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- So we’ve been through the Rules of
Engagement and the Demons of Disengagement
- Now on to our Case Study: The first two chapters of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s
Stone
- Had any of you never read this before?
- I’ve heard Harvard students talk about the difficulties they have
about attending Harvard, poor babies—they know as soon as they say they go to Harvard, people make certain judgments
about their brains and financial status, so they call that moment when they have to say where they went to school “dropping
the H-Bomb.”
- I feel like that sometimes when people ask me what I work on, and I say
Harry Potter—it’s my personal H-Bomb (and oh, poor me whining about it)
- Truth is, no matter how much madness there is about how many million copies
sold, how many tickets the movies sell, how many midnight parties there are—this all happens because J. K. Rowling is so good.
- And these first two chapters are one of my favorite examples of
that in all the books.
- First line: Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive,
were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.
- Lord, what a great first line
- Specificity of language: “number
four, Privet Drive”
- Voice/Character: “thank
you very much” – self-satisfied tone that the Dursleys themselves take
- Mystery: “They
were perfectly normal.” If I’ve ever heard an invitation to have abnormal things happen, this is it.
- Next paragraph: description
of the Dursleys. Mr. Dursley makes drills. Mrs. Dursley spies on her neighbors. They have a son named Dudley, “and in their
opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.”
- How do you feel about the Dursleys now?
- Third paragraph: “They
didn’t think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters. . . . [Mrs. Dursley’s] sister and her good-for-nothing
husband were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be. . . . This boy was another good reason for keeping the Potters away;
they didn’t want Dudley mixing with a child like that.”
- How do you feel about the Potters?
- What do you know about them? Nothing, really. But you already loathe
the Dursleys a little and so you’re inclined to like the Potters—if you were having a barbecue, they’re
definitely the family to invite.
- This is the main characterization strategy JKR uses throughout
this first two chapters: The Dursleys are so, so awful that you feel sympathy for and an interest in Harry without him having
to do a thing.
- What I call "reverse characterization"
- Next paragraph: “When
Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, grey Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to
suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country.”
- And so it goes for pretty much the next six pages, alternating
an account of Mr. Dursley’s day with the “strange and mysterious things” like people in cloaks and lots
of flying owls.
- How cool! And the Dursleys disapprove!
- One of the other ways the book gives pleasure: The reader feels superior to the Dursleys because they’re so small-minded and unimaginative.
- Note that this happens entirely without J. K. Rowling saying “Look
what small-minded people we have here.” She just tells you about them, describes what they do and how they think, and
lets their actions speak for themselves. That is good writing.
- Besides the moral charge of feeling superior to the Dursleys, you also get pleasure because
they’re funny. “Dudley had learned a new word (‘Won’t!’).” That’s exactly the kind of contrary, spoiled behavior
I expect out of some kid named Dudley Dursley.
- And—the mystery. Who are these people in cloaks? What’s
with the cat on the wall? What does all this have to do with the Dursleys?
- On page 8, you find out. Dumbledore appears.
- Again, JKR starts with a description:
“Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. [I like him already!] He
was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt.
He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light,
bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles, and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at
least twice. This man’s name was Albus Dumbledore.”
- I will say, different writers have different theories about description.
Some people feel it cramps the reader’s imagination if you get too much description upfront—
- and this is one of the things the Harry Potter series gets criticized for,
as some people feel it hits the reader over the head with the description or emotion, so you don’t get to decide for
yourself how you feel.
- (You will also notice that J. K. Rowling uses lots of adverbial
dialogue tags.)
- But I think it’s also possibly part of what makes the books
work for so many readers, because everyone has the exact same experience unfolding before their eyes.
- And she can get away with the dialogue tags especially because
she does everything else so well.
- Dumbledore magically turns off all the streetlights. The cat becomes Professor
McGonagall. They discuss owls, shooting stars, this whole magical world.
- Intrigued yet? We now have two communities opposed—the world
of Number Four, Privet Drive versus the wizarding world. Which one do you want to be a part of?
