JKR's writing style (was Re: Changes I would make)/Draco

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 177428

> > > Laura wrote:
> > >
> > > Finally, someone pointed out the "she said / he said +
> > > adverb" problem, something that I had NEVER noticed
> > > before, even though I have read all of the books multiple
> > > times and listened to them on audio in the American,
> > > British, and German versions.  ...
> 
> va32h:
> 
> I too only noticed it when it was pointed out to me.  I don't 
think 
> there's anything wrong with "he said/she said"...certainly authors 
> should use words with varying connotations when those words are 
> necessary...but as often as not "said" really is the most 
appropriate 
> word. 

Magpie:
Oh my-there is absolutely *nothing* wrong with using the word said. 
On the contrary, it's what the author *should* use most of the time. 
There's a strange push to turn people into bad writers in some 
schools with teachers telling kids to find alternatives to this 
word, but for the most part professionals use "said." It's an 
invisible word. Nothing's more clunky than when people constantly 
use different words for it. "He exposited" "He murmured" --or my 
personal favorite written satirically to describe a stiff actor's 
delivery: "He shatnered." 

The problem with JKR if one exists (and I think it does) is the use 
of adverbs after said, which is usually unnecessary. It's not 
trusting the dialogue to do its job and directing the readers on how 
the line was delivered. Again, this isn't something that shouldn't 
ever be done by any means, but it gets distracting when there's tons 
of them in a scene, which is what sometimes happens in HP.

**ON DRACO**

Reading the responses I realized there was one other aspect of the 
character that I never quite get. I mean, I do get it but I don't 
agree. It's the idea that one should hold it against Draco that at 
first he had no problem with the idea of killing Dumbledore. But it 
seems to me that to even suggest that you have to put a different 
mindset into Draco. Wanting to try to kill Dumbledore is an act of 
bravery, twisted as it is. That's what it's supposed to be testing, 
among other things, for him. Since death isn't even something real 
at this point for Draco, he might as well be being sent to slay a 
dragon or steal some valuable object that's highly guarded. 
Naturally, this being the DEs, the task is actually immoral, but I 
don't think the original agreement to do it would take that into 
consideration at all. Killing Dumbledore is simply the dark mirror 
image of Harry's own quest to kill Voldemort.

When Draco discovers he has a problem with just that aspect he does 
it on his own, and he probably has very little language or 
understanding to even get what his problem is. No doubt the way he's 
been raised the only way he can understand his issues with killing 
is to think he's a coward or he's weak--as Bellatrix seems to be 
rubbing in at Malfoy Manor. This is one of the things I thought we'd 
see as part of the end of his story in DH, actually, that he'd get a 
new understanding about this. Instead, oddly, Draco seems to accept 
his impulses to want to protect people from being murdered even if 
he hates them, while sadly never seeing this as a potential 
strength. It's not like either of his parents even share this view 
with him. I thought Dumbledore's interest in him in HBP was about 
this sort of thing, giving him the dawning of understanding that 
would lead us to believe he could grow into an actual good man, but 
that sort of thing seemed expressly against where DH was taking us. 
It's like the joke's still on him for the rest of his life.

-m