Dumbledore and the 'rules' of fiction

[Flying Ford Anglia]

No: HPFGUIDX 1179

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, Peg Kerr <pkerr06 at a...> wrote:

>>> Well, it's fun to try to do new things, but readers like the 
tried and true, too. Heros win.  Villains are defeated.  Characters 
are most interesting when they face moral dilemmas and change.  And 
it's a lot easier for the writer if they have some idea of what to 
do, rather than putting words down on the page at random.

...Hey! We're back to Finnegan's Wake again.  There is a limit, I 
guess.

Being realistic, I wouldn't advocate just throwing something together 
with no rhyme or reason. It's just refreshing, sometimes, when a 
writer doesn't write something "In the tradition of..." (as you said, 
in relation to LOTR).  

The fantasy genre seems very rigid to me (not knowing too much about 
it), to the extent that Diana Wynne Jones could find enough
clichés 
to write the very funny "Tough Guide to Fantasyland".  I recall that 
JKR said she didn't set out to write within the fantasy genre, but 
realised, when she was mentioning centaurs, that she was writing a 
fantasy book.  This suggests to me that she may not follow accepted 
conventions in this genre.   

Neil