Hello people of the page! As I said yesterday in this post, starting today I will be launching a small series of articles revolving around the success of Harry Potter and some of the mystery involved within it. Today’s article will focus on J.K. Rowling and how she formulated the Wizarding World.’
So how is a best-seller made? Is this classification of story crafted on type-writers of gold or keyboards of porcelain? Well world-renown British author J.K. Rowling had a slightly different approach, napkins at a local coffee shop. Should I back up a bit? I think I will. Well the story starts on a train in 1990. Rowling had always been a writer since the age of six she says, but on this train a sudden thought came over her and she was engrossed in this world of wizardry. This idea was of a young boy with messy black hair in glasses, a boy who had no idea he was really a wizard.
Rowling said later in an interview that the first book was finished in 1995, but the final chapter of the series, the epilogue had been written sometime in 1990. For five years she played with the series, taking her daughter for walks in her stroller and occasionally finding a seat in a local coffee shop where she would pen down ideas for the revolutionary series. Even in 1995, when she had finished the first book, The Philosopher’s Stone, the author had trouble with agents and publishers. The first agent she tried turned down the series and the second took it into consideration, but had trouble shopping it off. After eight publishers turned down the work, they finally struck gold; the rest is history as they say. Of course, one little tidbit was that the publishers wanted her to acquire a gender-neutral name to not scare off male readers; thus began the name J.K. Rowling.
The series has sold millions and millions of copies world-wide, has spawned eight movies, ten video-games and a theme park (soon to be two once WB builds one in England). This explosion of creativity is not only proof, but inspiration that best-sellers can be born anywhere. Writers do not need to be college graduates with MFA’s in Creative Writing (though I think that is awesome!) to break into the industry. By having a great idea and fine tuning it for many years, a perfect story can be born.
Tomorrow will be a much longer post on the parallels between the wizarding world and the real world of our own. Remember to subscribe by the buttons over there -> and leave a comment below on your opinion on this epic saga.
