Learn How to Write a Novel by Reading Harry Potter

by Scott King

  The day seems to creep by for Harry, but finally he attends Quidditch practice. Oliver teachers Harry the basic rules of the game. Harry’s main objective when playing is to fly about, looking for the Golden Snitch, a small golden ball with wings. Catching the Snitch ends a Quidditch game and scores a large amount of points for the team that catches it.

  On Halloween, Ron, Hermione, and Harry attend Charms. In class, Flitwick teaches them wingardium leviosa, a spell that causes objects to levitate. Ron cannot get the spell to work and Hermione informs him that he is pronouncing the spell wrong. After class, Ron bashes Hermione saying, “no one can stand her.” She hears the whole thing and runs off crying.

  The Halloween Feast commences, but Quirrell interrupts, announcing that a troll is loose in the castle. The Prefects lead the students back to their dorms, and along the way Ron and Harry realize that Hermione isn’t there. They figure out that the last place she was seen was crying in the girl’s bathroom. They go to save her, and through dumb luck manage to lock the troll in a room. Only after doing so do they realize that it’s the same girl’s bathroom.

  Harry and Ron bust in just as Hermione is being attacked. Working in a haphazard way, using the spell they just learned from Flitwick, the three of them knock out the troll. McGonagall finds them and yells at Ron and Harry. Hermione lies to McGonagall saying the reason the boys weren’t in the dorm, was because they were trying to stop her from tracking down the troll.

  Character Flaws:

  “Halloween” is in a way a companion chapter to “The Journey From Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.” In “The Journey From Platform Nine and Three-Quarters,” Harry solidifies his friendship with Ron. In “Halloween,” Ron and Harry officially become friends with Hermione.

  Hermione is one of the most loved and hated characters in Harry Potter. Part of this has to do with trolls, the internet kind, not the twelve-foot-kind, who think they understand writing when instead they’ve just heard of a few things called tropes. Tropes are a mix of cliche and commonalities that appear in stories. There are whole websites devoted to them. The problem is that writing is complex and relying on tropes to understand or tell a story is lazy.

  Anti-Hermione readers will say that she is a Mary Sue, a too-perfect character that most likely was created to be an avatar for the author. Characters like Rey from The Force Awakens also get labeled this way. This line of thinking is a fallacy. For starters, Hermione is not a too-perfect character.

  Halfway through “Halloween,” Hermione hears Ron talk bad about her. Ron says, “It’s no wonder no one can stand her… she’s a nightmare, honestly.” A perfect character, one who is fulfilled, would have heard Ron’s bashing and not cared. A perfect character would have the self-confidence to shake off the insults. Hermione doesn’t. Hermione is insecure, and it shows itself several times throughout Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. She cares greatly about what others think.

  There is also the issue that the majority of other students don’t like Hermione. They see her as a bossy know-it-all. Her social skills are lacking. She’s awkward and even though she means well in the things she does or says, other students don’t take them well. They find her off-putting.

  The traits that mark Hermione as being non-perfect are what are traditionally known as flaws. Most characters in all forms of fiction will have flaws. Harry has anger and impulse management issues. Ron suffers from feeling inadequate because of his older brothers. Dudley and Draco are just jerks. Hagrid is a bit dumb.

  Flaws are important because in real life no one is perfect. Sometimes a person’s flaw is big, like they might be racist. Sometimes a person’s flaw is small, and they are too prideful. Most people are a mixture of both big flaws and little flaws.

  In storytelling, there is a thing called a character arc. A character arc is the change a character goes through from the start of your story till the end of your story. For example, if your character starts at point A and that by the end of the story they are at point B, or Z, or basically anywhere else but A. That change in them is a character arc.

  The most common character arc is to have a protagonist with a flaw and to have them either overcome or fail to overcome that flaw. A flaw can be as big and melodramatic as someone being an alcoholic or something so simple as a character that lies too much. The flaw that a character arc centers around will tie directly to one of the themes of the story you are trying to tell.

  When writing a novel, an author can include a character arc over a single book, over multiple books, over an entire series, or not at all. The main characters from the Harry Potter books sometimes have small arcs from book to book, but really their arcs span the entire series.

  At the start of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry was a meek boy. He almost never stood up for himself and desperately wanted to escape the Dursleys and find a family. By the end of the book, Harry has found confidence. He has no problem standing up not just for himself, but for others, and at Hogwarts, especially with Ron and Hermione, he creates his own family.

  Hermione is insecure and awkward. She doesn’t really solve her awkwardness, but through her friendship with Ron and Harry, she finds more confidence in herself. Although this is a small and subtle arc, it is an arc and the fact that she has one proves she is a flawed character.

  The other thing to consider is that as an author, there may be a time when you want to purposely create a perfect character. When a character who appears flawless stands next to a character with clear flaws, it will make the flawed character look worse.

  What all this goes to show is that there are a lot of “rules” that new writers are told to follow. The truth of the matter is that writing is complex. There are layers upon layers and breaking the “rules” is sometimes what is best for your story.

  Chapter Ten Takeaways:

  •Characters generally have flaws.

