scene might win. In rounds one and two, in which I had submitted two scenes, the one I liked the least made the finals.

I'm with you Vlad - there's no sense in writing things you don't like just to try to appeal to everyone. Maybe I'll devote my time to scenes of Hermione and Ron on romantic dates at Madame Paddifoot's. (AGAIN, JUST KIDDING!) Better yet, what if Harry and gang show up at Godric's hollow and find that their alternate-future selves have come back to warn them that the "3rd True Prediction" turned out to be a lie? But then they don't know if they can trust their future selves, becuase what if Voldemort sent them or something? And then a huge BATTLE! Now that's a scene a man can write!

Seriously - I would not want to get rid of the fighting. I don't want to write more smarmy dialogue.

Mostly kidding (except about the fighting) -
agrippa

Hey - I just read the new mission... Did I read it right? That Draco and Voldemort (along with the other DEs) make a plan to kill the Potters?

Wow, Vlad - so much for Draco redemption.

Good luck, everyone. I have no clue where to start.

agrippa

word! But those of us who are true believers will not give up hope. I haven't figured out how I will make a case for my boy but I'm sure gonna try.

what amazes me is it hasn't even been an hour,an hour!!! , and there are already 2 submissions. Even if I knew what to write (and I haven't a clue) I couldn't write it in under an hour, (let alone get it proofed, formatted, and online...)

Here are things I think - humour helps, you've got to stick pretty close to canon for characters (so redeemed Draco is probably not a winner), spelling/format/grammar only matter a little bit, and you need something to make your scene stand out from the other 80 or more that are basically on task and doing okay.

good luck to all the regulars here (and everyone else too of course) - I look forward to reading the various solutions to this new scene missions!

Pixie

My turn to grovel

Of course you did pretty good. You did very good. But compare the quality in depth. Look at the mid-range ones this round compared with the mid-range in rounds 1, 2.

Shall I stop digging this pit ever deeper

I think the mission is vague enough to at least accommodate reluctance on Draco's part. I mean really, if you were face-to-face with V, would you want to defy him?

And, as far as I know (and I would know), there is basically *no way* to see who submitted a scene until *after* you rate it.

However, I can see how someone could mistakenly believe that the information they see in their dash was for the scene they were currently viewing, rather than the last one they rated. We'll have to work on that.

Eeep! I am visiting my parents for the weekend, which has the distinct disadvantage of my only having access to a 56k modem. ARGH! I miss my cable connection!

Anyway, back-tracking a bit to evlpez's question on how one grades... I tend to give very high scores (3.5-4) to scenes I truly adore, because more often than not, I find after I rate the scene that the ones I like the best have low scores and I try to boost that up a bit. In the first two rounds, I scored everyone very highly, handing out a few 5s and many 4s. However, since everyone's grading seems to shift to the lower side, I now rate 1=poor, 2=average, and 3=well done. Not a perfect system, but it works for me.

Also, I'd like everyone to know that I am a terrible meany when it comes to three things: formatting (the PProj people gave us a formatter for goodness sakes!), spelling/grammar, and likelihood. If a scene doesn't have one of these qualities, I automatically take off a whole point. I can't help it; I just got sick of seeing good scenes with terrible spelling (use a spell-checker!) or scenes that just were not realistic.

Also, I always try to come up with one good and one bad thing to say. I know that sounds bad, but I look at it as if people are writing in an effort to get constructive criticism, so I try to say what a person has done best and worst in order to help them write better in the future.

Then again, what do I know? With one exception, my favorite scenes have never made the finalist round, let alone win. I haven't any idea on what the audience en masse may want...

Also, I agree with what Kidas said, to an extent. The majority of scenes in the prelims have progressively gotten better. In fact, it seems to me that the prelim scenes have gone from mediocre to polar opposites: whereas in the beginning, many scenes were just okay, now many scenes are very good or very bad (with more and more scenes becoming very good).

Now I am going to go try to load up the PProj and see if I can get this ancient hunk of a "computer" to work long enough for me to contribute to the pool!

Ok i have ? on the mission
.

Ok im confused they discuss the sitiuation including peter and snape as death eaters or...draco discusses peter and snape.

the lovely thing is you could take it either way!

Things to consider.... I don't think Draco (at least in book 5) has a clue that Snape is a traitor to the dark lord nor do most people know anything about Peter being the real betrayer of the Potters. Sirius's name ws never cleared and I think most wizards in 1997 believe he's still the bad guy. I I think I'd interpret it that they discussed thins with Peter and Snape, not about them. But I think you could make a case the other way.

Is anyone else having trouble submiting/voting on stories? Ican't get the links to work
(Sorry if the answer's obvious)

By the way congrats vladagain yours was my fav from the beginning. glad my top choice finally won :sorcerer:

boy, I sure haven't (and my browser hates cooperating with this whole site). For something like this I'd email contest@snitchseeker.com and tell him what's happening, what operating system you are using, what browser (name and version), and what exactly isn't working. I had a lot of trouble the first round and they were great helping sort it out.

there are already soem good scenes this round so I hope you get to start voting soon!

I have seen a LOT of scenes that are mis-formatted... i am beginning to think that is the sites issue, rather than the submitters... is that the case? I dont want to rate low for bad formatting if its not the submitter's fault.
:sorcerer:

Gosh I check and recheck my work and then submit it. Everytime I find at least 3 stupid mistakes shewwwwwwwwww



I have come to discover there are not many people on at 4 in the morning or night since I haven't bothered to go to sleep yet. :online2long: