How do I turn my idea into a story? Lessons from Harry Potter.
How to use the 4-part/3-act structure in book AND series creation.
I’ve been trying (as in failing) to find a good resource on writing series. And by series, I mean one that has a character development and isn’t just the same story recycled over and over like you see in monster/crime/mystery-of-week series. In other words, not Jack Reacher and James Bond, or even Buffy et al. These types of characters can’t afford to change or if they do, must do so glacially to maximize the number of TV seasons that make for successful syndication and ka-ching! residuals (for the principals at least). Observation, not judgement.
Gabaldon’s Outlander series was my first go-to because it’s one of my favorites, but the time it would have required makes it prohibitive. The seasons are serializations of books, with some seasons including Story from more than one book. This is one of those “maybe” projects and I’m not sure how helpful it would be to others since Outlander has so many girl cooties and many won’t touch it for that reason.
So, I picked Harry Potter because it’s one of those things that everyone has probably seen. And it’s cootie-free.
Some clarifications first: I’m not saying that Harry Potter’s success is due to this method because I know better. JK Rowling got a lottery ticket (one stamped by Dave Farland) and then made good on it. And that’s key: she made good on it. I’m also not a Harry Potter or JK Rowling worshipper, just like I’m not a Tolkien or Herbert one either. I have never quoted Tolkien like it was Bible verse. Nor Herbert either.
But I am into trying to understand and figure out what we can replicate for our own success and what we can’t.
The can’ts first:
We can’t replicate the state of the market when any of these aforementioned works were published.
We can’t replicate some (alleged) inborn talent.
We can’t replicate winning the literary lottery, like Rowling and Herbert. Remember, it took Herbert some nine years to find a buyer for Dune and when it was bought, it was by a car parts catalogue publisher. Go ahead and replicate that if you want.
What we can replicate is best practices such as using structural elements. And in order to use them successfully, we have to understand them on a deeper level than “something bad happens here” and “something worse happens there” or God-forbid “when you’re stuck, just have a bunch of guys with guns burst into the room.”
Further clarification: What I’m going to talk about is Story, not writing. I’m not a fan of ‘ “Snape,” ejaculated Slughorn’1 nor the lack of setting nor a myriad of other thing I won’t get into here. Because writing has nothing to do with Structure or Story. For similar reasons, I’m not a fan of the writing of Herbert, although there are things I like about the Story called Dune.
I’m making these distinctions because “the writing” is the easiest thing to emulate. Emulating prose and creative dialogue tags and head-hopping and present tense are all easy. They are the most visible things to a new writer. They are something that an inexperienced writer can easily replicate. So I don’t want anyone thinking that I’m endorsing Rowling’s lack of setting or her prose or her writing. What I am endorsing is her structure, characters, worldbuilding, pacing, and tension, and all those things are not as easy to emulate as fads and trends like creative dialogue tags and present tense or the abomination of head-hopping.
Hope we’re clear now on the difference between writing and Story. And I didn’t even mention storytelling.
So, how do you make a series that’s not monster/crime/mystery-of-week? It turns out that the answer was there all along: The same way that you make a standalone work.
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