  •A character growing and overcoming a flaw is considered a Character Arc.

  •Character Arcs generally tie into the theme of a novel.

  •Character Arcs do not have to appear in every novel and sometimes take place over several novels.

  Chapter Eleven

  Quidditch

  Chapter Summary:

  Quidditch seasons has begun and Harry’s first match of the year is against Slytherin. If his team wins, Gryffindor will move into second place for the House Cup. To get ready for the match, Harry borrows a library book from Hermione. Snape sees Harry, Ron, and Hermione reading outside. He takes the book and docks them points saying that library books are not allowed outside.

  As Snape leaves, Harry notes that the professor is limping. Following him, Harry overhears Snape and Filch talking about a three-headed dog, leading Harry to believe that Snape has been trying to acquire whatever is being hidden in the forbidden corridor.

  Before the big Quidditch game, Harry is so nervous that he doesn’t want to eat breakfast. Wood gives an inspirational speech, which Fred and George mock, and then the game begins.

  The POV shifts, with a play-by-play being given by the games commentator, Lee Jordan. In the stands, Hagrid, Hermione, and Ron watch. At one point Harry goes for the Snitch, but a Slytherin blocks him, earning a foul. Later, Hagrid notes that it looks like Harry has lost control of his broom and reveals that only Dark Magic has the ability to interfere with how brooms work.

  Hermione spots Snape, on the other side of the stands. He is waving his wand and muttering as if casting a spell. She rushes over to stop him, bumping into Quirrell on the way. Reaching Snape, she lights his robes on fire.

  Harry regains control of his broom and makes a move to capture the Snitch! He does so by trapping it in his mouth, delivering a win to Gryffindor.

  After the game, Ron, Hermione, and Harry visit Hagrid’s hut. They share their suspicion that Snape is trying to kill Harry. Hagrid brushes off the comments and Harry forces the issue saying that Snape is trying to get past the three-headed dog. Not intending to, Hagrid reveals t
he dog’s name is Fluffy and that it is guarding something having to do with Albus Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel.

  Establishing Plot Devices:

  At the start of “Quidditch,” Ron, Hermione, and Harry are studying outside in the cold and to stay warm they are using jars of blue fire that Hermione had created. At this point in the novel, it’s not a surprise to any reader that Hermione is capable and goes above and beyond in terms of her studying. When it’s revealed that she was able to summon and trap blue fire in jars, it’s believable.

  It’s also easy to picture too. Imagine a do-it-yourself-style mason jar, with a dancing flame inside. The blue tendrils whip back and forth, as if dancing, and give just enough heat for the kids to warm their hands or pockets while in the chilly November weather.

  The jar adds to the coolness of magic and helps set the scene, but it only exists for one reason. It is there so that later in the chapter when Hermione makes Snape’s robes catch on fire, it doesn’t seem random or out of the blue. This scene in the cold establishes that she can summon fire.

  Up until now, the kids have used very little magic and what they have used has been simple and non-aggressive. Think back to the fight with the troll. They didn’t shoot lightning, fireballs, or more traditional spells at the monster. They more or less bumbled their way through the fight, with Ron using wingardium leviosa to defeat the troll.

  For Hermione to be able to light Snape’s robes on fire at the end of the chapter, it’s important that the readers see she has new magic. This specific magic spell is a plot device, a contrived thing that moves the story forward. When dealing with plot devices, they have to be set-up, in the same way that mysteries are set-up.

  A power, ability, or even a skill needs to be established ahead of time before it is used. If not, then when a character uses it, it will feel forced, as if the author is interfering with the story to make things happen just because they want things to happen, not because that’s how things really would happen. Not setting up and establishing plot devices creates a situation known as deus ex machina, which means “god from machine.”

  The name dates back to ancient Greek times. Supposedly back then, many Greek plays would end with the gods flying in to resolve everything. The actors would be lowered on stage with a rope and pulley. Hence “god from a machine” because a mechanical device would deliver the actors on stage.

  Deus ex machinas are unsatisfying to readers. When a major situation or even a whole novel is resolved from an outside source, it undermines the characters and the story being told. Imagine the first Avengers movie. The superheroes unite to stop an alien invasion in New York. It’s the climax of the movie. The camera twirls around Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye, and Black Widow. They stand back to back, with weapons raised, ready to fight an impossible number of aliens…

  Only instead of the fight happening, The Guardians of the Galaxy, who have not been in the movie at all, show up, use some weird spaceship technology, and close the wormhole hanging over New York. The aliens are defeated and the Avengers stand there looking dumb, scratching their heads. Moviegoers would have been furious if the actual movie had ended that way.

  When you are planning out your novel, certain things will have to happen. The plot will demand them to happen for the whole story to make sense. In most cases, you will be able to tweak the plot devices so that they are character-driven and make sense. The more character-driven they are, the less forced they are. Sometimes though, things just need to happen a certain way and when they do, to keep them from being mini deus ex machinas you need to establish them early on.

