clockwirk
January 10th, 2006, 09:33 PM
I've noticed some fundamental characteristics of Rowlings books that kind of help her and hinder her at the same time. Because each book in the series has a formula that it has to at least loosely follow, she can get boxed in a bit. At the same time, these same formulas keep her from getting bogged down in the series.
Robert Jordan has taken a lot of flack for not moving the timeline of his series along at a fast enough pace recently. The first few books seemed to span several months each, while the later books only cover a couple of days. Rowling doesn't have to worry about this because she has a built in device that keeps time going. Each book has to cover one year. She's expanded outside the school year to include events in the summer, and this gives her a little variety between books, but it can also hinder her because she's using up pages on the time before school and may have to rush through some parts of the year later.
There are also things that have to take place in every school year. Christmas, Quidditch (sp?), exams, etc... She gets around these problems by treating them differently every year. Hogwarts for Christmas vs. Home for Christmas, Quidditch cup vs. Goblet of Fire, regular exams vs. O.W.L.s. etc.... But there can still be a "sameness" to the years that readers expect. On the other hand, the fact that the readers expect it make it more effective when she changes it.
Hogwarts. As cool a setting as the school is, I think she realized that it could never support a full seven book series all by itself. So by GOF she is writing major plotlines outside of the school and the school year. Frankly, it felt weird for me at the Quidditch finals in GOF just because I was used to most of the action happening at Hogwarts and everything before they got to school each year was basically introduction. HBP sort of returned the action back to the school, but there's still an increase in extracurricular activities, and now we don't even know if Harry is coming back for his final year. Shock!
There's more examples, but I'm tired. THoughts?
Robert Jordan has taken a lot of flack for not moving the timeline of his series along at a fast enough pace recently. The first few books seemed to span several months each, while the later books only cover a couple of days. Rowling doesn't have to worry about this because she has a built in device that keeps time going. Each book has to cover one year. She's expanded outside the school year to include events in the summer, and this gives her a little variety between books, but it can also hinder her because she's using up pages on the time before school and may have to rush through some parts of the year later.
There are also things that have to take place in every school year. Christmas, Quidditch (sp?), exams, etc... She gets around these problems by treating them differently every year. Hogwarts for Christmas vs. Home for Christmas, Quidditch cup vs. Goblet of Fire, regular exams vs. O.W.L.s. etc.... But there can still be a "sameness" to the years that readers expect. On the other hand, the fact that the readers expect it make it more effective when she changes it.
Hogwarts. As cool a setting as the school is, I think she realized that it could never support a full seven book series all by itself. So by GOF she is writing major plotlines outside of the school and the school year. Frankly, it felt weird for me at the Quidditch finals in GOF just because I was used to most of the action happening at Hogwarts and everything before they got to school each year was basically introduction. HBP sort of returned the action back to the school, but there's still an increase in extracurricular activities, and now we don't even know if Harry is coming back for his final year. Shock!
There's more examples, but I'm tired. THoughts?