So...

There's a chance that some people can get into Pottermore early. The site says "come back on the 31st of July".

I finish work at midnight tonight.

Guess what I'm checking as soon as I get home?

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

 Of course, it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it's not real?

- Albus Dumbledore

So, seeing as I'm in the mood for blogging today, I thought I'd do a post about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. I did part one last year, so it seemed fitting to follow it up. Plus, I've already seen this movie twice :) 

SPOILER WARNING: If you haven't seen DH2 yet, I suggest that you don't read this. Unless of course you're not worried about ruining bits of the movie, then please proceed! 

Last post I skimmed over my favourite scenes of the movie, so this time I thought I'd do a best/worst moments kind of post for different categories: 

• 4 Best/Worst Scenes
• Best/Worst Dialogue
• Best/Worst Cinematography  

All right, let's start with the top 4 best and worst scenes. 4 seemed like a nice number so this is my opinion on the two best scenes in the film and the two worst. 

Best Scene Number One - Escaping Gringotts

Not only is this scene epic because of the music score and the dragon climbing up the underground cliffs with Harry, Ron and Hermione clinging to its back for dear life, the opening of this scene is also brilliant thanks to Helena Bonham Carter playing Hermione in Bellatrix's body. 

When Helena first walks up on the beach as Hermione, she's already captured all the little gestures that Emma Watson brings to Hermione. Watching her facial expressions, the little shoulder shrug, and the way she tucks her hair behind her ear, my brain was totally convinced that polyjuice potion actually worked. 

The second time I watched DH2 was in 3D, and the winding, rickety roller-coaster that is Gringott's mine-cart track was so much fun. After snatching up the Hufflepuff goblet, the trio escapes on the back of the dragon who smashes through the ceiling and flies them to safety. Wicked. 

Best Scene Number Two - Preparing Hogwarts for Battle

Someone give Maggie Smith a trophy for being such a badass McGonagall. She, and the special effects, made this scene so epic and emotive. I can't even describe it. 

It made me think back to Harry and Ron arriving in the little boat on the lake in the Philosopher's Stone and getting their first glimpse of the castle. You're watching the place that you've grown up in have to fight for its survival. You're watching all the characters you've come to love be forced to defend their lives. You're freaking getting all teary in the movie theatre because this is JK Rowling's epic series ending in front of your eyes. Someone get me a box of tissues..... 

Thought those scenes were too good to be true? Well, you were right. Here come the worst two scenes in the movie. 

Worst Scene Number One - Molly VS. Bellatrix

I almost don't want to get started on how much rage I felt at the crappy portrayal of this incredible duel. In the book, Hermione, Ginny and Luna are duelling Bellatrix, who is almost beating them because she's holding not only her own wand, but the wands from two wizards that she's just killed. That's epic in itself!! 

Then, a killing curse narrowly misses Ginny's head and sends Mrs. Weasley into a protective mother storm. She shoves the girls out of the way, screams her famous line and duels Bellatrix Lestrange to the death. Oh, and did I mention that in the book this scenes takes place IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM WITH EVERYONE ELSE WATCHING?? It's supposed to be amazing. So I'm sorry, but that bit off to the side where Bellatrix flicks a curse at Ginny, Mrs. Weasley steps in the way and says her line in an undertone, then turns Bellatrix to dust with a few snaps of her wand while no one else is watching? Yeah, I don't even know what the hell that was. 

Worst Scene Number Two - The Prince's Tale

 

There's a lot of scenes I could have put here, but none that bothered me so much that I wanted to write about them. What I've chosen is kind of a small thing, but it REALLY annoyed me. The bits of the Prince's Tale flashback that included Alan Rickman weren't so bad, but the childhood bit was awful.

Snape says, 'look at me' to Harry, because we all know that he wants to look into 'Lily's' eyes before he dies. Then we get a shot of Dan Rad's eyes and grudgingly forgive him once again for his stupid allergic reaction to green contacts. But it gets worst. The very next shot is of Lily as a child, and she looks like this: 

I'm sorry, but how does that kid look anything like Lily? At all? She has dark brown eyes for goodness sake! It's a small detail, I know, but I can't even begin to explain how annoyed I feel by it. 

Oh, and that indie shot of Severus and Lily lying in the grass? Um, can someone say Twilight? I was cringing in my chair. It's not cute. It's cliche. Now get out. 

Anyway, that brings me to the best and worst dialogue in the script.

Best Dialogue: 

(Ginny runs in and sees Harry, Ron and Hermione with Neville)

 

Ginny: Harry! 

Harry: Hi there. 

Ron: Six months she hasn't seen me, and it's like I'm a frankie First Year. I'm only her brother... 

Seamus: She's got lots of them, but there's only one Harry. 

Ron: Shut up, Seamus. 

I lol'd. 

Worst Dialogue: 

Ginny (after kissing Harry): I know. 

What? She knows what? That was so dumb. Not to mention that's a pretty awkward kiss.

While on the subject of bad dialogue, Neville's speech in front of Voldemort was pretty crappy. I mean, they've got the incredible dialogue that JK gave him from the book, why not use it? I was so excited to hear Neville shout to Voldemort, "I'll join you when hell freezes over!" Not to be, apparently. 

On to the cinematography! 

