by Scott King
The crazy thing about the chapter is that it ends in a cliffhanger. There is no resolution to the mystery. It was a bold move for Rowling to make and as a result, there will be few readers who make their way through “The Letters From No One” and don’t immediately start reading the next chapter.
The easiest way to create a mystery is to hold back information. This happens in “The Boy Who Lived” where words like “muggle” are used without explanation and it happens here where the letter arrives and neither Harry or the reader is allowed to see what it says.
The sneaky thing is that by not showing Harry the letter it makes the reader want to see it more. It’s like going to a restaurant and seeing the table next to you eating an amazing-looking dessert. Maybe you didn’t already want a piece of cake or pie, but now that it’s kind of teasing you, you can’t help but desire it.
To sell the mystery even more, Rowling makes sure Mr. Dursley and Mrs. Dursley are in on the secret. Humans like to be in on secrets. Have you ever hung out with a group of people who know each other really well and they make random inside jokes and you feel dumb for not understanding? That’s kind of what is happening here. Mr. and Mrs. Dursley are in on the secret and that makes the reader want to be in on it too.
The way the Dursleys act also sells the secret. Based on their reactions we know it’s a big secret, a potentially earth shattering secret. It has already been established that Dudley is spoiled and manipulates his parents with ease. Yet when Dudley demands to know the secret, even getting violent by smacking his father on the head, his parents don’t cave. They kick him out of the room.
It’s not so much that the Dursleys work to keep the secret that makes it seem so big. It’s the change in their established behavior. It’s the fact that Mr. Dursley stands up to Dudley. The reader at this point knows that Dudley never hears the word “no” and to see him get the metaphorical “no” is shocking.
Of all the ways that Rowling presents the mystery the most powerful is how she ramps it up. This chapter reads fast, almost like a thriller, and it does so because each new event builds and is bigger than the last. The events of the chapter play out as follows:
•A mysterious letter arrives.
•The reader and Harry are not allowed to see what it says.
•Harry is given a new bedroom and another letter arrives addressed to it.
•Three letters arrive.
•Twelve letters arrive.
•Twenty-four letters arrive inside of eggs.
•Thirty to forty letters shoot out of the fireplace.
•One hundred letters arrive at a hotel.
•The reader learns that at midnight it will be Harry’s birthday.
•Five minutes to midnight.
•Three minutes to midnight
•One minute to midnight.
•BOOM! There is a knock on the shack’s door.
If Rowling had started the chapter with one hundred letters arriving and then the next day three arrived, it wouldn’t feel the same. It would feel anti-climatic. Just like if she had started it with twenty-four arriving in eggs and the next day twenty-four came delivered via a postal worker, it wouldn’t feel like it was building. In many ways, this chapter is a reflection of how most stories build conflict that climaxes. We will cover structure more in-depth later, but as you make your way through the rest of the novel pay attention to how Rowling constantly builds on what has come before and the conflict and problems get worse and more serious for Harry.
There is a rhythm to how the mystery builds. The number of the letters keeps increasing and when the reader gets to the end of the chapter, they expect a thousand letters to show up. They figure the doors, windows, and walls will all burst with a tempest of letters. That doesn’t happen and it’s a sly move because when it doesn’t happen the reader once more feels shocked and surprised because an established pattern is broken. They are then mesmerized upon realizing that this time instead of being inundated with letters, someone has arrived and is knocking on the door.
Humans recognized patterns and a change in a repetitive pattern stands out. Consider these two sequences of numbers:
•2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10
•1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 1, 3, 5, 7, 13
The second sequence stands out because it breaks an established pattern. The knock on the door at the end of the chapter works the same way. It is a break in a pattern and it grabs the readers’ attention and makes them want to know more.
Character Wants & Actions:
Protagonists need to be active. A story can’t just happen to the main characters. That’s boring. One of the most critiqued elements of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is how Harry is passive throughout most of the book. He spends a lot of his time reacting instead of acting. In the last chapter, yes he technically made the glass for the snake disappear, but he didn’t do it on purpose. It kind of just happened. That’s why Harry’s actions here and later when he talks with the Sorting Hat are so important. These small moments are where Harry actually takes charge of his own life.
Up until now, Harry has appeared docile with his aunt and uncle. He’s almost been in a survival mode where he does what he needs to get through the day without being punished or bullied. That changes when the first letter arrives. Mr. Dursley snatches the letter from Harry and Harry says, “That’s mine!”
From Harry’s view, it is clearly a big deal. He’s probably never gotten anything in the mail until now. Even later in the chapter when he switches bedrooms, he owns so few items that he’s able to move from the cupboard in a single trip. The concept that a letter would arrive, addressed to him, that something that would be solely his and not Dudley’s, is significant. It is so significant that Harry finds the courage to speak up against his uncle.
Harry’s want to know what is in the letter becomes so strong that it forces him to take action. He gets up earlier than normal in the morning so that he can sneak down and see if another letter has arrived. This is a clear example of a character being active. Instead of the story doing its thing and the character merely reacting, Harry’s want drives him into making the story happen.