- And then—Lord Voldemort and Harry Potter. McGonagall says, “After
all he’s done . . . all the people he’s killed . . . he couldn’t kill a little boy? How in the name of heaven
did Harry survive?” “We can only guess,” said Dumbledore. “We may never know.”
- And BOOM—THE BIG MYSTERY. How many of you have read book
6? How does it end? With sixteen-year-old Harry planning to go to Godric’s Hollow to visit the place where Lord Voldemort
tried to kill him and couldn’t. She sets that up right here on page 12 of book one.
- Hagrid shows up on a flying motorcycle. “Young Sirius Black lent it
to me.”
- Sirius Black, as many readers know, is the prisoner of Azkaban
who shows up in book 3. Another reason people love these books: The details matter.
- Finally it comes time to say goodbye to Harry. “For a full minute
the three of them stood and looked at the little bundle; Hagrid’s shoulders shook, Professor McGonagall blinked furiously,
and the twinkling light that usually shone from Dumbledore’s eyes seemed to have gone out.”
- Before we saw the negative characters loathing the Potters; now
we see the positive characters feeling sorry for Harry. How do we feel about Harry?
- Chapter ends with the foretelling of destiny. “Harry Potter rolled
over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he
was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours’ time by Mrs. Dursley’s scream
. . . He couldn’t know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their
glasses and saying in hushed voices: “To Harry Potter—the boy who
lived!”
- Note the emphasis upon Harry being special, famous, worthy of a
toast. That says events will gather around this person, he has a destiny to fulfill.
- Chapter two repeats a lot of these strategies, particularly the
ones that build sympathy for Harry: The Dursleys are awful, he lives in a cupboard
filled with spiders, he’s small and scrawny and made to wear baggy clothes and broken glasses, poor baby.
- But also strange, interesting things happen around him.
- And he hasn’t been made bitter or cruel by the experience—he’s
an optimistic, kind boy.
- I just want to look at one scene in chapter two—where Harry
and Dudley talk to the snake.
- Dudley
stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils. “Make it move,” he whined
at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn’t budge. “Do it again,” Dudley ordered. Uncle Vernon
rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on. “This is boring,” Dudley moaned. He shuffled
away. Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. He wouldn’t have been surprised if it had died
of boredom itself—no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long.
- Harry goes on to have a conversation with the snake, where he sympathizes
further with people banging on its tank and finally sets it free.
- We’ve seen a lot of reverse characterization of Harry thus
far—we like him because we dislike the Dursleys—but this is simple positive characterization: He sympathizes with the snake, of all creatures, and puts himself inside of its head rather than being
self-centered like Dudley and demanding things of it. And then he lets it go, showing his kind heart.
- And of course, he can talk to snakes, period! – Tres cool.
- So, did it work? Do you want to read more?
- I started out talking about falling in love
with a book, and the pleasure that can give—that all literature must give to be effective
- And while I’ve laid out a lot of rules
here, I truly believe that pleasure has to start with you the writer.
- Rule of Engagement #11, or whatever it is:
When you’re writing that first draft, don’t worry about following the rules.
- But tell yourself the story you’ve always wanted to hear, the story you’ve never read anywhere else, the
one that scares you with the pleasure of writing it.
- Treasure the joy of the work—it is hard work, but when you can find that just-right word, that perfect plot twist—there
are very few greater pleasures.
- Now that does not mean what you write will be good—especially in first draft.
- And that does not mean what you write will be published.
- But you will have the story you always wanted. You will have preserved a little bit of yourself forever in the world.
- You
will have a true thing.
- E. B. White, the author of Charlotte’s Web, once wrote “All I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.”
- And that’s truly what it’s all about: the way writing, or
love, or a good book can open you to know and experience and indeed love more of the world. I’m in this business to
bring books that offer that opening to readers. You’re in this business to create them. And I hope we have the chance
to do that together.
- Any
questions?
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