AAAAARRRGH!!!!

[averygoodun42]

I hate law. I hate writing about lawyerish things. I hate courtroom dramas. I especially hate courtroom dramas where there's so much vagaries about what is canon and what is historical and what is utter nonsense that I can't even research it properly to write it up!!!!!!!!!!

(The previous sentence was yelled within my head, but I thought I'd save you the caps-lock out of courtesy.)

I am having just a wee bit of trouble with the next chapter of SMHC, btw. Unfortunately, I've cornered myself into having to write the blasted trial, so I am stuck. Fully and completely stuck.

*blows monster raspberry*

I hate this story. Or at least this sub-plot. I want it done, but can't get through it.

Comments

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

Ask a bleeding lawyer then.

[averygoodun.livejournal.com]

Hmph.

....

I...

hmph. I want to ask a bleeding lawyer, but at the same time don't know how to frame my question(s).

Do you think it would be cheating to have Hermione just doze off until the pertinent bits? (yes) Or create a new format for trials so she doesn't have to witness most of it? I really liked that option (wrote quite a bit that way, too) until I re-read the scene from OotP and had to toss it.

Wizarding world being rather old fashioned... JK makes it sound as if the more serious trials are held by the full Wizengamot, which seems really old fashioned to me, but anyway...

Oh bugger it. I'll just downgrade the trial into something that needs a full rewrite and make the circumstances fit what I want to write. That's what being a fiction writer is about, right?

Thank you.

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

Hermione is a witness, yes?

She isn't supposed to witness most of it then in case it effects her evidence. ONly defendants would be expected to sit thorugh it all.

[averygoodun.livejournal.com]

That was my inderstanding as well, but it is sketched out so... hazily in the books, which is what I'm trying to match rather than actual law...

But yes, you'd think that she wouldn't be able to sit in court and watch the proceedings.

Now where to fit her in...

Of course, downgrading to something less than a court case it is still an option... Slippery Lucius and all. hee.

[maddyriddle.livejournal.com]

If you want to match OotP's trial, then you have to put Hermione in the place of Mrs Figg (call her at the moment of her testimony, then you can have her witness some more if you need her to and send away when you don't want her to be there any more).

I can't speak for all the readers, but at least what I want is to see Lucius pay for what he did... and see how Hermione feels going through the trial... the actual trial is not the most important thing.

[amsev.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to stop by and say I just re-read all of SMHC that is currently available. I look forward to your next chapter!

I woke up with a bad case of the icky blues, not that I was physically ill, more my mental illness being a tad aggressive, starting with my dreams last night. Your story, especially when we start to see the un-drugged gentle side of Severus cheered me up.

[vics-words.livejournal.com]

Try working as a lawyer. Some days I get so frustrated I pretty much do scream in the office.