It doesn’t work out. Harry steps into the hall and trips over his uncle who is sleeping on the floor. A character shouldn’t be successful all the time in the choices they make. They shouldn’t always get what they want. Not getting what they want creates conflict and conflict is good. What is important is that a character, especially the protagonist, takes action.
Harry’s proactiveness is short-lived and Mr. Dursley soon becomes the driving force of the chapter. Instead of the chapter being about Harry trying to find out what is in the letter, it becomes about Mr. Dursley trying to prevent Harry from discovering what it is in it. The cycle of wanting something, trying to get it, and failing is the same for Mr. Dursley as it was for Harry.
Mr. Dursley has a want: to keep the contents of the letter secret. He makes choices and does things to keep this from happening. Conflict then occurs when the letters become so overwhelming that Mr. Dursley can’t thwart them. This culminates with the thirty to forty letters shooting out of the fireplace. Mr. Dursley sees the limits in what he can do about the magic and is forced to take drastic measures. He packs the whole family up and they leave their house.
They get to a hotel and Mr. Dursley figures no one can find them there, but, of course, a hundred letters show up. It becomes a breaking point for Mr. Dursley. He will not be defeated and so he takes the family to a remote location, loads them onto a shoddy boat, and makes their way to a shack on a small uninhabited island. The location is so remote and in the middle of nowhere that even present day with GPS, drones, and satellites it might be hard to track them, but even still, the chapter ends with someone knocking on the door!
In the end, it doesn’t matter that Mr. Dursley fails to keep away the letters. What’s important is that he has an immediate want and is active by trying to make that want happe
n. Although there are parts of this novel where Harry reacts, the one good thing about that is the events that he reacts to are often character-driven by the other characters. As you continue reading, pay attention to any events that might seem convenient and trace them back to see if there is actually a character and their want that led to them happening.
Catalyst Moment:
This chapter and the next form a catalyst moment. Basically, at the start of most stories, the characters exist in a frozen status quo. In this case, Harry lives with the Dursleys and his life is static. For the rest of the novel to occur, something must wreck that status quo and kick off the story. The letters from no one do that.
The letters arriving create a break in the pattern of the character’s lives. Instead of going about day to day with things unchanged, the letters’ delivery creates a want for both Harry and Mr. Dursley. Then when the contents of the letter are revealed, they will launch Harry into the magical world. Without the letter, Harry would continue to live with the Dursleys and there would be no novel.
The catalyst of a story can take lots of shapes and it usually happens from an outside force, like meeting someone new, a change at work, someone getting sick, a chance encounter, acceptance to somewhere, or something equivalent. The change the catalyst provokes will be so big that your POV character won’t be able to ignore it.
Chapter Three Takeaways:
•Giving a character an immediate want and having them pursue that want makes them active.
•Creating a break in an established pattern, whether that pattern is events or character related, will draw the reader’s attention to it.
•Holding back information from both the POV character and the readers will create mystery.
•Something must shake up your POV character’s life and cause the main story to start.
Chapter Four
The Keeper of the Keys
Chapter Summary:
The door to the shack blows in and standing on the other side is Hagrid, a giant of a man! Hagrid has a birthday cake for Harry and another one of the notorious letters. Mr. Dursley attempts to stop Hagrid from sharing the letter and telling Harry about Hogwarts, but it doesn’t work.
Harry learns that his parents were wizards and that as a result he has been invited to attend Hogwarts, a school for wizards. He also finds out that his aunt and uncle lied about how his parents died. Lily and James were not killed in a car crash, but murdered by a dark wizard named Voldemort. Harry struggles with the idea that this is all true, but then he thinks back on the vanishing glass from the boa constrictor’s cage, his hair growing back, the time he flew, and of the shrinking shirt, and realizes that he is a wizard.
Mystery & Payoffs:
Where the last chapter was all about the build-up of a mystery, “The Keeper of the Keys” is about paying that mystery and some of the smaller mysteries that have been hanging about. The whole chapter is an exposition dump, where a lot of information is dropped on the reader at once. Exposition dumps are a tricky thing, because they can slow the momentum of a story and be confusing to readers, but the way it’s handled here is a great example of how to do one in an engaging way.
“The Keeper of the Keys” is the only chapter in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone that has a single location. In the current print U.S. print edition of the book, it is fifteen pages. That is a long time to stay in one room, but it works because of the build-up of tension from the last chapter. Readers, even young readers, are willing to sit through the static location because they are so excited about getting the answers to the things they’ve wanted to know. They are itching for them! That desire to know what is in the mysterious letter is enough to hold the reader through the entire chapter.
The big reveal of what is in the letter happens fairly early in the chapter, and it seems minor compared to the other things that the readers and Harry learn. He finds out that he is a wizard! He learns his aunt and uncle knew! He learns that his parents were murdered! These are world-shattering revelations and make the payoff worth it. The reader gets to the end of the chapter and feels satisfied. That is how you want them to feel when revealing a twist or mystery.
