A blood purist, Draco by name Proved that all wizards’ blood is the same So the boy who tricked him Became his next victim Draco would never do science again
Jumping ahead to my favorite chapters, though the tone is nonstandard for the medium.
Patronus (chp 43)
His wrist motions were right on the mark But his wand? Not even a spark. What is wrong with this boy? Is his heart short on joy? Or is it just that it means that he’s Dark.
Dementor (chp 43)
From its cloak it stroked his dark side But he’d face it, with his wand and the sky Then it struck a deep chord Out came the Dark Lord ”Headmaster, you annoy me, so die.”
Dementation (chp 44)
His mind hateful and empty of bliss, Unmoored in that Dark abyss Who can reach the boy now? He won’t respond to cacao It can only end with a kiss.
Poetry is a union of form and content. Putting something into the form of a haiku is essentially trivial, so most haiku writers focus on content instead; however, your content should also be familiar to everyone reading, so you can’t win there. (Also, #2 and #4 have 6 and 5 syllables in their respective second lines.)
Limericks would be good, if you could pull those off. Obviously, it would be harder. That’s sort of the point, though: to impress people with form, you have to do something that isn’t easy to do. On the other hand, if you write 101+ limericks, you’ll probably be good at limericks by the end.
(Half good; I’m told the other half of limerick writing is that they have to be dirty and/or funny, ideally both.)
your content should also be familiar to everyone reading
Not for those who’ve had the time to forget about the contents of the story. This could be a useful way for people to remind themselves of the rough structure of the story without re-reading everything.
I don’t know. I think there is a virtue in succinctness, an art that appears when things are put into a tightly limited form. It makes you look at what is essential, and so shows the essence.
Maybe I’ll try limericks next. It’s as good an idea as any, I suppose.
Different people pronounce things differently, so arguing over syllable numbers is going to be be frustrating, but can you tell me how you see 6 syllables in line 2 of #2? Do you pronounce “tales” as a single syllable?
You are certainly right about #4 though, so thanks for the pointer. I changed it. It lost a bit of punch, but whatever. If I am building elegance out of restrictions, I had better keep to them.
Like Kindly, I pronounce ‘tales’ with one syllable, but if it’s two for you, then OK.
As for content, I’m fairly pleased with these, except for #4. Having the last two lines run together as a single sentence without a break seems inappropriate. Maybe rewrite it so that ‘Metal currency!’ is the last line?
Yeah, I had to quickly rewrite #4 at the last minute after Kindly pointed out that my original version had an unambiguous 6 syllables in line 2. So it is no surprise that my hurried rewrite was less good.
Out of interest, how do you pronounce “tales”? I seem to pronounce it something on the order of “tay-uls”. So how do you pronounce it as a single syllable?
When speaking naturally and counting syllables, I pronounce ‘tales’ and ‘tells’ largely the same; the vowel in the first is longer and slightly higher (/e:/ vs /ϵ/). But when emphasizing (‘not tells, TALES’), I would do more like your ‘tay-uls’.
Unrelated to the latest chapters:
Inspired by RomeoStevens’s comment in this thread, I am going over HPMOR, summarizing each chapter in a haiku. Tell me what you think:
Chapter 1:
Chapter 2:
Chapter 3:
Chapter 4:
Chapter 23:
Jumping ahead to my favorite chapters, though the tone is nonstandard for the medium.
Patronus (chp 43)
Dementor (chp 43)
Dementation (chp 44)
Some more:
Chapter 6:
Chapter 7
Bonus one:
And another:
Nice.
Rewrite of Chapter 6:
I like it. I think that’s definitely an improvement on the last line.
Here are a few more:
Chapter 8:
Chapter 9:
Chapter 10:
And another:
And:
And:
Poetry is a union of form and content. Putting something into the form of a haiku is essentially trivial, so most haiku writers focus on content instead; however, your content should also be familiar to everyone reading, so you can’t win there. (Also, #2 and #4 have 6 and 5 syllables in their respective second lines.)
Limericks would be good, if you could pull those off. Obviously, it would be harder. That’s sort of the point, though: to impress people with form, you have to do something that isn’t easy to do. On the other hand, if you write 101+ limericks, you’ll probably be good at limericks by the end.
(Half good; I’m told the other half of limerick writing is that they have to be dirty and/or funny, ideally both.)
Not for those who’ve had the time to forget about the contents of the story. This could be a useful way for people to remind themselves of the rough structure of the story without re-reading everything.
I don’t know. I think there is a virtue in succinctness, an art that appears when things are put into a tightly limited form. It makes you look at what is essential, and so shows the essence.
Maybe I’ll try limericks next. It’s as good an idea as any, I suppose.
Different people pronounce things differently, so arguing over syllable numbers is going to be be frustrating, but can you tell me how you see 6 syllables in line 2 of #2? Do you pronounce “tales” as a single syllable?
You are certainly right about #4 though, so thanks for the pointer. I changed it. It lost a bit of punch, but whatever. If I am building elegance out of restrictions, I had better keep to them.
Like Kindly, I pronounce ‘tales’ with one syllable, but if it’s two for you, then OK.
As for content, I’m fairly pleased with these, except for #4. Having the last two lines run together as a single sentence without a break seems inappropriate. Maybe rewrite it so that ‘Metal currency!’ is the last line?
Yeah, I had to quickly rewrite #4 at the last minute after Kindly pointed out that my original version had an unambiguous 6 syllables in line 2. So it is no surprise that my hurried rewrite was less good.
Out of interest, how do you pronounce “tales”? I seem to pronounce it something on the order of “tay-uls”. So how do you pronounce it as a single syllable?
When speaking naturally and counting syllables, I pronounce ‘tales’ and ‘tells’ largely the same; the vowel in the first is longer and slightly higher (/e:/ vs /ϵ/). But when emphasizing (‘not tells, TALES’), I would do more like your ‘tay-uls’.