Best Cinematography: Wide Shot in the Chamber of Secrets

Pretty much just this shot. Out of the whole film it's my favorite shot. It's brilliant. It tells so much; reminding you Ginny and Harry in the Chamber of Secrets years ago, how a horcrux was destroyed once before in the exact same place. It shows the magnitude of what Hermione and Ron are about to do, and it makes you take a deep breath in and hold it before Hermione brings the fang down on the cup and Voldemort's angry dark piece of soul floods the chamber. 

Worst Cinematography: Following Crane Shot After Escaping Gringotts

Excuse me, Mr. Cameraman, WOULD YOU PLEASE STOP MOVING!? 

To avoid the awkwardness of Dan and Rupert's bare chests and Emma trying to look like she's doing something because she can't strip off her wet clothes like the boys, they thought it would be better to give the audience flipping motion sickness so that they wouldn't notice. If you have to go to such lengths to try and 'fix' a scene, maybe you should take the hint and not do it like that at all! 

Heh, anyways. In conclusion, if you look that this movie as nothing more than a film and don't compare it to the books, it's really great. If you're going to pick it apart and compare every little detail to JK Rowling's writing then don't bother seeing it because you'll come out feeling like you want to shred something (but not the Harry Potter books, of course). 

I still stand by The Prisoner of Azkaban as the best Harry Potter movie ever. 

Hacking at the Plot

I've written about 700 words this morning, which is pretty nice. Not a lot, but still good. I'm happy with that.

I've realised that writing with an underage princess is no longer going to work, because I've decided to cut out a huge chunk of the plot and not have a regency. Elaine, you're now officially eighteen at the start of the story. The only thing bothering me about this is that I was going to have an epic steampunk masquerade party for your birthday, and now I'll have to figure out how to get that in the story without the excuse of a teenage royal coming of age. We'll work something out.

Sigh ... the things I must do to avoid a regency....

The Queen's Ladies

Good morning!

I don't have class until 5pm today so I decided to kick off the morning with a quick room-clean and then hit the keys for a good crack at Chapter Four. Normally I'm a bit OCD when it comes to cleaning my bedroom but I surprised myself by becoming so eager to get writing that there are still two large piles of clothes in here and dozens of books and papers scattered everywhere. Right now, I don't care!

I've been struggling with how to start Chapter Four. Elaine is supposed to meet with the House of Lords and make her little 'Now that I'm Queen...' speech, but I felt like that was too confronting an opening. I've finally come up with something that I like, and I get to hit two birds with one stone.

Throughout the other chapters I've had hopeless, brief mentions of Elaine's lady-in-waiting Evangeline, and yet I want her to become a strong supporting character later on. So far she isn't working; but I was  watching The Young Victoria (top of my list for ways to get inspiration for my story) and remembered how Queen Victoria's companion was at first her childhood governess, and when she became Queen she switched over to a brand new team of ladies to wait on her. I'm going to take this concept and scratch out all Evangeline's mentions and give her her very own introduction in Chapter Four. It will be much smoother and the subject will aid the introductory conversation between Elaine and Lawrence. Perfect!

Right, off to get this lovely idea out of my head and into my book. Ta ta for now.

Lockdown.

As much as I love sharing the writing that I am proud of ... that's just the problem. I can't let anyone read it unless I'm proud of it.

So, unfortunately for a couple lovely people who have been reading the first few chapters of Eloquence, I have to go into lockdown and say that I can't let any more of the story out for reading until I get a acceptable way through the first draft of the novel.

I hate to say it, but I'm becoming a perfectionist. This scene isn't supposed to be like that and that character isn't meant to talk like that I don't want the reader to get that impression or read this bit without knowing that.... And the list goes on. I'm not writing because I'm too bogged down in trying to get it right on the first try.

I'm telling you, self, it's just not possible!

I finally finished Chapter Three today. It's not perfect. I'm not happy with the sentence structure or the writing style or the character development, but hey, I wrote the first draft! And now I can keep going with the story. Yayness!

Exciting thing of the day:

The proof copy of Seven Stones, my fantasy novel, came in the mail today. Thank you, Createspace! It will now sit on my desk as a trophy, to remind me that I CAN write a book because I've already done it! Now I just need to write a much better one.

I will do this!

Ugh.

So I'm having an awful moment where I'm looking at my writing and thinking, this is all terrible! This is going to need so much editing to be any good!

But then I remember that I need to push those thoughts aside and save them for later. I'll never finish the first draft if I keep going over the first two chapters again and again.

So I changed my desktop picture to give me a little reminder. It's now a white background with the words 'Just tell the story' in the middle. That's my new motto. Just tell the story. Don't worry about the sentence structure or the description or your voice, just get the story out on paper. The other things can be fixed later.

Ugh. Sometimes I consider just forgetting this whole 'writing' thing, but then I think of the finished project that I so desperately want to have and I keep going.

Onwards!

I've already decided that if I haven't finished a first draft by November (which is, unfortunately, likely) that instead of writing a whole new novel for NaNoWriMo I will set my own personal goal and try and write 50,000 more words of the story in November. And if in the (also unlikely) even that I run out of story before I reach 50,000 in November, I'll just started editing.

Anyway. Back to Scrivener I crawl go.