The reason Harry learning he is a wizard and about his parents’ murder feel bigger than the reveal of his invitation to Hogwarts is because those were things that were teased in the first chapter. They’ve been hanging over the story, whereas the reveal of what is in the letter has only been an issue since the last chapter. The reveal of the mystery elements need to be worth it and that is tied to the build-up. The longer the build-up the bigger the reveal. The shorter the build-up the smaller the reveal can be.
One of the unexplained events in “The Boy Who Lived,” was the numerous owl sightings during the daytime. It’s revealed in this chapter that wizards use owls to carry messages. That’s why there were so many owls in the opening chapter. Hundreds of wizards were sending letters. On the grand scale of mysteries, it’s small and subtle. It’s treated almost like a throwaway joke because it’s not a big reveal. It’s not the like the big question of “What’s in the letter?” or “How did Voldemort fail to kill Harry?” It is a small mystery and so it gets a small wrap-up.
One of the trickier things about holding back information is knowing when to reveal it. It’s not that as an author you don’t want a reader to know or understand what is going on. It’s that you want them to care. To make them care you have to reveal information at the right time. If it’s small like the owls, it’s something that can be revealed whenever without much build up. If there had been a build-up prior to the reveal of the owls the fact that they are basically postal workers would have felt unsatisfying.
Because there are different size mysteries that will pay off at different places in a story, your story should be chock full of mysteries. As soon as one set wraps, new ones should reveal themselves. One of the last things we learn about Hagrid is that he was once expelled from Hogwarts. Harry asks him why, but an answer isn’t given. So although this chapter was all about wrapping up a few mysteries, like what “muggle” means, before it even ends we have a new one.
Conflict:
Beyond the build-up and release of tension from the revelations, conflict is the other driving force that makes the exposition dump not feel like one. This chapter seeps with various kinds of conflict. The biggest is between Mr. Dursley and Hagrid.
The first thing Hagrid says to him is, “Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune.” Hagrid also makes fun of Dudley and basically becomes a mouth-piece for the reader, standing up for Harry in the way the reader wants to, but can’t. What’s impressive about the interaction is how Mr. Dursley doesn’t back down. Mr. Dursley “forbids” Hagrid from revealing the truth and goes as far as to say that he will not pay for Harry’s schooling.
This goes back to character wants and their motivations. In Mr. Dursley’s mind, he is trying to protect Harry from the wizarding world. He is also trying to protect himself, his wife, and Dudley. He knows wizards are dangerous and that their lives could be at risk. Hagrid wants what he thinks is best for Harry. He thinks Harry should be told the truth of who he is and that he should truly be part of the wizarding world. Harry is Lily and James’s legacy and Hagrid loves him for that.
The reader, of course, is on Team Hagrid because of how the Dursleys treat Harry, but when you whittle down the motivations of the characters neither is perfectly right or wrong. Hagrid’s want for what he thinks is best for Harry comes into conflict for what Mr. Dursley thinks is best for Harry.
The conflict between Mr. Dursley and Hagrid becomes the vehicle in which information is given to Harry. This whole chapter could have just been Harry and Hagrid sitting down and talking, but that most likely would have been boring. Instead, the arguing and the humor helps the reader soak in the important information without feeling bogged down by it.
Harry’s Reactions:
Beyond the external conflict between Hagrid and Mr. Dursley, Harry has internal conflict as h
e tries to process the things he is being told. The majority of this chapter hovers over Harry’s shoulder in a third person limited style. The reader gets to hear Harry’s thoughts as the twists and turns are revealed. Having depth to the point of view gives the reader insight into Harry strengthening the bond the reader feels for him.
Near the end of “The Keeper of the Keys,” Harry thinks to himself: “…[He] felt quite sure there had been a horrible mistake. A wizard? Him? How could that possibly be?”
Harry struggles with accepting the truth of what he is being told. On one level it seems too good to be true, because it offers him a way out. It’s his escape from the Dursleys. At the same time, being raised a muggle means having to accept that magic is real. That’s not something easy to digest.
It’s important that the reader gets to see and hear Harry’s reactions. Being able to dive into a point of view like this is something unique to novels. Sure a movie, television show, or play can add voice-overs or show motivations via dialog and action, but it’s not the same and it’s not as powerful.
The core of a story is character. You simply cannot have a story without a character. Characters are what root the reader, listeners, and viewers into the world you are creating. They are the window and vehicle through which the audience views and interacts with the story. Because the reader sees the world through the character’s view point, the character in a way stains that view and so the reader learns and grows to understand the character better.
It’s like the old cliche of, “History is written by the winners,” which suggest that history is not always the complete truth. The same thing works with points of view. Consider for a moment if instead of a storyteller-style narrator, every chapter up until now was told in first person from Mr. Dursley’s point of view. The book would read completely differently.
