Learn How to Write a Novel by Reading Harry Potter

by Scott King

  Throughout the whole book, and especially in this chapter, Rowling introduces characters through meaningful action and dialog. The first time Neville is mentioned in the book it’s him complaining to his Gran that he lost his toad. It’s a very dorky thing to happen and means even more since in the last chapter the reader learned that toads are now out of fashion.

  When Harry sees Hermione for the first time, she’s wearing her Hogwarts uniform, when no one else is and she’s taken charge of the search for Neville’s toad. She shares she comes from a muggle family and she knows who Harry is because she picked up three extra non-fiction books and has been reading them for fun.

  One of the common mistakes a new writer makes is introducing supporting characters and having those characters feel like they only exist to serve the needs of the protagonist. That doesn’t happen at all in this chapter. Each of the new characters has a strong personality and their own wants.

  Active Harry:

  We’ve seen Harry make a few active moves, like sneaking out early in the morning to get the mail before anyone else wakes up, but in “The Journey from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters” it’s almost like we get to see a whole new side of him. Getting out of the shadows of the Dursleys opens up Harry. He has a chance to grow and find himself.

  The chapter kicks off and Harry realizes that if he wants to go to Hogwarts he will have to get to the train station. He confronts his fears and asks Mr. Dursley for a ride. The Dursleys ridicule him about the platform number and abandon him at the station, but again Harry steps up. He uses his brain and is able to spot non-muggles who can help him. He summons the courage and asks Mrs. Weasley for help.

  Remember, the Dursleys did not want Harry. They treated him like crap and spoiled the hell out of Dudley. Being told “No” must have been such a common thing for Harry to the point that he probably stopped asking for anything. So Rowling having him twice being able to decide there was something he wanted and taking action to get it shows his courage.

  Where Harry really shines in this chapter is in his interactions with Ron. There is an arc and structure to that developing relationship. Their conversation starts off awkward, then they seem to find kinship, and then Draco shows up and Harry defends Ron, solidifying their friendship.

  The moment where things shift from awkward to having a connection is when Ron talks about his parents not being able to afford an owl for him. Harry feels there is nothing wrong with not being able to afford an owl, and shares what it was like growing up with the Dursleys. The lack of judgement Harry offers to Ron is exactly what Ron needs in that moment and demonstrates what the two new friends have in common.

  The snack cart stops by their cabin and since Harry has money for the first time and the freedom to buy stuff, he buys a bit of everything and shares it with Ron. It’s an important moment for the plot because it sets up the clue regarding who Nicolas Flamel is, but it’s also important because Harry is acting. He is doing things on his own and making choices. He’s not being dragged about by the Dursleys, Hagrid, or simply reacting. He’s doing stuff! Compared to “Diagon Alley,” in this chapter Harry has started to become a different person

  Each of the choices he makes when taking action reveals more about who he is. This is why having an active character is so important. This chapter alone gives a much clearer idea of who Harry is than any of the chapters where he was with the Dursleys.

  More Set-ups and Mystery:

  By this point, you should start to see that Rowling is constantly setting things up for later. Almost nothing happens without it being meaningful. The big two plot-related things that happen in this chapter are that Harry gets the trading card of Albus Dumbledore with the reference to Nicholas Flamel and that the newspaper mentions a break-in at Gringotts. This is the very same Gringotts that the reader already knows is nearly impossible to break into! The mention of Nicholas Flamel is subtle and under the radar while the Gringotts is loud and hard not to notice. As we move further into Act II, take special notice to small details like these and how even small world-building details or mysteries are done with a clear purpose.

  Chapter Six Takeaways:

  •Supporting characters should have their own wants and needs.

  •The best way to reveal character is through action.

  •POV characters shouldn’t be reactive all the time.

  •Act II focuses heavily on building the relationships between the POV character and supporting cast.

  Chapter Seven

  The Sorting Hat

  Chapter Summary:

  The doors to Hogwarts open, and Professor McGonagall is there to great the first years. She explains how the House system works and that every year Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, and Hufflepuff compete for the House Cup. Through good behavior, students earn points for their Houses, and through bad behavior, they lose them.

  The first years enter the Great Hall, where all the older students and teachers are waiting. McGonagall sets up a stool and places a pointy witch-looking hat onto it. This is the Sorting Hat. It will be placed on the first years’ heads and decide which House they belong to.

  Hermione, Ron, and Neville get placed into Gryffindor while Draco ends up in Slytherin. When it’s Harry’s turn, he thinks to the hat, “Not Slytherin.” The hat responds, saying that Slytherin, would help make Harry great, but if he is sure then he belongs in Gryffindor.

  With the sorting complete, there is a grand feast. The first years get to meet a few of the ghosts, including Nearly Headless Nick. As dinner winds down the new Gryffindors share their backgrounds and Neville says that his family thought he was a muggle until his great-uncle threw him out of a window and he bounced.

