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What Will Harry Do?: The Unofficial Guide to Payoffs and Possibilities in Book 7
Will Harry return to Hogwarts? Is Draco a werewolf? What did happen at Godric's Hollow? What is the sixth Horcrux? Is Snape truly evil? Truly good? Or just out for himself? Who will live?... Who will die? You may think you have to wait for HP Book 7 to answer these questions. But the clues... the set-ups for them have already been cleverly established in Books 1 through 6, and are just waiting for you to put the pieces together. WHAT WILL HARRY DO? is the unofficial guide that will help you unlock the puzzles of the all-encompassing What Happens Next?
- GenresNonfiction
Paperback
Published January 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
September 17, 2013
Janet Scott Batchler, Hollywood block-buster screen writer and professor at USC, is a Harry Potter fan?
In a word, yes.
I just came to this book in September 2013, five years after the final book of the Harry Potter series was published,for a totally selfish reason. I am a writer, and part of the craft of writing includes learning how to create set-ups and payoffs in a novel. I have downloaded and listened to Mugglenet Academia's 21st podcast in which Ms. Batchler took part(and which took place live at Misticon 2013) 6 or 7 times, and she has a firm grasp of the concept. She spoke so well on the panel at Misticon that I finally went searching for a copy of What Will Harry Do? The Unofficial Guide to Payoffs and Possibilities in Book 7
Best 50-cents I ever spent.
First off, as Ms. Batchler states in the forward (remember, this book was published in 2006):
"How Lucky we are!....We've read everything [up to book 6] and we don't know what happens next. [Emphasis added.] We get to enjoy all the speculation, all the wild musings, all the 'what-if's.' No-one else reading the books will ever get to experience what we're experiencing right now."
Then she goes on to explore all of the set-ups (that she knew of) that had been given throughout the first six books, some of which had been 'paid-off' already, and others that had not been, or had been paid off more than once. The beauty of the book is that as Ms. Batchler shows each of the set-up/payoff scenarios, she's essentially teaching us how to do the same thing. Once a teacher, always a teacher, I guess.
Anyway...
Each of the speculations Ms. Batchler gives, she supports with the appropriate quotes from one (or more) of the HP books, showing how cleverly JK Rowling hid (or hid in plain sight) the set-ups. I don't know about you, but when a payoff came I'd go back and find what I had missed as set-up the first time.
Never did JK Rowling "pull a rabbit out of a hat." Any major plot point or twist that showed up in the HP books were always set-up, or fore-shadowed in some way. Ms. Bachelor uses this knowledge in her speculations, some of which were spot-on and a few of which weren't. The one's that weren't, however, were through no fault of Ms. Batchler's. Remember, Ms. Rowling had kept something out of the first six HP books:
Dumbledore's past and his connection with The Deathly Hallows.
I don't know for sure, but I suspect Ms. Batchler was gobsmacked at the way the story was finally wrapped up. Kudos to Ms. Rowling for that. And kudos to Ms. Batchler for writing a book that will teach generations of authors in a fun way how to masterfully incorporate set-ups and payoffs into their writing.
In a word, yes.
I just came to this book in September 2013, five years after the final book of the Harry Potter series was published,for a totally selfish reason. I am a writer, and part of the craft of writing includes learning how to create set-ups and payoffs in a novel. I have downloaded and listened to Mugglenet Academia's 21st podcast in which Ms. Batchler took part(and which took place live at Misticon 2013) 6 or 7 times, and she has a firm grasp of the concept. She spoke so well on the panel at Misticon that I finally went searching for a copy of What Will Harry Do? The Unofficial Guide to Payoffs and Possibilities in Book 7
Best 50-cents I ever spent.
First off, as Ms. Batchler states in the forward (remember, this book was published in 2006):
"How Lucky we are!....We've read everything [up to book 6] and we don't know what happens next. [Emphasis added.] We get to enjoy all the speculation, all the wild musings, all the 'what-if's.' No-one else reading the books will ever get to experience what we're experiencing right now."
Then she goes on to explore all of the set-ups (that she knew of) that had been given throughout the first six books, some of which had been 'paid-off' already, and others that had not been, or had been paid off more than once. The beauty of the book is that as Ms. Batchler shows each of the set-up/payoff scenarios, she's essentially teaching us how to do the same thing. Once a teacher, always a teacher, I guess.
Anyway...
Each of the speculations Ms. Batchler gives, she supports with the appropriate quotes from one (or more) of the HP books, showing how cleverly JK Rowling hid (or hid in plain sight) the set-ups. I don't know about you, but when a payoff came I'd go back and find what I had missed as set-up the first time.
Never did JK Rowling "pull a rabbit out of a hat." Any major plot point or twist that showed up in the HP books were always set-up, or fore-shadowed in some way. Ms. Bachelor uses this knowledge in her speculations, some of which were spot-on and a few of which weren't. The one's that weren't, however, were through no fault of Ms. Batchler's. Remember, Ms. Rowling had kept something out of the first six HP books:
Dumbledore's past and his connection with The Deathly Hallows.
I don't know for sure, but I suspect Ms. Batchler was gobsmacked at the way the story was finally wrapped up. Kudos to Ms. Rowling for that. And kudos to Ms. Batchler for writing a book that will teach generations of authors in a fun way how to masterfully incorporate set-ups and payoffs into their writing.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review