Due to my nerdiness and the premiere of Deathly Hallows Part I, I decided to make a list of things we can learn from J.K. Rowling (Good and Bad). Beware, there be spoilers ahead.
1. Develop Your Characters
The reason why Rowling’s books are so popular is because people can relate to the characters. She takes the time to craft each one, no matter how small. This is why they feel like real people. This is why people “fan” them and actually cry when she kills them off. Because she took the time to flesh each and every one of them out.
2. Make Romance Real
How many of us freaked out when Ron and Hermione finally got together? Why? Because we’d seen them grow from little snarky eleven-year-olds all the way through their character arcs together. We saw them blossom as both people and as two people who were friends (and then more). Your lovers aren’t just there to be lovers; they’re human beings with actual human interactions.
3. That Spoiler WILL Pay Off
For twenty years, J.K. Rowling kept something to herself. Only her and Alan Rickman were lone souls on this planet who knew what would transpire for Severus Snape’s character. Was Snape good? Was Snape evil? Why was Snape always alone? Why was Snape’s worst memory something that seemed so mundane except for the fact that he was pwned by his arch nemesis in school and hurt some girl who happened to be Harry’s mom? Well, it paid off because Rowling didn’t get overzealous about this grand idea she had for her character. YOU may know that Jason Riggs is going to die on page 24 of your third book in the series, but if you foreshadow it until the cows come home in Chapters 1-23, we will not care. If you let it out of the bag that he’s actually secretly a spy for the other side but has irrevocably fallen in love with Michelle, Vampire Hunter, then we will not care when it was actually supposed to be told and made apparent. Patience is a virtue when it comes to allowing the audience to know those lovely gems we’ve written. The secret withheld for twenty years and seven books made “The Prince’s Tale” in Deathly Hallows the best part of the series, and Severus the best dude in the story.
4. Always Do the Opposite of the Expected.
Mad Eye Moody is a good guy who only wants to try to help Harry through the tournament, but he ends up being some evil Death Eater in disguise who’s trying to kill Harry. Professor Quirrell is useless, but he just so happens to have Voldemort piggybacking on his skull. Tom Riddle is an upstanding young man, until he becomes Wizard Hitler. Dumbledore’s a wise old man who’s out to protect Harry, but he’s actually leading Harry to the slaughter. And yes, Snivellus Snape is an evil Death Eater, but he’s actually “the bravest man [Harry] knew.” The reason why we read these books is because Rowling always does the opposite of what we expect her to do. She makes the most terrible, jerkish of characters (Draco Malfoy) into an actually sympathetic portrait of why people end up in terrible situations and on the wrong sides of wars. We know that the dude who put Harry’s name into the Goblet of Fire wasn’t someone as obvious as Karkaroff, because that’d be too easy. And even when we figure it out, she’s two steps ahead of us with a new mystery as to how it actually happened. Never work with cliches, work against them.
5. Know Your World
This we can learn from what J.K. Rowling did wrong. She created an expansive world with a new sport and all these fancy spell words, but it’s like SuperMario 64 for the Nintendo 64 (90′s children know what I’m talking about). Mario’s got all these places to go, but all these glitches to get stuck in. Just when you’re rolling along, you end up in a wall somewhere. No, not near a wall or between a wall and another wall. In a wall. And you can’t move. Rowling’s world sometimes find these Mario glitches. They are known to fans as “Marcus Flints.” These Marcus Flints are named after the character, Marcus Flint, who was a Slytherin who spent one too many years at Hogwarts. When some detail-oriented OCD fan ran across this glitch, Rowling admitted her mistake and quickly said, “Well he’s … you know … he’s a super senior.” This isn’t the first time that Rowling’s failed in the “Let’s-Make-This-Make-Sense” department. Everything from how the Snitch and Seeker work in the game of Quidditch to the ability to accio anything, thus making ownership impossible. But then you get into the characters. She announces that Snape is 33 in Book 3. This leads to many issues. First, Snape graduated with the Marauders, who were Harry’s Parents and Co. This means that in Book 3, all of the Marauder generation people are 33. Book 2 takes place in 1992 because we’re given dates via Tom Riddle’s diary. This means that Book 3 is in 1993, making the Marauders born in 1960. If they graduated in 1978 and the Great War ended in 1981 (when Harry was a year old), that means that Lily and James Potter were 21 years old when they were killed. That’s right, folks. Those receding hairlines you see in the movie? Nope. L&J would’ve been juniors in college by Muggle standards. This also leads to queries about the other guys; Remus, Sirius, and Snape are all 33? This means that when Sirius is killed in Book 5, he is 35 years old. Remus is killed at age 37-38. And here’s a heads-up. This puts Remus at about eighteen years older than his new wife, Tonks, who’s just hitting twenty. The older generation is completely bonkers because Rowling didn’t think it through. And it completely changes Lily and James’s relationship. They started dating their seventh year at Hogwarts, which means that they’d either A.) been going out for a year when they decided to settle down and have a kid or B.) Harry was an oops baby and that perfect bridal picture his mother left him is evidence of a very quick shotgun wedding. This is not at all the middle-aged couple with their only child that Rowling paints for us. There’s more not told. So make sure you know your characters’ ages, what year they were born in accordance to other important things happening in their lives (like when they got married, had kids, or you know — died). This will mean that Alan Rickman won’t be desperately trying to look 37 for his grand showdown with Nagini.