  The professors dine at their own separate table. Quirrell is there along with McGonagall, Dumbledore, and a few others. One of the professors, a hooked-nose-man, makes eye contact with Harry and, when he does, Harry’s scar burns. Percy tells him that the man’s name is Snape and he is the potions teacher.

  The feast comes to an end with Dumbledore making a few announcements, including that the Forbidden Forest is out of bounds and that the third floor corridor on the right side is closed for the semester. Dumbledore does not give a reason as to why the corridor is closed.

  Prose Descriptions:

  We have not spent much time talking about the prose in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, so let’s take a slight pause and examine how Rowling creates her descriptions.

  At the end of “The Journey From Platform Nine and Three-Quarters,” Rowling describes Hogwarts in one sentence saying, “Perched atop a high mountain on the other side [of the black lake], its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.” It’s short, simple, and gets the gist across.

  It also leaves a lot open, which is something Rowling does throughout the whole series. She has a way of sharing just enough description that lets the reader picture what is happening, but doesn’t offer too much. This allows the reader to get active with their imagination and further solidifies their connection to the fictional world.

  When the first years enter the school in “The Sorting Hat,” Harry is taking in all the sights and describes it as, “The entrance hall was so big you could have fit the whole of the Dursleys’ house in it.”

  The reader doesn’t actually know how big the Dursleys’ house is. They may have an idea. For example, they know it’s a two-story four-bedroom house, but that’s it. Describing the hall as being so big that the house could fit into it is a clear and concise way to say that the place is pretty darn big. It’s both nonspecific and specific at the same time so that the reader can actively take in the information and picture it as they want in their head.

  New writers will often default to turning their descriptions into a laundry list. Instead of picking a single descriptive item to hint at what a room looks like, they will list out everything in the room, burning the reader and diluting the description. An inexperienced writer might describ
e Dudley’s second bedroom as looking like:

  The room was full of broken toys. They cluttered the floor so much that it was hard for Harry to walk. Even the bed was worn, another hand-me-down from Dudley. Its frame was cracked, and a bit lopsided so when Harry crawled onto it, it creaked and rocked. The bed was carved from walnut wood in an old Victorian style. The red cotton sheets were dusty, cheap, only of a one hundred thread count. Dudley’s current bed was cherry and handcrafted, his black sheets were Egyptian cotton, with a three thousand thread count. On the right side floor of the bed lay the VHS Sony video camera that Dudley had gotten for his birthday. It was blocky in the way that all cameras were, but gone was the viewfinder. That had broken off when Dudley had thrown the camera at a cat. The cat had been a long-haired Persian, who lived three houses down the block. It was declawed and Dudley would torment it because it couldn’t fight back. The less-than-a-month-old camera lay strewn on a motorized drivable tank. The whole left bumper of the tank was torn off; it had snapped when Dudley ran over the neighbor’s dog. The dog had been a black and tan miniature pinscher and Dudley had driven over it in self defense. The dog had gotten aggressive when Dudley had thrown eggs at the dog owner’s house, breaking a window. Also on the floor was an empty bird cage. It was gold plated, but not with real gold, and now the bars were chipped and rusting. Dudley once had owned a green parrot and had spent a whole week trying to teach it curse words, but when it failed to repeat any he traded it for a real air rifle. The rifle was a Daisy Red Ryder Model 1938 BB Gun, an exact replica of the one from the A Christmas Story. Its shaft was bent, from Dudley using it to break car headlights when the pellets it shot had failed to break them. The rifle lay on the bottom of an oak bookshelf. The other six shelves on the book shelf were filled with books. They were in pristine condition and had a nice assortment of classics mixed with contemporary fantasy. The spines that Harry could recognize included The Jungle Book, Grimm Fairy Tales, A Thousand and One Arabian Nights, Aesop's Fables, The Hobbit, The Last Unicorn, Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland, and The Cat and the Hat.

  Now let’s look at how Rowling describes the room in “The Letters From No One”:

  Nearly everything in here was broken. The month-old video camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had driven once over the next door neighbor’s dog; in the corner was Dudley’s first-ever television set, which he put his foot through when his favorite program had been canceled; there was a large birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for a real air rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Dudley had sat on it. Other shelves were full of books. They were the only thing in the room that looked like they had never been touched.

  The wordy example is over the top to help show what laundry list descriptions are like, but it’s not too far over the top. Both of us have had college students turn in work equally wordy and verbose. Rowling’s version is a fraction of the size and not only does she describe items, but she does so in a way that they reveal more character about Dudley. Her prose is meaningful and to the point without being overly specific.

  This is not the only way to handle descriptions, this is just Rowling’s style. We will talk more about author voice later, but for now pay attention to how Rowling is able to take events that are mystical, magical, and weird, and is able to distill them into tiny nuggets that are easy to visualize. There is a line between what is too much description and what is too vague. Every writer needs to find where that line is for them.

