Young Writers Society

Hi there, what an interesting piece. I've rarely seen combinations of Taylor Swift and Severus Snape fanfictions in there, so I'm thinking you are probably getting into a very specific sort of audience for this one.

One aspect of this piece that made interpretation difficult, was I wasn't sure whether the genre was intended to be humor or romance. There were certainly aspects of both. The language was quite romantic and tense between the two characters, and yet they were always larger than life/overlly dramatic - I don't quite get the obsession with the earth and Kansas within the piece.

There's just a lot of little nuggets that I didn't quite see the connections with in the story.
If you were going for humor, then you did a fantastic job. I mean right from the first paragraph there's this vague romantic build up about the scenery and the interactions between the character and then the line "Satisfied with his work, he knelt down to feel the smooth, completely lump-free earth." -- the reader is totally expecting a romantic interaction to take place and instead Snape is playing in the dirt. Very funny, because it challenges expectations and puts the character (Snape) in a setting he would not be ususally found.

There is somewhat of a sense of Fahrvergnügen from the contrast between my expectations of what is going to happen in the piece, and then how it ends up playing out. The dissonance is interesting, like satirical writing.

I'm not sure you stayed true to the characters as far as who they are in real life - I mean you could have maybe worked in some of Taylor's song lyrics or Snape's characteristics as far as appearance/demeanor. Honestly, I think any character's name could have replaced both of their's and the story wouldn't have really changed.

Your setting of scene was very strong in this piece, and the title was clear. The piece was all an extended metaphor of the relationship between humans and earth and Kansas found within the relationship between Taylor and Snape which was again quite interesting.

My suggestions would mainly be: 1) Highten the clarity of the conflict or story -- really take time to set the scene and discover what is happening here as far as narrative. And 2) work on characterizing the characters a bit more, give them distinct personalities and appearances so the reader can better connect to the story.

Nice job with this though!

Also as a side note, I see that this is a repost from another writing site, did you write the original one?

-alliyah

This is a nice, short, and sweet piece that you were probably writing for the fun of it.

But the reader has lots of questions, like...

Other than saying 'by using magic', how did they get Kansas completely flat?

Why Kansas? Why not Colorado, for instance?

What's the conflict in the story?

Because without a conflict, you have your reader captivated for only so long of a time. On the contrary, the elements of this story are very specific and original, like the fact you picked Snoop Dog's "Gin and Juice" over a generic Taylor Swift song. And you put it over a romantic sunset, wow. *chuckling in the distance*

Oh, and I'm not going to judge the romance other than Snape's reaction to that freaking delicious cupcake was freaking cute itself.

Okay. Dumb remarks aside - This is an interesting fanfiction. Very interesting.

Manilla outttttt
(Disregard any comment that you don't think is helpful to you.)

(Ooh, Harry Potter! Which house are you in? I'm a Gryffindor.)

(Is this a reference to the flat Earth society?)

(Is this Snape's fanon child or something?)

(OK. Enough comments. Time for review.)

(Wait is that Taylor Swift-wait-)