  Hermione using the flame in the jar to keep warm, means that when she causes Snape’s robes to burst into flames, the readers believe it. Not only that but later, at the climax of the novel when she uses fire again, they will still believe it and have no problem accepting her use of it.

  Character Competence:

  Think for a moment of your own skillset. There are certain things in life that you are good at. Some are trivial, like being able to curl your tongue. Some are inherent abilities, like being an outgoing person, easily being able to strike up a conversation with a stranger. Some are honed abilities, like the craft of writing.

  Many things add to a person’s skillset and the more someone is already good at something, the better they get, or at the very least they don’t lose their skill. Someone who grew up in a single-family home and spent their teen years working in a restaurant and cooking family meals is going to be better at cooking than a college student who has never cooked and is living on their own for the first time. Just like how people have different skillsets and levels of competence, characters should too.

  From the start of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry is set up to be a great wizard. He is the one who, as a baby, defeated Voldemort! He should be epic, awesome, and such an amazing wizard that his power rivals Merlin, Gandalf, and all the other fictional wizards of literature. Yet, he isn’t. Even as the series progresses, Harry never becomes too magically formidable. He can’t re-write reality, and his own magic never even seems to get close to that of Dumbledore’s.

  This was a choice that Rowling made. She decided early on that Harry’s competence with magic would be average or just above average and that’s it. Yet within the study of magic, there are specialties that he is better at. For obvious reasons, he has an affinity for fighting Dark Magic and he’s also a skilled flyer.

  When a character is good at everything it has a tendency to make them unlikable and it feels unrealistic because no one is good at everything. This is one of the reasons so many people dislike Hermione. Anti-Hermione fans feel she is too awesome and powerful. Her skills with magic easily outshine Harry’s. Yet as competent as she is with magic, her people skills are horrible. She’s awkward, comes off bossy, and as we have talked about before, she has self-esteem issues.

  As you create characters, no matter the genre, make sure you balance out how competent they are in the things they do. If you need a character to be a present-day skilled surgeon, decide what other parts of their life, or places where they may lack skills. The skills required to be a top surgeon would take years to hone. In that time what things might they have given up so that they could study, work crazy hours, and make work a priority? Maybe as a result, they have an utter failing in romantic relationships because they always put work first? Maybe they are estranged from their immediate family because they can’t make time to even visit for holidays? Maybe they suck at understanding pop culture or sports because they don’t have time for such things?

  Harry isn’t a perfect character. He makes mistakes throughout the whole series and there are many things he simply isn’t good at. Where he has always shined and has a lot of competence is with flying. By limiting what he is good at, it makes him more likable to the reader, and it puts the reader more on his side when he does excel.

  When creating the characters that will inhabit your novel, make sure you take the time not only to figure out their flaws, but to establish what things they are competent at and what they things they suck at, because the majority of being a human is sucking at stuff.

  Chapter Eleven Takeaways:

  •Plot devices are powers, situations, or events that move the story forward.

  •When not properly set-up a plot device will feel forced and leave readers feeling unsatisfied.

  •Characters have different levels of competency with all the aspects of their lives.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Mirror of Erised

  Chapter Summary:

  Christmas vacation is only days away and Malfoy gives Harry a hard time about having to stay at Hogwarts for the holiday, but instead of being upset, Harry is ecstatic. For the first ever he won’t have to be with the Dursleys and suffer while Dudley gets spoiled.

  With an extra half hour of free time, Harry, Ron, and Hermione search the library for information about Nicolas Flamel. They have been hunting for weeks, and
haven’t managed to find anything. Harry suspects what they are looking for is in the Restricted Section of the library. Merely when looking at the section, without entering, a librarian spots him and yells at him for it.

  Hermione heads home to be with her family for Christmas, but Ron and the other Weasley brothers stay and celebrate it with Harry. It’s the first real Christmas Harry has ever had and instead of groaning or being embarrassed about getting a hand-knit Weasley sweater, he puts it on with pride. Harry feels a part of a family and it is the best Christmas of his life.

  A secret benefactor gives Harry an invisibility cloak. A note on it says it used to be his father’s. That night, Harry uses the cloak, with the intention of slipping into the library’s Restricted Section, but along the way, while hiding from Filch, he slips into an empty room. Inside is an old mirror.

  Harry stares at the mirror and to his surprise, he sees a bunch of people standing beside his reflection. It takes a moment for him to realize that it’s his parents and other relatives. Harry tries to talk to them, but they don’t respond. The next day he tells Ron about the encounter and they decide that night to go visit the mirror together.

  When Ron looks into the mirror he doesn’t see Harry’s family, or even his own. Instead, he sees an older version of himself. Future-Ron is Head Boy and holding both the House Cup and Quidditch Cup. Ron and Harry squabble over whose turn it is to look into the mirror and make too much noise. Fearing being caught out of the dorm by Filch, they slip away.

  On the third night, Ron refuses to go back, and Harry goes alone. When he arrives at the room, the mirror is gone, but Dumbledore is there. For the first time, they have a true one-on-one conversation. Harry learns that the mirror is called the Mirror of Erised and that it shows people what they most desire in life.