  The Houses:

  One of the greatest things in the Harry Potter universe is the Houses. Ask any fan of the series “What House are you?” and they will instantly be able to tell you. Up until now the Houses have been mentioned and hinted at, but in this chapter McGonagall actually explains how they work.

  The Sorting Hat assigns each student to a House and then that student goes and lives in that House’s dorm. While at Hogwarts, a House, in a way, is a student’s family. They live together, eat together, and take classes together. Success will earn your House points and breaking rules will cause your House to lose points. At the end of the year, those points are totaled and the House with the highest score wins the House Cup. Winning the cup is a big honor and the earning and losing of points becomes a major development throughout Act II and III of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

  Readers like to put themselves into the stories they read. It’s why protagonists that are a bit vanilla tend to go mainstream—the character acts as an avatar for the reader. The same thing happens with the Houses in Harry Potter. It’s like taking an online personality test.

  In real life, Houses where students are segregated by personalities is probably a bad idea. It would limit growth, creativity, and create unnecessary conflict between the Houses. However in fiction, it’s a fantastic idea. Draco, the magic snobby version of Dudley, was already shaping up to be an antagonist for Harry, but with the Houses, it’s no longer Harry vs. Draco, but Harry vs. Slytherin.

  It also creates conflict between Harry and his fellow Gryffindors, because as the semester goes on and Harry gets in trouble over and over again, he loses points. His own housemates begin to treat him badly and are mad at him for his actions. It also gives Harry a secondary goal for the year. Beyond the main plot that will eventually deal with the Sorcerer’s Stone he also has to worry about the House Cup and if for the first time in six years, a House other than Slytherin will win it.

  Harry vs. The Sorting Hat:

  We’ve talked numerous times about how a protagonist needs to be active, and here is another example where Harry is becoming the master of his own future. The Sorting Hat wants to put Harry into Slytherin and he basically tells it, “No.” The Sorting Hat takes Harry’s wishes into consideration and listens, placing him into Gryffindor.

  Imagine for a moment that events played out differently. Instead of the Sorting Hat wanting to put Harry in Slytherin, it automatically wanted to put him into Gryffindor. Would the story as a whole be effected? Would it make any real difference?

  For starters, Harry would feel less special. As it plays out, the fact that Harry is able to influence the hat makes him feel special. It’s the first time since the start of the book where there he stands out. Sure the reader knows he somehow survived Voldemort and we’ve seen wizards treat him like a celebrity, but this is the first moment, where Harry feels unique. This is the first hint that Harry is different and might end up being great. Without him taking action and pushing back against the Sorting Hat’s choice, the moment would be lost and it wouldn’t show itself for hundreds of pages later.

  The Burning Scar:

  This is the first real trick that Rowling plays on the reader. Harry watches the professors at their separate table and when he makes eye contact with Snape his scar burns. Both the reader and Harry are left to assume that it burns because of Snape. As Act II progresses, Rowling will set it up so that Snape comes off as the big bad, and it all can be traced back to this moment.

  However let’s look at the exact sentence used in the book, “The hook-nosed teacher looked past Quirrell’s turban straight into Harry’s eyes — and a sharp, hot pain shot across the scar on Harry’s forehead.”

  The big twist that comes at the end of the novel is that Quirrell is the big bad, the main antagonist, and in this moment it’s not eye contact with Snape that causes Harry’s scar to burn; it’s looking at Quirrell’s turban. It’s so sneaky, and unless you know the twist, there is no real way to pick it out. This is a great example of how to set something up and to hide it with misdirection.

  From the moment Snape is introduced, Rowling points the finger at him and she will continue to do so throughout the rest of the novel. As the story moves forward, watch for those interactions and note how Rowling makes Snape seem sneaky and bad, even when he’s not.

  More Mystery:

  The mysteries keep coming! The reader leaves this chapter wondering if Dumbledore is sane. They are left wantin
g to know more about Snape and why looking at him made Harry’s scar burn. They also are left wondering why the third floor corridor and the forest are marked off limits for students.

  When you add these new mysteries with all the ones already established, it’s shocking how the reader is buried under a mountain of mysteries, and yet, it never feels frustrating. The mysteries never get in the way of the immediate story. They are more background in nature. If the mysteries were so overwhelming that they made understanding the story impossible, then they would be a problem, but as is they now are just kind of teasing things that will happen later.

  The reader is able to take in the mysteries and keep moving forward. Plus, after what Rowling did in “The Letters From No One” and in “The Keeper of The Keys,” the reader has more trust in the story. It’s clear from how the mysteries were handled in those earlier chapters, that just enough information will be revealed to keep the mysteries in check without them feeling frustrating.

  Chapter Seven Takeaways:

  •Give the reader just enough description for them to understand, without overdoing it.

  •Give the reader situations and circumstances in which they can picture themselves in.

  •Keep your POV character active.

  •Use misdirection to hide your mysteries.

  •Make sure your mysteries never get in the way of understanding the immediate story.