Notes on S.P. Sipal's "A Unauthorized Writer's Guide to Harry Potter"
My husband, loving me and (I presume) my New Year's resolution to write a novel this year, got me this book for Christmas.
A recovering journalist, I have no fiction-writing training outside a short weekly workshop I took upward of 10 years ago. A decade ago, my few fiction attempts were barely disguised efforts to rewrite sad or upsetting events in my own history. I intend to honor the common advice to "write what you know" while expanding the ambition of my imagination.
Anyway, here are some of the points and advice Sipal (http://harrypotterforwriters.blogspot.com/) departs that I particularly enjoy, in no particular order:
1) Character hooks: An important element of characterization is hooks: traits that set characters apart form others, such as Fred and George being twins, or a variety of Potter characters' animal counterparts. They also can be jobs, physical descriptions or a family connection.
2) Backstory needs to be released judiciously, but each character's goal, motivation and conflict needs to be established concretely. (She refers us to Debra Dixon's book Goal, Motivation and Conflict).
3) Some authors create characters and their backstory via writing a personal interview in the character's voice.
4) Build a wonderful world with details that also do work: "Harry doesn't just buy a bar of chocolate at the snack cart, he buys a chocolate frog that hides the name of a person who holds a key plot clue. Normal horses don't pull the carriages from Hogsmeade to Hogwarts, but rather deathly Thestrals with a keen sense of direction."
5) Each character has an internal logic: What primary force drives that character?
6) Perhaps it is not enough for your main character to go through a challenge in which something is at stake. Perhaps the whole community must have a stake in the conflict.
7) "Make your antagonist strong enough to force the ultimate growth within your protagonist, as Voldemort and Snape forced Harry to explore the darkest recesses of his own soul."
8) About POV (point of view): "With deep POV, you want every word to reflect your character. Every turn of phrase, whether in dialogue or exposition, should sound like it is coming out of their mouth and rom their brain, not filtered through a narrator." Rowling's POV "is mostly a traditional third person, but sometimes early on borders on omniscient." She communicates conflict and emotion largely through dialogue and action.
9) She discusses "high concept" a bit, but I don't really understand what she's getting at.
10) On established patterns in Potter: "You know as a reader what to expect with the school year. A major twist is happening with Halloween, a key turning point around Christmas, and the climax with final exams."
11) Consider both small details and the view from a wide-angle lens when building a world for your characters. She handles the wide-angle as preliminary work and the small details during revision.
12) Actions between secondary characters should be shown beyond action with the protagonist. It creates "a more robust, believable world."
13) During editing, find ways to make scenes and details more meaningful. Add depth, not padding.
14) Quoting literary agent Donald Maass: "Backstory is called backstory because it belongs in the back of the story." What belongs early in a work are "name, a hint of appearance, an identifying characteristic and a gripping current goal." Maass book has a foreward by Anne Perry, whose bio is amazing. This book actually looks more interesting.
15) More on backstory: "Don't ever tell the reader more than they need to know right now, in the current situation, to understand what is happening. Don't ever give your protagonist more information than he needs right now to make his choice as to what he will do next."
16) She references The Writer's Journey by story consultant and screenwriter Christopher Vogler.
A recovering journalist, I have no fiction-writing training outside a short weekly workshop I took upward of 10 years ago. A decade ago, my few fiction attempts were barely disguised efforts to rewrite sad or upsetting events in my own history. I intend to honor the common advice to "write what you know" while expanding the ambition of my imagination.
Anyway, here are some of the points and advice Sipal (http://harrypotterforwriters.blogspot.com/) departs that I particularly enjoy, in no particular order:
1) Character hooks: An important element of characterization is hooks: traits that set characters apart form others, such as Fred and George being twins, or a variety of Potter characters' animal counterparts. They also can be jobs, physical descriptions or a family connection.
2) Backstory needs to be released judiciously, but each character's goal, motivation and conflict needs to be established concretely. (She refers us to Debra Dixon's book Goal, Motivation and Conflict).
3) Some authors create characters and their backstory via writing a personal interview in the character's voice.
4) Build a wonderful world with details that also do work: "Harry doesn't just buy a bar of chocolate at the snack cart, he buys a chocolate frog that hides the name of a person who holds a key plot clue. Normal horses don't pull the carriages from Hogsmeade to Hogwarts, but rather deathly Thestrals with a keen sense of direction."
5) Each character has an internal logic: What primary force drives that character?
6) Perhaps it is not enough for your main character to go through a challenge in which something is at stake. Perhaps the whole community must have a stake in the conflict.
7) "Make your antagonist strong enough to force the ultimate growth within your protagonist, as Voldemort and Snape forced Harry to explore the darkest recesses of his own soul."
8) About POV (point of view): "With deep POV, you want every word to reflect your character. Every turn of phrase, whether in dialogue or exposition, should sound like it is coming out of their mouth and rom their brain, not filtered through a narrator." Rowling's POV "is mostly a traditional third person, but sometimes early on borders on omniscient." She communicates conflict and emotion largely through dialogue and action.
9) She discusses "high concept" a bit, but I don't really understand what she's getting at.
10) On established patterns in Potter: "You know as a reader what to expect with the school year. A major twist is happening with Halloween, a key turning point around Christmas, and the climax with final exams."
11) Consider both small details and the view from a wide-angle lens when building a world for your characters. She handles the wide-angle as preliminary work and the small details during revision.
12) Actions between secondary characters should be shown beyond action with the protagonist. It creates "a more robust, believable world."
13) During editing, find ways to make scenes and details more meaningful. Add depth, not padding.
14) Quoting literary agent Donald Maass: "Backstory is called backstory because it belongs in the back of the story." What belongs early in a work are "name, a hint of appearance, an identifying characteristic and a gripping current goal." Maass book has a foreward by Anne Perry, whose bio is amazing. This book actually looks more interesting.
15) More on backstory: "Don't ever tell the reader more than they need to know right now, in the current situation, to understand what is happening. Don't ever give your protagonist more information than he needs right now to make his choice as to what he will do next."
16) She references The Writer's Journey by story consultant and screenwriter Christopher Vogler.
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