Fic: All In, Draco/Harry, PG-13

[snowgall]

Figured I might as well post this link to my LJ for posterity. My first (and most likely last!) fic :)

Title: All In (or on LJ)
Author: snowgall
Pairing: Draco/Harry
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 427
Summary: Draco introduces Harry to strip poker
Warnings: Unbetaed*; misuse of British-isms by an American; scanty knowledge of poker
Notes: Written for Draco's Kinks and Tropes Party July 10, 2015 for the prompt "Draco introduces Harry to strip poker" by indyonblue

*Concrit is welcome for this. Seriously, this is a first fic and I have no delusions that it is a masterpiece or anything. I would really love to know how to get the dialogue to flow better (the way Draco talks about betting their clothes still doesn't really work for me, honestly), how to make the setting more clear, how to get their thoughts across non-clumsily, all of it, basically. You can send me a PM if you like, or comment below, and my feelings won't be hurt at all. I've already gotten more nice and sweet comments on this than I expected, so I don't need to be coddled. Oh, and if I got any British-isms wrong I definitely want to know! Like, does it make sense for Draco to say "What I am interested in, is seeing what Harry Potter looks like under his kit" ? Is that the right way to use "kit" or did I flub it? Using language right is really important to me, so please do tell me if something is off.

Comments

[birdsofshore]

You used kit just right! I've just reread it on AO3 and I concur that vaysh may well be right about the ending, as well. I am a lousy beta! I don't actually have a clue what I am doing, but this was certainly a super read.

Do you think you might try your hand again sometime, dear?

[snowgall]

You're not a lousy beta at all! I am so thrilled to be getting such informative concrit on such a lightweight ficlet.

I really don't know if I will do this again. It still surprises me that I did it this time! I remember thinking, "oh cool, newbie writers are writing for this fest and they're doing a great job." and then I was curious which prompts hadn't yet been claimed and I went through the prompts and when I came across this one I just thought, "oh. I wonder if I could do something with this?"

But at first it was just an exercise for me to see if I could do it. I didn't even plan on posting it at all. But once I finally had a last line that I liked, I got brave and decided what the hell.

But I honestly know that anything longer would have been a significant challenge for me. I've tried in the past to dream up plots, and I always get stuck somewhere and can't make it work, even in my head. Dealing with setting descriptions is also something I'd be too impatient to do. It's funny that Vaysh thought it mostly worked that I hadn't described the location. Mostly I just avoided it because I had no patience for it! Making a virtue of necessity, I suppose :)

[birdsofshore]

Hah, I suck at plots, too (as you've noticed, hee hee). Perhaps our skills lie elsewhere ;) I'm OK with descriptions of place, but I struggle with moving people around (I have dyspraxia - I'm sure that contributes to both plotting and positioning troubles). I don't know any authors who excel at everything. Just being good enough at what you are good at is more than OK, in my book.

[snowgall]

Oh and I meant to say that I am so relieved that I got the idiom right! I didn't want it to sound off to Brits.

Many (many!) years ago (1992-3) did a study abroad year in England. University of Lancaster, I you want to know. So I like to think I can do a half-way decent britpick on a fic. But like I said, it's been years (though we also lived in Ireland for 4 months in 2009) so my ear for British-isms has declined significantly. And I'm not at all current with how the cool kids speak these days :)

What is it they say? England and America are two countries divided by a common language. It's so true! Here we'd just say "under his clothes". "Kit" sounds very foreign!