The writing of the series

[scoutmom21113]

No: HPFGUIDX 70423

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Cezar T <drymusalastor at y...> 
wrote:
> 
> Hi! I'm new here, and let me say to all of you that I enjoy your 
emails and hypotheses very very much. And I have a question:
> Personally, I don't believe that JKR planned the whole series 
right from the beginning, when she published PS/SS. I think she 
wasn't expecting this kind of success and this kind of feed-back, 
not even when she wrote CoS. <snip>

I totally disagree.  JKR has an incredible talent for planning way 
ahead.  In her own words from the webcast
(http://www.msn.co.uk/liveevents/harrypotter/transcript/):


Stephen Fry: If your first book had been a reasonable success and 
your second book ok too so a few people would have heard your name, 
and they might have just done well enough, do you think the stories 
would have developed in different ways? Has some element of the huge 
and unparalleled fame and success you've had, has given you 
different view of the world and affected the way the books 
developed? 

JK Rowling Mmmm yes that had entered the story. I think that I 
always thought Harry would feel the pressure of his position both as 
famous wizard – as in the first book when he enters, you do see that 
when he walked into the Leaky Cauldron for the first time and he's 
stunned that people have been talking about him for eleven years 
without his knowledge – and I always knew he would meet someone from 
the Daily Prophet. I think it would be foolish to pretend I don't 
write Rita Skeeter with a little more enjoyment these days. I try 
and avoid reading about myself..

Bookworm's comments:
Some other examples include introducing the polyjuice potion in CoS 
that was vital to the plot in GoF, Harry's ability to talk to snakes 
in SS that was a major part of the plot on CoS.  A&E did a biography 
of JKR several years ago and back then she said she had already 
written the last chapter, so she seems to know exactly where she is 
going.  Somewhere she also said that the reason OoP took so long was 
to make sure she planted all the necessary clues for the next books 
in this one.

drymusalastor:
>  I don't want to minimalize her performance in the least, I just 
say that we cannot be sure that she had the whole picture planned 
from the very beginning. In my opinion, Harry doesn't see the 
Thestrals in GoF simply because JKR hadn't thought of the Thestrals 
when she was writing the book. <snip>
 
Again from the webcast:
JK Rowling:  
that is an excellent question. And here is the truth. 
At the end of Goblet of Fire we sent Harry home more depressed than 
he had ever been leaving Howarts. I knew that Thestrals were coming, 
and I can prove that because they're in the book I'd produced for 
Comic Relief (UK) "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them".  These 
are lucky Black Winged Horses. However, if Harry had seen them and 
it had not been explained then it would cheat the reader. So, to 
explain that to myself, I decided you had to have seen the death and 
allowed it to sink in a bit
 slowly
these creatures became solid in 
front of you. So that's how I'm going to sneak past that one.

> hope it's not too long,

I definitely agree.  But I'm not holding my breath ;-)

Ravenclaw Bookworm