6. Names Are Important
Voldemort is French for “flight of death.” How cool is that? This is just one name she came up with that actually means something and puts substance behind the character. Voldemort is afraid to die, and what a cool way to symbolize that with a cool meaning to his namesake. What can you add to your character by thinking about what they’re called? Professor Minerva McGonagall is named after Minerva, or Athena in Greek. What does this tell us about her focus on character?
7. Not all readers are going to read the same book you’ve written.
When Rowling was asked who her favorite characters were, she listed off “Hagrid, Hermione, Harry, and Ron.” But if you ask me, my favorites are “Snape, Lily, Remus, and Sirius.” If you ask one of my friends, she says, “Luna and Neville.” With such a big cast and such a big scope of a world, your readers may not be interested in the characters you want them to be interested in. That brilliant theme you had about friendship? I don’t care. I want to read about the unrequited love. That awesome symbol you came up with to show Hagrid’s plight as a school dropout falsely accused? Sorry, I’m too busy caring about how Colin Creevy symbolizes the innocence of Hogwarts in Book 2 and how he’s brutally murdered at the end of Book 7. I don’t care about Hagrid, even if you try to make me care. I’ll just care less. Not everyone who reads a book I’ve written will grip onto the idea of growing up and changing. They may be more into the whole insert-theme-I-never-even-thought-of-here. And that’s the glorious thing about writing books! You’re the writer, not the director. The reader gets to decide who gets the focus and where to look for importance.
8. There Will Always Be Someone Who Doesn’t Like What You’ve Written
I wrote “An American Exodus” for eleven years before I thought it finished. Dozens of my friends read it, and a good amount of them did not agree with decisions I’d made. My best friend highly opposed the death of her favorite character. My best friend’s ex-boyfriend highly opposed the idea that a Firing Squad came into play in Part V. Another reader thought the entire framework was a sham. Others wanted this person to come out on top or that person to not end up a bad guy. But in the end, it was my call and I had to write the book I wanted to write. Rowling talks about her murder of Sirius Black and how she knew that people were going to hate her for it. In an interview, she says how a cold shadow goes over her every time she kills someone off, because she just knows there are those who will be heartbroken. A week before killing Sirius, she went on a fansite for the character and saw how many people loved him and were threatening mutiny if he died. But she says that you have to move past that. It’s not their book to write. You as the author have a job to do, and if Sirius must die for the good of the story, then so be it. I was very upset that Sirius died, and my fifteen-year-old self was a little traumatized, I won’t deny it. But if Sirius hadn’t died, then Book 5 would’ve meant nothing. Harry wouldn’t have grown. And we wouldn’t have learned the theme of loss.
9. Strong Females Rock the World
Rowling doesn’t have one female who is bad in her books. As Ron says in Deathly Hallows Part I: “And leave Hermione? We can’t do that! We wouldn’t last a day without her!” It’s true. Who keeps things together throughout the entire books? Hermione Granger, Luna Lovegood, Molly Weasley, Professor McGonagall, and countless others. And who spurs the male characters to be good people and not suck at life? Lily Evans, Ginny Weasley, Bellatrix Lestrange (in her own way to Voldemort), and Nymphadora Tonks. The females are written as human beings, and not all of them end up with a beau in the end. Girls are just as important and welcome in the world as boys, and I think that’s a point that’s overlooked in this book series. So many stories are male-centric, throwing some token girl in as a love interest. Even if they seem like they’re going to be cool (Nala), they just end up sitting behind Simba and saying “yes dear.” But Hermione does not say “yes dear.” Not once. Don’t genderfy your characters. Make that surly jerk a girl. Make that weak love interest a boy. Don’t think about the gender. Think about the person.
and finally …
10. Enjoy Writing.
Rowling lived in her world of Harry Potter. They were her friends, her children, her family. Even when the going got tough, she kept on at it. And why? Was it a job to go to Hogwarts every day and figure out the intricate details of the Three Unforgivable Curses or how to magic up a tent? No, it was her passion. Don’t ever shy away from a story because it’s “too weird” or you don’t think it’s anything anyone else would want to read. And don’t ever make a shell of a story by not putting your heart into it. Your story should be your love, your life, and the best parts of your soul. Only then will you be able to sustain writing it for seven books and twenty years worth of over three hundred characters.
Mischief Managed.
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Amen!
Brilliant!