world-building with harry potter

by SP Sipal over at Harry Potter for Writers

The Wide-Angle View of World Building

Most readers cite JKR's world-building as the lure that drew them into the Harry Potter series to begin with. JKR riddled the text with so much fabulously imaginative, fun, and complete detail that readers fully believed, for the few hours they were engrossed in the books, that they were indeed living in a world among wizards and witches, goblins and house-elves, giants and ghosts, and basilisks and hippogriffs.

JKR uses many layers to create her world. Her rich details come into focus through both a wide-angle and zoom lens. The reader experiences these angles simultaneously, but in this post, we'll look at the wide.... >> read more

Zooming in on Your World

In the last post, The Wide-Angle View of World Building, we looked at how JKR used a wide-angle lens to provide the feel of a fully bustling world for her reader. Now let's look closer at the rich texture she provides through a zoom lens.

JKR filled her world with such minute details, and loads of them, that her critics claimed it was over done. But consider her primary market--kids eat this stuff up, quite literally.... >> read more

That Extra Zing

When studying the phenomenal world-building of JK Rowling, I like to break her craft apart into three sets: The Wide Angle Lens, the Zoom Lens, and That Extra Zing.

In building your set, not only do you want your reader to experience a fully alive, intriguing world in wideness and detail, but you want some of those details to sizzle with extra zing.... >> read more